A life dedicated to the classification of neotropical plant communities: a tribute to Antoine M. Cleef.

Antoine Cleef (1941) is a pioneer of geobotanical exploration in neotropical mountains. His 50 year-long relationship with the spectacular nature and stunning biodiversity of Colombia developed in him humboldtian characteristics. He made large botanical collections of the páramo flora and boosted the understanding of high mountain vegetation in the neotropics. He studied tropical lowland forest, montane forests, and tropical alpine vegetation between sea-level and ice-capped mountains. Most of his work was concentrated in Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Mexico. Studies on vegetation composition and structure and identifying plant communities along the elevational gradient were based on plant collections, vegetation relevés and observations. He supervised over 27 PhD students and some 150 master students in a wide range of subjects of tropical vegetation ecology. His collections are conserved as plant vouchers in herbaria, plot data in GBIF, and microscope slides in pollen reference collections. His understanding of the páramo and montane forest vegetation is instrumental in calibrating pollen-based reconstructions in deep ecological time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]