Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952,

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...

) is a

biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, p ...

professor at the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

. He graduated from the

in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms of species coexistence in species-rich communities and developed mathematical modelling in

ecophysiology Ecophysiology (from Greek , ''oikos'', "house(hold)"; , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , '' -logia''), environmental physiology or physiological ecology is a biological discipline that studies the response of an organism's physiology to enviro ...

. Since 1975, he has been the main organiser of annual meetings of theoretical biology in Estonia. In 1992, he became a Professor of Ecophysiology in the University of Tartu. In 1997, he joined the Department of Semiotics, and became a Professor in Biosemiotics. From 2006 to 2018, he was the Head of the Department of Semiotics in the University of Tartu, Estonia. His field of interests include biosemiotics,

ecosemiotics Ecosemiotics is a branch of semiotics in its intersection with human ecology, ecological anthropology and ecocriticism. It studies sign processes in culture, which relate to other living beings, communities, and landscapes. Ecosemiotics also deals w ...

, general semiotics, theoretical biology,

theory of evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, history and philosophy of semiotics and life science. He was the president of the

Estonian Naturalists' Society Estonian Naturalists' Society ( et, Eesti Looduseuurijate Selts, ELUS) is the oldest Estonia-based society of naturalists. It was founded in 1853, and since establishing has been the major scientific organisation focusing on natural history of E ...

in 1991–1994. He is the president of the

International Society for Biosemiotic Studies The International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS) is an academic society for the researchers in semiotic biology. The Society was established in 2005. Its official journal is Biosemiotics, published by Springer and launched in 2008. The pu ...

since 2015. Ecologist

Olevi Kull Olevi Kull (22 June 1955, in Rakvere – 31 January 2007, in Tartu) was an Estonian professor at the University of Tartu known for his contribution to ecology. Following his death, a memorial fund was established by donations in his memory, whic ...

was his younger brother.

Publications

* Emmeche, Claus; Kull, Kalevi (eds.) (2011). ''Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs''. London: Imperial College Press.

References

External links

Tartu University: Kalevi KullPublications
1952 births Living people Estonian semioticians Theoretical biologists Estonian biologists University of Tartu faculty People from Tartu Recipients of the Order of the White Star, 5th Class {{Semiotician-stub