Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952,

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

) is a

biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Ancient Greek, Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics (especially Neurosemiotics) and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-makin ...

professor at the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. 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 envir ...

. Since 1975, he has been the main organiser of annual meetings of

theoretical biology Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development ...

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 dea ...

, general semiotics, theoretical biology,

theory of evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...

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

Estonian Naturalists' Society Estonian Naturalists' Society (, 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 Estonia. The society is based in ...

in 1991–1994. He is a founder of the

Jakob von Uexküll Centre Jakob von Uexküll Centre is an Estonia-based organisation for the work with the legacy of biologist, philosopher and semiotician Jakob von Uexküll. The Centre owns the major archive of his works in the world. The Centre was established in 1993 ...

. 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 p ...

since 2015. Ecologist Olevi Kull was his younger brother.

Editorship

Kull is the co-editor of the journal ''

Sign Systems Studies ''Sign Systems Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on semiotics edited at the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu and published by the University of Tartu Press. It is the oldest periodical in the field. It was initially ...

'' and book series ''Semiotics, Communication and Cognition'' (

De Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

), ''Biosemiotics'' (

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

), ''Tartu Semiotics Library'', and ''Approaches to Culture Theory'' (

University of Tartu Press University of Tartu Press () is a university press and publishing house owned by the University of Tartu, Estonia. Tartu University Press dates its history back to 1632, when University of Tartu was founded. It is the largest university press ...

). He is a member of editorial board of the journals ''

Semiotica ''Semiotica'' is an academic journal covering semiotics. It is the official journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies. Publication Since 2000, the journal publishes five issues per year. It is published in English and French. ...

'', ''

Biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Ancient Greek, Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics (especially Neurosemiotics) and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-makin ...

'', ''Ecokritike'', ''Punctum: International Journal of Semiotics'', and others.

Important concepts

*''Biosemiotic concept of species''. A species concept based on recognition window of organisms, which is responsible for intraspecific variability range and the minimum width of hiatus. *''Recognition window''. The range of mediated fitting (semiotic fitting), as based on the scope of indistinguishability. *''Semiotic fitting''. The agent’s capacity for making and preserving the local semiotic bonds, meaning the agent’s functional or communicational match with its surrounding. *''Emon''. A type of

sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...

that is based on imitation (as different from symbol which is based on convention, or index which is based on association, or icon which is based on indistinguishability). *''Umweb''. Non-momentary or diachronic or distributed

umwelt An umwelt (plural: ''umwelten''; from the German wikt:Umwelt, ''Umwelt'', meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the specific way in which organisms of a particular species perceive and experience the world, shaped by the capabilities of ...

Selected publications

* Emmeche, Claus; Kull, Kalevi (eds.) (2011). ''Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs''. London: Imperial College Press. *Kull, Kalevi 2001.

Jakob von Uexküll Jakob may refer to: People * Jakob (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jakob (surname), including a list of people with the name Other * Jakob (band), a New Zealand band, and the title of their 1999 EP * Max Jakob Memorial ...

: An introduction. ''

'' 134(1/4): 1–59. *Kull, Kalevi; Deacon, Terrence; Emmeche, Claus; Hoffmeyer, Jesper; Stjernfelt, Frederik 2009. Theses on biosemiotics: Prolegomena to a theoretical biology. ''

Biological Theory ''Biological Theory'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the fields of evolution and cognition, including cognitive psychology, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, evolutionary biology, and developmental biology. ...

'' 4(2): 167–173. *Kull, Kalevi 2023. Choices by organisms: on the role of freedom in behaviour and evolution. ''

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society The ''Biological Journal of the Linnean Society'' is a direct descendant of the oldest biological journal in the world, the '' Transactions of the Linnean Society''. It succeeded the earlier title in 1969. The journal specializes in evolution, an ...

'' 139(4): 555–562.

Festschrifts

* Maran, Timo; Lindström, Kati; Magnus, Riin; Tønnessen, Morten (eds.) 2012.
Semiotics in the Wild: Essays in Honour of Kalevi Kull on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday
'. Tartu: University of Tartu Press. *Favareau, Donald; Velmezova, Ekaterina (eds.) 2022.
Tunne loodust! Knowing Nature in the Languages of Biosemiotics
'. (Epistemologica et historiographica linguistica Lausannensia 4.) Lausanne: Université de Lausanne.

Eponymous species

In 2021, a Costa Rican

braconid wasp The Braconidae are a family of parasitoid wasps. After the closely related Ichneumonidae, braconids make up the second-largest family in the order Hymenoptera, with about 17,000 recognized species and many thousands more undescribed. One analysis ...

species new to science, ''Hymenochaonia kalevikulli'' Sharkey & van Achterberg, was named for Dr. Kull.Sharkey, Michael J.; Janzen, Daniel H., Hallwachs, Winnie, ''et al''. 2021. Minimalist revision and description of 403 new species in 11 subfamilies of Costa Rican braconid parasitoid wasps, including host records for 219 species. ''ZooKeys'' 1013: 1–665 (p. 394–396).

References

External links

PublicationsAn interview, in ''Hortus Semioticus''
1952 births Living people Estonian semioticians 21st-century Estonian philosophers 20th-century Estonian philosophers Theoretical biologists Estonian biologists Academic staff of the University of Tartu Scientists from Tartu Recipients of the Order of the White Star, 5th Class {{Semiotician-stub