The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) has dedicated a trail on Barro Colorado Island in Panama to Professor Elisabeth Kalko. The scientist from Ulm, who died unexpectedly in 2011, spent many years there researching the hunting behaviour and echolocation of tropical bats. In memory of the outstanding naturalist, one of the trails on the island was named after her.

"Finally out in the forest again .... Rainy season, the moisture glistens on the leaves, mist often rises from the treetops. But in between, there is always sunshine," wrote Elisabeth Kalko in 1991 as a young scientist in a letter about her research on Barro Colorado Island. Her fascination with the tropical rainforest and her amazement at the wondrous variety of shapes and colours in Panama's flora and fauna stayed with her until the abrupt end of her life. The bat expert had held the Chair of Experimental Ecology at Ulm University since 2000 and in the same year also became a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), which maintains a research station on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. Elisabeth Kalko conducted research there for decades. "This special place was her laboratory, her classroom and her second home. It was here that she inspired generations of students about bats, natural history and the tropics," says Professor Marco Tschapka. The Ulm biologist from the Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conversation Genomics was one of her closest scientific companions.

In honour of her and her scientific achievements, the STRI has named a jungle trail on her favourite island, Barro Colorado Island, after her. At the end of August 2025 - celebrated with a rededication ceremony - the Harvard Trail became the "Elisabeth K.V. Kalko Trail". Professor Joshua Tewksbury, Director of the STRI in Washington D.C., calls the researcher an excellent scientist, visionary thinker and gifted communicator in his letter of appreciation. She was able to inspire people with enthusiasm for science and was curious about everything that nature produced. Elisabeth Kalko was an excellent lecturer who loved interacting with her students, and she was a passionate researcher.

Elisabeth Kalko already set new standards for field research with her early work, she was strong in third-party funds and published very successfully. She gained a great international reputation in the field of tropical ecology and bioacoustics research. She researched the diversity of neotropical bat communities and investigated, for example, the relationship between echolocation and ecological mixing. The tropical ecologist also studied the effects of human land use on biodiversity and was a pioneer in zoonosis research, which investigates the spread of pathogens from animals to humans.

"Jane Goodall" of bats 
Elisabeth Kalko was a reinforced role model for women in science. She loved field research and was also extremely tenacious and persistent in her experimental work. Her favourite research subjects were bats. She photographed them in flight and recorded their echolocation calls: with a multi-flash system of 12 combined flash units that could capture 50 milliseconds of bat flight with 36 snapshots; there was also a device that captured the animals' ultrasonic signals and converted them into frequency ranges that are audible to humans. Apparatus like this, which was developed by Kalko's Tübingen doctoral supervisor Hans-Ulrich Schnitzler and perfected by the scientist, is now standard in bat research. At the time, the young German PhD student impressed the US luminaries in the field. The zoologist Donald Griffin - one of the pioneers of echolocation in animals - described Eli, as she was known among colleagues and friends, as the "Jane Goodall" of bats. In a US television production, Kalko was portrayed as one of three "Bat Women of Panama", and an American children's book also dealt with the German zoologist and her research.

Elisabeth Kalko died unexpectedly overnight on 26 September 2011 at the age of 49 while on a research trip in Tanzania on Mount Kilimanjaro. With the dedication of a trail on Barro Colorado Island in Panama and a symposium, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute paid her a final tribute that will continue to honour her memory in the future.

Curriculum vitae Elisabeth Kalko 
Elisabeth Klara Viktoria Kalko was born in Berlin on 10 April 1962 and grew up in Heilbronn. She studied biology at the University of Tübingen, where she also completed her doctorate and was qualified to teach and supervise doctoral/PhD candidates. She was a scholarship holder of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation as a student and PhD student. With a post-doctoral scholarship; (Erasmus:) grant from NATO (1991-1993), she conducted research in Washington D. C. at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) and at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. She was then funded by the German Research Foundation for many years and received a Heisenberg grant for her Habilitation in 1999. In 2000, she took over the Chair of Experimental Ecology at Ulm University and became a staff scientist at STRI. 
She was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Vice President of the Society for Tropical Ecology and a member of the DFG Senate Commission on Biodiversity. She was also awarded the teaching prize of the state of Baden-Württemberg. 
Elisabeth Kalko died on 26 September 2011 at the age of 49 during a research trip to Tanzania.

Further information: 
Professor Dr Marco Tschapka, Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conversation Genomics, Ulm University, e-mail: marco.tschapka(at)uni-ulm.de