Ivan Ivanovych Korshikov (also spelled Korshykov; Ukrainian: ÃÂòðý ÃÂòðýþòøàÃÂþÃÂÃÂøúþò; 4 September 1950 â 2 February 2024) was a Ukrainian plant physiologist and population geneticist, Doctor of Biological Sciences (1994) and Professor (2002).
Korshikov entered the M. I. Kalinin Crimean Agricultural Institute in 1967 and graduated with distinction in 1972 with a degree in agronomy. His diploma thesis was completed at the Magarach All-Union Research Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking (Yalta). He subsequently worked for about 18 months at the experimental farm of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Irrigated Horticulture (Melitopol).
He defended his Candidate of Sciences (PhD) dissertation, Phytotoxicity of phenolic ingredients of environmental pollution, at Vilnius University in 1981, and his Doctor of Sciences dissertation, Adaptation of plants to technogenically polluted environments, at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1994. He was awarded the academic title of Professor on 18 April 2002.
Korshikov began his career in 1973 as an engineer at the Department of Plant Stress Physiology of the Donetsk Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. He became a junior researcher in 1979 and a senior researcher in 1982. In 1989 he headed the Laboratory of Ecological Plant Physiology, and from 2010 the Department of Population Genetics at the Donetsk Botanical Garden.
He served as Director of the Donetsk Botanical Garden from 1 July 2015 to 29 June 2017, and concurrently as Director of the Kryvyi Rih Botanical Garden from 1 March 2016 to 24 March 2022. He chaired the Academic Councils of both botanical gardens (from December 2015 in Donetsk and from September 2017 in Kryvyi Rih).
Korshikov was among the founders of the Ukrainian school of industrial botany, focused on plant responses to technogenic transformation of environments. His research covered plant tolerance and adaptation to industrial and vehicular emissions, bioindication, and Phytoremediation. He showed that aeropollutants damage leaves not only directly but also indirectly via activation of Lipid peroxidation.
He was a recognized specialist in population genetics of woody plants. His group was among the first in the former USSR to apply Isozyme Electrophoresis to plant genotype identification and later introduced DNA Microsatellite analysis for assessing genetic polymorphism of conifer and broadleaf tree populations in Ukraine. The work led to recommendations for forming local tree populations on mined and industrial lands (e.g., spoil tips of Kryvyi Rih) to restore vegetation cover.
In applied projects on the phytoreclamation of iron-ore spoil heaps in Kryvyi Rih, over 100 woody and shrubby species were tested. Species such as Lombardy poplar (Populus italica), white poplar (P. alba), silver birch (Betula pendula), mahaleb cherry (Padellus mahaleb), Crimean pine (Pinus pallasiana) and Scots pine (P. sylvestris) showed high survival and colonization potential for use in technogenic ecotopes. His group also developed approaches using vegetatively mobile species (e.g., Populus italica, P. alba, Hippophaë rhamnoides) capable of forming clumps up to 500 mò that stabilize spoil surfaces.
Over his career, he supervised 2 Doctors of Sciences and 19 Candidates of Sciences in molecular genetics, genetics, cytology and histology, plant physiology, botany, and ecology.
Korshikov authored about 500 scientific publications, including seven monographs and over 60 articles indexed in Scopus.