He is the author of over 480 peer-reviewed scientific papers and five major books, all published by the University of Chicago Press.
He is a member of the Botanical Society of America and served as its President (2008 – 2009) and Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Botany (1995 – 2004).
[2] Niklas was the first botanist to tabulate the temporal distributions of plant species in the fossil record to quantify land plant diversification patterns throughout the Phanerozoic, and he was among the first to use factor analysis to identify major floristic changes and turnover patterns in the fossil record.
Another facet of his work was the use of fluid mechanics to understand how wind pollinated plants trap airborne pollen grains.
His books on biomechanics and plant allometry have stimulated a renaissance in the use of engineering and scaling principles to understand diverse phenomena, ranging from the relationship between plant growth rates and body mass and the effects of wind on the mechanical stability of trees to the distributions of above- and below-ground biomass in forested communities.