Rainer Schulin (born 22 July 1952) is a German zoologist, forest scientist and emeritus professor of soil protection at the ETH Zurich.
He there completed his PhD thesis in 1981 in zoology and then graduated as a forest engineer at ETH Zurich in 1982.
[citation needed] In a model ecosystem experiment Schulin and coworkers showed that soil can play a key role in the growth and evapotranspiration responses of young forest vegetation on elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide.
In another model ecosystem experiment Schulin's team found that moderate topsoil pollution by heavy metals significantly reduced evapotranspiration of a young forest vegetation due to reduced root growth, in particular during periods of drought stress, and that roots compensated for metal toxicity in the topsoil by increasing water extraction from the subsoil.
[4][5] Schulin et al. also showed how much care has to be taken in attributing soil pollution to specific sources.