Albert Koebele

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Albert Koebele

Albert Koebele (born February 28, 1853 in Siensbach / Breisgau , † December 28, 1924 in Waldkirch ) was a German-American entomologist and one of the founders of biological pest control .

Life

Albert Koebele grew up in modest circumstances as the second oldest of sixteen siblings in the southern Black Forest , where his father was a farmer and innkeeper. He was interested in nature and especially insects from an early age . Since his constitution was too weak to work as a farmer, his father took him to Freiburg to do an apprenticeship with a hat maker. Because he did not like this job, he was sent to a relative in New York , who traded in coal and produced liquor there. He had a great understanding of Koebele's curiosity and made sure that he was introduced to the United States Department of Agriculture , director of agricultural experiments , the famous American entomologist Charles Valentine Riley , who hired him as his assistant.

His main task was the preparation of Riley's catches and the rearing of laboratory animals. In 1880 he received US citizenship , and in 1882 he was appointed "American State Entomologist" based in Washington, DC .

In 1885, the Australian woolen scale louse ( Icerya purchasi ) appeared in California and other western states of the USA , a pest that had been introduced from Australia and which practically brought the cultivation of oranges and lemons to a standstill. To ways to combat cochineal to explore Koebele to was California State Board of Horticulture in Alameda, California added. On a research trip to Australia in 1888 he found the ladybird species Rodolia cardinalis , a natural opponent of the wool scale louse. Koebele bred this species in large quantities, released it and thereby caused the population of the white woolly scale louse to be so decimated within three years that it no longer caused any damage to the cirtrus plantations. Among other things, he also introduced a parasitic wasp species from Australia to the USA, with which cup scale insects (including Coccus hesperidum , Saissetia oleae , Saissetia coffeae ) were and are being combated. The parasitic wasp sucks eggs and nymphs of the female scale insects and parasitizes them. The entomologist Leland Ossian Howard described this species in honor of Koebele with the name Metaphycus alberti .

In 1893 Koebele gave up his position as a state entomologist and continued to work for the Hawaii Board of Agriculture and Forestry in Honolulu , Hawaii . He used his method there against the coffee scale insect , a relative of the wool scale insect, which he could control with another species of ladybird. During the years he was employed in Hawaii, he researched pests on the islands of the Pacific Ocean, which were found in abundance there. Longer research stays also take him to Australia, the Fiji Islands, Ceylon , Japan, Mexico and the Chinese Empire .

In 1908 Koebele returned to Germany for health reasons and settled in Waldkirch near Freiburg . A return to the USA was initially prevented for health reasons (Koebele had contracted malaria on one of his trips ), and during the First World War he was unable to travel to the United States for political reasons. He worked in Germany as a private researcher and consultant for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association .

Koebele was a corresponding member of several scientific societies, including the Brooklyn Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences .

Fonts

  • Essig, Edward Oliver (1931): A History of entomology. 1029 p., Numerous Fig .; Macmillan Company (New York). Reprint 1965 Hafner-Verlag

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Koebele, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American entomologist and one of the founders of biological pest control
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Siensbach (district of Waldkirch ), Baden-Württemberg
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1924
Place of death Waldkirch , Baden-Wuerttemberg