Arved Ludwig Wieler

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Arved Ludwig Wieler (born August 5, 1858 in Hamburg , † March 7, 1943 in Aachen ) was a German botanist and university professor .

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After studying botany at the University of Heidelberg and his doctorate in 1883 at the University of Tübingen with Wilhelm Pfeffer , Wieler worked as an assistant in Berlin, Strasbourg and at the TH Karlsruhe ; last there from 1888 to 1891 as a private lecturer. In the fall of 1892 he completed his habilitation at the TH Braunschweig and was taken on as an associate professor at the TH Aachen in April 1895 , where he headed the "Technical Botany" department.

In Aachen, Wieler was one of the first botanists in Germany to focus on the effects of plumes of smoke from coal combustion and industrial exhaust gases on the plant world, a research area that to date has mainly been dealt with at the Tharandt Forestry Academy .

Wieler had been a member of the German Botanical Society since 1885 and in 1914 was one of the university professors who had signed the declaration of the university professors of the German Empire , which justified the First World War as a defensive struggle.

As part of his research work, Wieler put forward the thesis that the damage to plants is exclusively caused by direct damage to the leaves or needles by the sulfur dioxide in the air . He attributed this above all to the so-called “chronic billows of smoke”, which in contrast to “acute billows of smoke” cannot be seen with the naked eye, which cause acidification of the soil and thus slow decalcification through the diffusion of sulfur dioxide . His chain of evidence, however, was questioned by many contemporary smoke plume researchers.

In addition, Wieler found in 1903 during air tests in the Aachen area that sulfur dioxide could be detected in high concentrations up to a distance of more than 10 kilometers from the smoke source. In doing so, he drew attention to the long-distance transport of harmful gases, which could cause lasting damage to vegetation, especially in the context of increasing industrialization.

Wieler's tragedy was that he was ahead of his time and that his theses on the smoke plume problem were received rather negatively in the professional world during his lifetime and have only become topical again today.

A street in Aachen has been named after him in memory of Arved Wieler.

Fonts (selection)

  • Influencing growth through reduced partial pressure of oxygen , Engelmann, Leipzig 1883
  • Investigations into the effects of sulphurous acid on plants , Bornträger, Berlin 1905
  • Plant growth and lack of lime in the soil: Investigations into the influence of the decalcification of the soil by hut smoke and the toxic effects of metal compounds on plant growth . Heidelberg University Library, 1911

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Minutes of the meeting of October 26, 1928 of the German Botanical Society
  2. ↑ Christian Günther: The Plant Research Station , press release from the Altenberg zinc factory from July 12, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Wieler, Arved Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1943
Place of death Aachen