Erwin Beck (botanist)

Erwin Beck (born November 2, 1937 ) is a German botanist (plant physiology) and biochemist and professor of botany at the University of Bayreuth .

Beck initially studied biology, chemistry and geography for teaching at the University of Munich (exam 1960) and received his doctorate in 1963 under Hermann Merxmüller at the Technical University of Munich on chemotaxonomy . In 1968 he completed his habilitation in biochemistry and went to Otto Kandler at the University of Munich, where he did research on vegetable carbohydrates. In 1974 he became an adjunct professor in Munich and in 1975 he became professor of plant physiology at the University of Bayreuth. In 2006 he retired. From 1985 to 1988 he was Vice President of the university responsible for research and the promotion of young talent. In 1987 he founded the first biological graduate college (on plant-herbivore systems) in Germany at the University of Bayreuth.

Beck initially dealt with plant physiology and biochemistry and later increasingly with ecological issues (ecophysiology, plant ecology) and is co-author of a textbook on plant ecology. He conducted research in the high regions of East Africa and in the mountain rainforest in Ecuador.

In plant physiology, he researched carbohydrate metabolism (for example starch formation and breakdown with pullulanases ) and photosynthesis. Among other things, he clarified the chemical structure of the RuBisCO inhibitor. His work on glycolate biosynthesis competed with that of Nathan Edward Tolbert , with whom he also worked on the physiological significance of atmospheric oxygen partial pressure. Beck also examined the role of plant hormones in controlling shoot and root growth.

He is an honorary member of the German Botanical Society (DBG), of which he was president from 1995 to 2002. In 2006 he received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern .

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was chairman of the structure and appointment committee of the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1991 to 1994 and chairman of the evaluation committee of the state of Berlin in 1996/97. For many years he was an external examiner at the University of Addis Ababa and the University of Nairobi. Since 1998 he has been chairman of the expert group on biodiversity research of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and he is the spokesman for DFG research group 402 (functionality in a tropical mountain rainforest in southern Ecuador).

Fonts

• with Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Klaus Müller-Hohenstein: Plant ecology, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag 2002

Web links

• Biography of Ekkehard Neuhaus among the honorary members of the German Botanical Society