George Ledyard Stebbins

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George Ledyard Stebbins (born January 6, 1906 in Lawrence , New York , † January 19, 2000 in Davis , California ) was an American botanist , geneticist and evolutionary biologist. He was one of the architects of the synthetic theory of evolution , which covered the sub-area of botany . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Stebbins ".

Life

George Ledyard Stebbins Jr. was born on January 6, 1906 in Lawrence , New York, United States. He grew up in Pasadena , Colorado Springs, and Santa Barbara . In 1924 he began studying law at Harvard University . The following year he switched to botany. In 1928 he achieved his MD and in 1931 he graduated (Ph. D.). Stebbins married Margaret Chamberlaine in 1930; they separated in 1948. They had 3 children, Robert, Edith and George. From 1931 to 1935 he spent at Colgate University.

In 1935 he was offered a research position and in 1939 he was officially employed at the University of California, Berkeley , where he gave a lecture on the principles of evolution. In 1947 he was named Professor of Genetics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1947 he spent three months at Columbia University in New York City. Here, with his Jessup lecture, Stebbins developed one of the most important books on the evolution of plants, Variation and Evolution in Plants , which was published in 1950.

In 1950 he was entrusted with the establishment of a genetics department on the Davis campus. Here he mainly examined the flora of California. Some of the species he discovered are named after him. In 1958 he married Barbara Monaghan. In 1971 he succeeded in bringing Theodosius Dobzhansky and his colleague Francisco J. Ayala to Davis (California). As President of the California Native Plant Society from 1966 to 1972, he campaigned for the protection of native endangered plants and their habitats in California . In 1980 the Cold Canyon Reserve was named after him. After his retirement in 1973, he traveled a lot, carried out research and wrote books.

George Ledyard Stebbins died on January 19, 2000 in Davis, California at the age of 94.

Honors

Works

  • Variation and Evolution in Plants (1950)
  • Evolutionary processes (orig. "Processes of organic evolution") (1966, 1980) ISBN 3-437-20212-X
  • The Basis of Progressive Evolution (1969)
  • Chromosomal Evolution in Higher Plants (1971)
  • Flowering Plants: Evolution Above the Species Level (1974)
  • Evolution (1977) with co-authors Dobzhansky, Francisco Ayala and James Valentine
  • Darwin to DNA, Molecules to Humanity (1982)
  • California's Wild Gardens: A Living Legacy (1996)

See also

Other architects of the synthetic theory of evolution (1930–1950): Theodosius Dobzhansky , Ernst Mayr , Sewall Wright , Julian Huxley , Bernhard Rensch and George Gaylord Simpson .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ entry on Stebbins; George Ledyard (1906-2000) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
  2. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Stebbins, George Ledyard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biologist and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Lawrence , New York, USA
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 2000
Place of death Davis , California, USA