Karl Höfler
Karl Höfler (born May 11, 1893 in Vienna , † October 22, 1973 ibid) was an Austrian botanist and plant physiologist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Höfler ".
His brother was the Germanist Otto Höfler .
Live and act
He studied at the universities in Graz and Vienna , among others with Molisch and Linsbauer. From 1941 he taught as a full professor for anatomy and physiology of plants at the University of Vienna. Until 1945 he was director of the Plant Physiological Institute.
His main area of research was the capacity and permeability of the plant cell for water. He succeeded in describing the relationship between the elasticity of the plant cell wall, the concentration of dissolved substances in the cell sap and in the medium outside the cell, and the pressure that the protoplast exerts on the cell wall in a simple model ( Höfler's scheme ). Based on his attempts to determine the ability of various substances to penetrate plant cell membranes, he postulated the existence of aquaporins , which were actually only found 20 years after his death.
Using the catchphrase “Comparative Protoplasmatics”, he tried to bring the permeability of cell membranes of different plant species into connection with the systematic position and ecological situation of the whole plant. He also worked on the distribution and ecological requirements of mosses and algae, on fungus-dwelling beetles and a variety of other topics.
Höfler had been a candidate since 1939 and a member of the NSDAP since 1941 . For this reason he was relieved of teaching at the University of Vienna in 1945, which he was able to resume in 1948. In the course of the proceedings for his reinstatement, it was stated in the room that Höfler had already worked for the then illegal National Socialists before the "Anschluss" in 1938.
From 1942 to 1951 he was a corresponding member and from 1951 to 1973 a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 1953 he was also elected a member of the Leopoldina , the Schleiden Medal of which he was awarded in 1963, was an honorary member of the Greek Biological Society of Athens and honorary president of the Zoological-Botanical Society in Vienna.
literature
- Roman Pfefferle, Hans Pfefferle, Glimpflich denazified. The professorships at the University of Vienna from 1944 in the post-war years, V&R unipress, Vienna 2014
- I. Jahn, ed. (2004) History of Biology. Theories, methods, institutions, short biographies, Ed 3. Nikol Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Hamburg.
- K. Höfler (1920) A scheme for the osmotic performance of the plant cell. Ber. German. Bot. Ges. 38: 288-298.
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl Höfler in the catalog of the German National Library
- Author entry and list of the described plant names for Karl Höfler at the IPNI
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Höfler, Karl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian botanist and plant physiologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 11, 1893 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 22, 1973 |
| Place of death | Vienna |