Lothar Geitler

Lothar Geitler (born May 18, 1899 in Vienna ; † May 1, 1990 ) was an Austrian botanist and cytologist . His main interests were blue algae and diatoms , lichen symbioses and chromosome research .

Career of the scientist

Lothar Geitler came from an upper-class Viennese family. At the University of Vienna he attended botany from Hans Molisch and Fritz Knoll and geography lectures, as well as art history and Sanskrit . With his doctoral thesis under Richard Wettstein "Attempt to solve the heterocyst problem", University of Vienna in 1921, Geitler turned to blue-green algae .

During his first stay at the Biological Station in Lunz (July / August 1921) he got to know the diversity of blue-green algae . In 1925 he presented the first systematic presentation of this group of organisms, which had not yet been studied, and in 1928 he qualified as a professor for systematic botany at the University of Vienna. Geitler was one of the few experts in the cyano or schizophyceae and was therefore often invited to collaborate on series works, on flora, ecological (e.g. "planktonic algae") or systematic compendia. At that time, however, he also began to turn to diatoms , which over the course of time steadily gained in importance in his work and ultimately became the content of around 100 publications.

After a year of study in Berlin with Max Hartmann , a researcher into the sex determination of single-celled organisms , whom he had also met in Lunz - where he often met with him but never "actively" shared his natural-philosophical interests - Geitler turned increasingly to cytology ("Abriss der Cytologie", 1934) and in particular the research into chromosomes , whose importance for heredity ( genetics ) he began to guess at that time. In 1935, Geitler recognized the polythene of metabolically active chromosomes, and tissue from " Lunzer " pond water striders ( Gerris ) was the object of investigation . These were neither products of fusion nor postponed or suppressed core divisions, but rather functionally intrinsic, what he called endomitoses (without spindle formation), which lead to somatic polyploidy (up to 1024-n) (1937; 1939). During this time he also did more research on lichens . Geitler also contributed to the theory of eukaryotes as hybrid beings ( symbioses of “fungus” and prokaryotic “algae”) with investigations and considerations e.g. B. on the syncyanoses discovered by A. Pascher in 1914 (book: 1959).

During the war - at that time the management of the Botanical Institute was in the hands of Fritz Knoll - Geitler (as associate professor since 1937) was very often in Lunz. He looked after or promoted algologists from neighboring countries, z. B. the interned Pierre Bourrelly or the Agram doctoral student Zvonimir Devidé. More important positions, e.g. B. in Berlin at Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes , he had refused. In 1940 he presented a short “Morphology of Plants” (Göschen Collection, Vol. 141), which was later reprinted several times. From 1932 onwards, almost every year until 1973, he gave the "progress in botany" in the cytological field as a concise report. A handbook (1st edition 1940) on the cytological techniques of chromosome staining also appeared. Some of the individual works he wrote appeared in the Institute Journal, the “Austrian Botanical Journal” under his editorial team (renamed “Plant Systematics and Evolution” in 1974). 29% of them (105) are also works from the Biological Station Lunz.

Approx. 90 taxa have him as author ( Geitler ) in the name.

(1946 and definitely) In 1948 Geitler took over the management of the Botanical Institute and the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna until his retirement in 1969. He supervised doctoral students until 1973, until 1983 he came to Lunz to do microscopy in the summer, and his last publication was made from 1987. Geitler had been a heavy smoker and that ultimately diminished his great eyesight with retinopathy. The sharpness of his judgment was also extraordinary. B. several works with titles such as "The alleged Cyanophycee Isocystis pallida is a yeast-like fungus ( Torulopsidosira )" (1963) showed. He was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery .

literature

• Friedrich Ehrendorfer : (Obituary) Lothar Geitler.- Almanach of the OeAW 141 (1991).

Web links

• Literature by and about Lothar Geitler in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lothar Geitler grave site , Vienna, Central Cemetery, Group 3, Row 2, No. 62A.