Martin Lindauer

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Martin Lindauer (born December 19, 1918 in Wäldle (district of Bad Kohlgrub ), † November 13, 2008 in Munich ) was a German zoologist . He is considered one of the most important German-speaking bee and behavioral researchers .

Life

Although Martin Lindauer had 14 siblings, he was able to attend the Landshut Humanist Gymnasium, today the Hans-Carossa-Gymnasium Landshut . In April 1939, a week before graduating from high school, Lindauer was drafted into the labor service and had to dig trenches. When the war began , he joined the Wehrmacht . In July 1942 he was seriously wounded by a grenade on the Russian front. This ultimately proved to be an advantage: withdrawn from the front, he recovered in Munich in 1943, and his doctor recommended that he attend the lectures of the famous Professor Karl von Frisch on general zoology at the university . So he decided to start studying biology . In the same year he married Franziska Fleck, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. In the spring of 1945 he began research work for his doctoral thesis on honey bees under Frisch's direction. 1948 Lindauer was with a study on the effect of fragrances and flavors to the "dances of bees" PhD . He studied the bees with which he had already come into contact on his parents' farm on what is now the Old Botanical Garden in Munich, which is located on Sophienstrasse. The bees have remained the object of his scientific work ever since .

In 1948 Lindauer became an assistant at von Frisch in Graz and went back with him to the University of Munich in 1950 , where he completed his habilitation in 1955 . From 1961 to 1963 Lindauer was associate professor at the LMU Munich, from 1963 to 1973 professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and from 1973 until his retirement in 1987 professor at the Zoological Institute of the University of Würzburg , where he was also a member of the board.

Act

In his pioneering research, Lindauer consistently continued the work of his teacher Karl von Frisch, so that today Bert Hölldobler even speaks of the "Karl von Frisch-Lindauer School" of the behavioral biology of bees. He researched the communication methods of bees when looking for food and housing, the division of labor in the bee colony, temperature regulation in the beehive and orientation with the help of the "solar compass" and the earth's magnetic field , the shape and scent perception of bees and their learning abilities and memory. Modern experimental behavioral research , sensory physiology and sociobiology have been significantly shaped by his work.

Numerous scientific publications and books testify to Lindauer's work, including a collection of essays by the great pioneer of modern behavioral research Jean-Henri Fabre , which Lindauer edited together with Jost M. Franz in German translation ( Jean-Henri Fabre: Wunder des Lebendigen , Zurich 1989).

Honors

Lindauer has received many awards and honors, including honorary doctorates from the universities in Zurich , Umeå and Saarbrücken , he was a member of the Leopoldina , the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences . In 1962 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1976 to the American Philosophical Society . 1969/70 he was President of the German Zoological Society . In 1980 the American Philosophical Society awarded him the Magellanic Premium . In 1983 he was awarded the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1984 the German Beekeeping Association named him "Honorary Beekeeper ". He received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1998.

Publications (selection)

  • The art of classifying yourself - also an educational goal? In: Martin Lindauer, Winfried Böhm (ed.): “Not much knowledge saturates the soul”. Knowledge, recognition, education, training today. (= 3rd symposium of the University of Würzburg. ) Ernst Klett, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-12-984580-1 , pp. 293-300.
  • as ed. with Winfried Böhm: “Not much knowledge saturates the soul”. Knowledge, recognition, education, training today. 1988.
  • as ed. with Karl von Frisch : Understandable science. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg etc., ISSN  0083-5846 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice ( memento from October 26, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Member History: Martin Lindauer. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 21, 2018 .
  3. ^ The Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society , website of the APS . Retrieved October 29, 2019.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lindauer, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German behavioral scientist
DATE OF BIRTH December 19, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Kohlgrub
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 2008
Place of death Munich