Rüdiger Wehner
Rüdiger Wehner (born February 6, 1940 in Nuremberg ) is a German neuro , sensory and behavioral biologist.
Life
Rüdiger Wehner studied zoology, chemistry and philosophy at the universities of Frankfurt and Munich . In 1967 he received his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt under Martin Lindauer with a thesis on the subject of " Physiology of Form Vision in Bees ". In the same year he went to Ernst Hadorn as a research assistant at the Zoological Institute of the University of Zurich , where he completed his habilitation in 1970. After two research stays at Yale University and Cornell University, he was appointed associate professor in 1972 and full professor at the Zoological Institute in Zurich in 1976 , which he also headed as director from 1986 until his retirement in 2005. From 2005 to 2008 he was an emeritus research professor at the University of Zurich. In 2007 he received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, endowed with 65,000 euros, and decided on a visiting professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Würzburg , where he worked until 2010.
He is married to the biologist Sibylle Segesser von Brunegg.
Research and Teaching
In his research work, Rüdiger Wehner sought to combine experimental behavioral research in the field and sensory and neurobiology in the laboratory. Using the example of the orientation services of social insects , among which he chose the North African desert ant Cataglyphis as an animal model, he was able to show that it has several navigation modules with which it reacts to visual stimuli such as sky and landmarks and then uses motor programs to measure distances . In this way, the ants manage to find their way back to their nest in a straight line after their forays, even if they have previously spent a period of several weeks in a dark, underground burrow. Wehner was also able to prove that the ants are capable of so-called " path integration ", which precisely shows them the length of the return path.
In his research, Wehner always started from the observed behavioral performance of ants and then looked for the sensory and neural mechanisms responsible for this. In the end, he expanded the consideration of his research results to include ecological and evolutionary aspects.
In the German-speaking countries he is particularly known as the co-author of the standard textbook "General Zoology", which was founded by Alfred Kühn and afterwards (by Ernst Hadorn and Wehner) became a term in biological university teaching as " Hadorn / Wehner ". In its 25th edition, Walter Gehring is co-author of the book now known as " Wehner / Gehring ".
Honors and memberships
- 1960‐1967: Member of the German National Academic Foundation
- 1967: Annual award for dissertations from the University of Frankfurt (Main)
- 1977: Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz
- 1985: Member of the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences , Halle (Saale)
- 1987: Corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
- 1989: Member of the Academia Europaea
- 1993: Carus Medal from the Leopoldina and Carus Prize from the city of Schweinfurt
- 1993: Member of the American Philosophical Society
- 1994: Karl von Frisch Medal of the German Zoological Society for his knowledge about the optical orientations of insects.
- 1995: Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences
- 1996: Distinguished Scientist Award from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA
- 1996: Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen
- 1998: Corresponding member (abroad) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
- 2000: Member of the Royal Swedish Physiographic Society
- 2002: Honorary doctorate (Dr. rer. Nat. Hc) from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
- 2002: Marcel Benoist Prize
- 2004/2005: Chairman of the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Section of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
- 2005: Senator for the Leopoldina Adjunct Group Switzerland
- 2005: Corresponding Member (Foreign Honorary Member) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , USA
- 2005: Honorary doctorate (Dr. rer. Nat. Hc) from the Humboldt University in Berlin
- 2006: Honorary member of the German Zoological Society
- 2007: Member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Integrative Life Sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin
- 2007: Humboldt Research Award
- 2008: King Faisal International Prize for Science , Saudi Arabia.
- 2009: University medal in silver from the University of Tübingen
- 2010: Associate of the Neurosciences Research Program (NRP), USA
- 2012: Fellow of the International Society for Neuroethology
Works
- with Walter Gehring : Zoology. 25th edition. Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-13-367425-6 .
- Matthias Wittlinger, Rüdiger Wehner, Harald Wolf 2007: The desert ant odometer: A stride integrator that accounts for stride length and walking speed. In: Journal of Experimental Biology. 210, pp. 198-207, PMID 17210957 .
- Matthias Wittlinger, Rüdiger Wehner, Harald Wolf 2006: The Ant Odometer: Stepping on Stilts and Stumps. In: Science . 312 (5782), pp. 1965-1967, doi : 10.1126 / science.1126912 .
- Sandra Wohlgemuth, Bernhard Ronacher , Rüdiger Wehner 2001: Ant odometry in the third dimension. In: Nature . 411, pp. 795-798, doi : 10.1038 / 35081069 .
- Gary Bernard & Rüdiger Wehner 1993: "Photoreceptor twist: A solution to the false-color problem" PNAS 90: 4132-4135.
- Rudiger Wehner et al. 1975: "Twisted and non-twisted rhabdoms and their significance for polarization detection in the bee" Journal of Comparative Physiology A 104: 225-245.
Web links
- Literature by and about Rüdiger Wehner in the catalog of the German National Library
- Website of Rüdiger Wehner (University of Zurich)
- Curriculum Vitae (PDF; 206 kB) on the Leopoldina website
- Laudation for the 2002 Marcel Benoist Prize
- Research on the "racehorses among the ants" , interview with Rüdiger Wehner, Deutschlandradio Kultur , July 24, 2009 (accessed on August 5, 2012)
Individual evidence
- ↑ member entry of Rüdiger Wehner at the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz , accessed on 06.11.17
- ↑ Member entry by Rüdiger Wehner (with picture and CV) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 15, 2016.
- ↑ Member entry of Rüdiger Wehner at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on July 15, 2016.
- ↑ Member History: Rüdiger Wehner. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 9, 2018 .
- ↑ Speech at the honorary doctorate Rüdiger Wehner
- ↑ In search of the compass in the ant brain - Swiss scientist researches as a Humboldt Prize winner at the Biozentrum , University of Würzburg, April 24, 2007 ( Memento from January 6, 2013 in the archive.today web archive )
- ↑ Desert ants on stilts. In: FAZ . April 3, 2007 (accessed August 5, 2012)
- ↑ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6974449_The_Ant_Odometer_Stepping_on_Stilts_and_Stumps
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Wehner, Rudiger |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German neuro, sensory and behavioral biologist |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 6, 1940 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Nuremberg |