Rutger Sernander

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Johan Rutger Sernander (born November 2, 1866 in Församling Viby, Hallsberg municipality , † October 27, 1944 in Uppsala ) was a Swedish botanist , geologist , archaeobotanist and, with Gustaf Lagerheim, one of the founders of pollen analysis .

biography

The son of a farmer came from an old family of pastors. He studied at Uppsala University, where he received his doctorate in 1895 with a thesis on the vegetation history of Gotland . In the same year he was appointed professor of plant geography. From 1908 until his retirement in 1931, he held a professorship for botany in Uppsala.

Services

Sernander had very extensive research interests. Among other things, he has worked on the geography of Scandinavia and climatology of the Ice Age . He has also published important works on vegetation and nature conservation and was among other things the founder of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in 1909.

In his early years he was influenced by the theories of Axel Blytts (1843–1898). Among other things, the Blytt-Sernander sequence was named after both. Sernander also took up research approaches by Gustaf Lagerheim (1860–1926), Hampus von Post and Ragnar Hult and developed them further. The “Hult-Sernander estimation scale” is still used today in Scandinavia to record vegetation stands. Sernander is considered to be the founder of ecological research in Sweden. Among other things, he worked on the ecology and vegetation of swamps, the interrelationships between ants and seed plants ( myrmecochory ), the ecology of lichen communities , the symbiosis of higher plants and prokaryotes to fix nitrogen in plants or the breakdown of leaves. In 1910, Sernander founded scientific research in the primeval forest of Fiby and laid the basis for the investigation of succession in forest communities, which continues to this day .

In addition, Sernander has dealt with the history of science and wrote, among others, the biographies of Carl von Linné , Olof Rudbeck the Elder , Lars Roberg , John Harleman and John Abraham Gyllenhaal (1750–1788).

Thanks to a foundation by Frans Kempe (1847–1924), Sernander was able to establish an institute for plant biology (since 1999 institute for plant ecology) at Uppsala University. In 1926 he became the head of a state agency for nature conservation, which in 1967 became part of the Swedish Naturvårdsverket , which still exists today .

Sernander was the founder of the Gothenburg Botanical Garden , and also implemented the new construction of the Botanical Garden in Västerås . During his student days he was an advisor to the Södermanland-Nerikes Nation and later an inspector at this institution.

Memberships

literature

  • CAM Lindman: Sernander, Johan Rutger . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 25 : Sekt – Slöjskifling . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1917, Sp. 182-183 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
  • CH Ostenfeld: Sernander, Johan Rutger . In: Christian Blangstrup (Ed.): Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon . 2nd Edition. tape 21 : Schinopsis spectrum . JH Schultz Forlag, Copenhagen 1926, p. 273 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  • J. Rutger Sernander. In: Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Volume 32: Sehlstedt – Sparre. Bonnier, Stockholm 2006, p. 65 ( sok.riksarkivet.se ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ linnaeus.uu.se
  2. ↑ linnaeus.uu.se
personal data
SURNAME Sernander, Rutger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sernander, Johan Rutger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish geobotanist
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Församling Viby, Hallsberg (municipality)
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1944
Place of death Uppsala