Wilfried Gunkel

Wilfried Gunkel (born March 5, 1930 in Lützen , † November 11, 2005 in Holm ) was a German marine biologist.

Life

After graduating from high school in the German Democratic Republic , Gunkel found it difficult to get a place at university. That is why he moved to the Federal Republic of Germany, which was still relatively easy at the time. He was able to enroll in natural sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . There he was reciprocated in the Corps Saxonia Leipzig in July 1953 . From the beginning he specialized in marine biology . He earned most of his living in a brewery. He finished his studies on time summa cum laude . In 1958 he was promoted to Dr. phil. nat. PhD. The dissertation received international attention.

The Biological Institute Helgoland (BAH) was his first employer. On board the Anton Dohrn , he began his work on the distribution of bacteria in various water bodies. Adolf Bückmann also established the Department of Marine Microbiology at the BAH and in 1959 sent Gunkel as the first marine microbiologist at the BAH to train in the United States , to Claude Ephraim ZoBell at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla and to Carl Henry Oppenheimer , The University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas . In 1975, Gunkel and Günter Gassmann began with international participation the "Petroleum Ecological North Sea Trips" for measurements of the existing and fossil hydrocarbons as well as the turnover by hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria . The bacterial strain he cultivated was successfully used after the First Gulf War . Gunkel himself reported about it on television. These bacteria have also proven themselves with Ixtoc I. On board the new Meteor he explored the marine biology of the Indian Ocean . For decades he dealt with the ecological consequences of tanker accidents . On July 1, 1989, he took over the deputy management of the BAH. On September 11, 1990 he was appointed director of the BAH and in the same year he was appointed professor by the University of Hamburg (Department of Biology). He retired three years later, on September 30, 1993. At the age of 75 he succumbed to a serious illness. After the cremation , his urn was buried on Heligoland, where his mother is also buried. Gunkel was a member of the board of the Protestant parish of Helgoland until 1990 and was involved in the construction of a church in Holm in retirement.

Works

• Data on the distribution of bacteria in the North Sea .
• Reversion of the mutations and reactivation by visible as well as various salt solutions after UV irradiation of Serratia .
• Effects of the cold winter of 1962/63 on the bacterial populations off Heligoland , 1964.
• with Harald Rosenthal : Effects of crude oil emulsifier mixtures on marine fish fry and their nutritional animals , 1967.
• Experimental ecological studies on the limiting factors of microbial oil degradation in the marine environment , 1967.
• with Hans-Hermann Trekel: On the methodology of the quantitative recording of oil-degrading bacteria in oily sediments and soils, oil-water mixtures, oils and tar-like substances . Heligoland 1967.
• with Jürgen Koch: 750 years of Holm - our village: 1255-2005. A chronicle . Spar 2004.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 150/871
2. ↑ Dissertation: Photoreversion of mutations and photoreactivation after irradiation with ultraviolet light in Serratia Marcescens (Bacterium prodigiosum) .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Lind: In memoriam Wilfried Gunkel . Sachsenbrief No. 79 (2009/10)
4. ^ W. Gunkel, GE Jones, CE ZoBell: Influence of volume of nutrient agar medium on development of colonies of marine bacteria , 1961.
5. ↑ Erik Hagmeier: From the history of the Biological Institute Helgoland (BAH) from 1945 (1998)
6. ↑ Marine investigation of oil spills . Meeting of the working group for the marine investigation of oil spills in Loccum, 18. – 20. September 1985
7. ↑ "We are condemned to be patient" (zeit.de)
8. ↑ Wilfried Gunkel in the Hamburg professor catalog (accessed on October 1, 2019)