Willem Gerrit Beeftink

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Willem Gerrit Beeftink (also: Wim G. Beeftink) (born March 4, 1926 in Nieuwer-Amstel , † March 16, 2014 in Middelburg ) was a Dutch biologist , botanist and plant sociologist . His botanical author abbreviation is " Beeftink "

Life

Beeftink was born in Amstelveen near Amsterdam in 1926. His father was a math teacher and amateur biologist with a great love of natural history . When Beeftink was five years old, in 1931, the family moved to Middelburg on the Walcheren peninsula in the province of Zeeland .

schooldays

Beeftink began collecting mussels while he was still in elementary school. He made an effort to learn the names of all the animals and plants that he encountered on walks with his father. Beeftink was a good student and continued his studies at the secondary school in Middelburg. Despite heavy bombing raids on Middelburg during the Second World War , he successfully finished school. He got good grades in all subjects, especially science.

Studies and PhD

Initially, Beeftink planned to study biology. But since this would have led to a career as a teacher that he did not want, he decided to study agriculture . In this department there were greater research opportunities in the biological field.

In 1944, when Beeftink began his studies, the war was still on and the part of the Netherlands where the universities were located was still occupied by the Germans. The province of Zeeland, where Beeftink was located, was ruled by a provisional Dutch government in cooperation with the Allies . A provisional academy was established in Eindhoven , where all sorts of available scientists gave lectures on all sorts of subjects. The optimistic spirit that prevailed among the students and teachers at the time overcame all the hardships and shortcomings of this transition period.

As soon as the situation in the Netherlands normalized after the end of the war, Beeftink moved from Eindhoven to Wageningen University , where he studied agriculture with a focus on horticulture . Here he met Victor Westhoff , who at the time was an assistant and lecturer in the laboratory for systematics of the plant kingdom and vegetation geography and who founded the plant sociology of the Netherlands. Inspired by Westhoff, Beeftink studied the Sloe vegetation and its sub-area, the Kaloot, which was destroyed in 1969 by the construction of the Borssele nuclear power plant . Together with Westhoff, he published two papers on this subject and then one more alone as a student thesis on the vegetation of the Sloe. In 1951, after completing his studies, Beeftink was persuaded by Professor Venema to expand his studies on the salt marsh ecosystem into a doctoral thesis. The "Commissie Plan Tendeloo" of the Agricultural University granted him a scholarship for this. In 1965 Beeftink received his doctorate on the subject: De zoutvegetatie van ZW-Nederland beschouwd in europees verband (German: The salt vegetation of the Southwest Netherlands viewed in a European context ).

job

In 1953, the Dutch storm flood devastated the province of Zeeland, killing more than 1,800 people in the Netherlands. That year Beeftink joined the horticultural advice center and was deployed in Goes . His job was to advise farmers in their daily work, especially in relation to the use of the flooded and saline areas. A large part of Zeeland was planted with orchards and Beeftink studied the influence of the flood on the fertility of the fruit trees.

Delta Institute

In 1953 the government and the population agreed that a repetition of such a flood disaster had to be prevented. For this purpose the Delta Plan was created , which was supposed to protect the Dutch islands and the entire coast against storm surges by means of a system of dykes and barriers. This Delta Plan was the reason for the establishment of the Delta Instituut voor Hydrobiologische Onderzoek (Delta Institute for Hydrobiological Investigations), today: Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (Dutch Institute for Ecology).

On November 1, 1957, the Delta Instituut voor Hydrobiologischer Onderzoek (DIHO) was founded by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen in Goes . Beeftink was the only employee of this new institute and the institute address was Beeftink's apartment address.

Westhoff convinced the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences that the Delta Institute should not only study the changes that would occur in the maritime ecosystem as a result of the Delta Plan, but also the fauna and flora of the banks of the estuaries , the salt marshes and the dyke in general Embankments. In this way, Beeftink was able to continue the plant studies he began as a student.

Classification of the salt-loving plant communities

Studies of the vegetation on the Dutch coast have already been carried out by Bijhouwer (1926), Adriani (1945), Feekes (1936) and Westhoff (1947). Beeftink's merit lies in its systematics. He created a classification of the salt-loving plant communities. His doctoral thesis was and is still used as a reference today. To describe the syntaxa, he added an overview of its occurrence in Europe. He also emphasized the importance of information theory and cybernetics in plant sociology for processing the resulting data.

Beeftink combined his plant-sociological studies with zoological studies, especially of the molluscs found in the salt marshes . This was in line with the multidisciplinary approach of the Delta Institute.

Studies on succession

The changes brought about by the Delta Plan inspired Beeftink on the subject of succession . From the beginning he considered time and place in his characterization of the plant communities. He was fortunate to have time, money and employees. So he kept observing the same squares over many years. In doing so, he documented as many of the factors as possible that caused the changes.

In some cases, such as the Veerse Meer , the influencing factors were even measured every hour and data on the subsurface and tides were collected. In the context of rising sea levels due to climate change, these studies received new attention.

Turning to plant sociology

In the 1970s and 1980s Beeftink turned more and more to the sociology of plants by linking the details and larger contexts.

His first attempts in this direction were investigations into the taxonomy of the samphire in connection with population dynamics, soil science, vegetation analysis in the years 1976 to 1985. In the 1980s Beeftink and his group succeeded in getting mathematical help for these investigations.

In 1988 Beeftink was a professor at the Delta Institute. There was an extensive database of the Zeeland Schlick regions and Schorren , which Beeftink had established in the 1950s. In the 1950s this area still comprised 8,000 ha, in 1988 it was only 4,000 ha.

environmental Protection

In 1976 Egbert K. Duursma became director of the Delta Institute. He was a chemist and dealt with man-made pollution of the sea.

Beeftink's great interest in protecting nature made him take up Duursma's ideas and integrate them into his own work. He began to prove the metal content in salt marsh plants.

Since then, Beeftink's research group has devoted part of their time to studying environmental pollution. This resulted in results on the food chain, including a study on the influence of heavy metal pollution in sheep grazing in the salt marsh.

Beeftink has been committed to nature conservation since childhood. He worked for this cause in several committees and institutions, including as a member of the National Committee for Nature Conservation.

family

Beeftink was married to Jeanne Verheule since 1953. He had three children and five grandchildren.

Publications (selection)

  • WG Beeftink: Ecology of Coastal Vegetation , Springer 1985
  • WG Beeftink: Ecology of coastal vegetation: Proceedings of a Symposium , Haamstede, Springer, 1983, ISBN 94-010-8938-8
  • Tüxen, R. & Westhoff, V., and others Beeftink WG & Jahns W .: Saginetea maritimae, a social group in the changeable border area of ​​the European sea coasts. , 1963, commun. Flor.-sociol. Arbeitsgem. 10: 116-129.
  • Beeftink, WG: The systematics of the European salt plant communities. , 1968, in: R. Tüxen, cd., Plant sociological systematics. Junk, The Hague, 239-272.
  • Beeftink, WG: Overview of the number of recordings of European and North African salt plant communities for the project of the data processing working group. , 1972, in: R. Tüxen cd. Basic questions and methods in plant sociology. 13er. Symp. Intern. Ver. Vegetation Science 1970. Junk, Den Haag, 371–396.
  • Beeftink, WG: Continuous square research on vegetation on periodically flooded and diked salt soils in the southwest of the Netherlands. , 1975, in: W. Schmidt (Ed.) Sukzessionsforschung. Ber. Symp. Intern. Ver. Vegetation Science 1973. Cramer, Vaduz, 567–578.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b memorial at www.online-familieberichten.nl. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n AHL Huiskes, Cornelis WPM Blom, Jelte Rozema: Vegetation between land and sea. Structure and processes. , Geobotany, Volume 11, Publisher: Springer Netherlands, eBook ISBN 978-94-009-4065-9 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-94-009-4065-9 , hardcover ISBN 978-90-6193-649-7 , p 2-13. online in google books. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
  3. ↑ Westhoff, V. & Beeftink, WG: De vegetatie van duinen, slikken en Schorren op de Kaloot en in het Noord-Sloe. 1. Inleiding - De Kaloot. De Levende Natuur. , 1950, 53: 124-133.
  4. ↑ Westhoff, V. & Beeftink, WG: De vegetatie van duinen, slikken en Schorren op de Kaloot en in het Noord-Sloe. II. Het Noord-Sloe. De Levende Natuur. , 1950, 53: 225-233.
  5. ↑ Beeftink, WG: De vegetatie van duinen, slikken en schorren van de Kaloot. , 1951, Typescript Lab. voor Plantensystematick en -Geografie, Landbouwhogeschool, Wageningen
  6. ↑ WG Beeftink: De gevoeligheid van fruitgewassen voor Overstroming met zout water. , 1955, Directeur Tuinbouw 18: 234-249.
  7. ↑ WG Beeftink: Examination of soils and crops after the inundations of 1st February, 1953. III. Sensitivity to salt of inundated fruit crops. , 1955, Neth. Agric. Sci. 3: 15-34.
  8. ↑ Delta Institute, founding, 30th anniversary at www.digibron.nl. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  9. ↑ WG Beeftink: Vegetatie en molluskenfauna van de schorren in het Scheldeestuarium , 1956, Jaarb. Dodonaca 23: 27-43
  10. ↑ WG Beeftink: De invloed van het zoutgehalte van het vloedwater op de vegetatie en molluskenfauna lang de Wester- en Osterschelde , 1956, Kon. Ned. Bot. Ver., Versl. en Med. 1955: 25-26
  11. ↑ WG Beeftink: De halophiele vegetatie en molluscfauna van Skallingen , 1957, Kon. Ned. Bot. Ver., Versl. en Med. 1956: 34-35
  12. ↑ WG Beeftink: Revolutie in de Zeeuwse flora en fauna. Belangrijk aspect of the delta plan. , 1958, Elseviers Weekblad 4 en 11 jan. 1958
  13. ↑ Beeftink, WG: Vegetation science permanent square research on periodically flooded and diked salt farms in the southwest of the Netherlands. , 1975, in: W. Schmidt (Ed.): Sukzessionsforschung. , Ber. Symp. Intern. Ver. Vegetation Science 1973. Cramer, Vaduz, 567-578.
  14. ↑ Beeftink. WG: The coastal salt marshes of Western and Northern Europe: An ecological and phytosociological approach. , 1977, in: VJ Chapman (Ed.): Wet Coastal Ecosystems. , Elsevier, Amsterdam, 109-155.
  15. ↑ Beeftink, WG, Daane, MC, De Munck. W. & Nieuwenhuize, J .: Aspects of population dynamics in Halimione portulacoides communities. , 1978, Vegetatio 36: 31-43.
  16. ↑ Beeftink, WG: The structure of saltmarsh communities in relation to environmental disturbances. , 1979, in: RJ Jefferies & AJ Davy (Eds.): Ecological Processes in Coastal Environments , Blackwell Scientific, Publ., Oxford. 77-93.
  17. ↑ Beeftink, WG: De betekenis van de faktor getij voor de schorvegetatie in Zuidwest Nederland. , 1986, Proc. Symp. Oecologie van estuariene vegetatie, April 24, 1985, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, pp. 1-45.
  18. ↑ Beeftink, WG: Vegetation responses to changes in tidal inundation of salt marshes. , 1987, Geobotany Series, Junk, The Hague.
  19. ↑ Van Noordwijk-Puijk, K., Beeftink, WG & Hogeweg, P .: Vegetation development on salt-marsh flats after disappearance of the tidal factor. , 1979, Vegetatio 39: 1-13.
  20. ↑ Beeftink, WG: Vegetation study as a generator for population biological and physiological research on salt marshes. , 1985, Vegetatio 62: 469-486.
  21. ↑ Beeftink. WG: Vegetation dynamics in retrospect and prospect. , 1979, Introduction to the Proceedings of the Second Symposium of the Working Group Succession Research on Permanent Plots. Vegetatio 4: 101-105.
  22. ↑ Hogeweg, P., Hesper, B., Van Schaik, C. & Beeftink, WG: Patterns in vegetation succession, an ecomorphological study. , 1985, in: J. White (Ed.): The population structure of vegetation. , Handbook of Vegetation Science 3. Junk, Dordrecht, pp. 637-666.
  23. ↑ [www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/ocrd/156725.pdf Prof. Beeftink] at www.vliz.be. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  24. ↑ Beeftink, WG, Nieuwenhuize, J., Stoeppler, M. & Mohl, C .: Heavy metal accumulation in salt marshes from the Western and Eastern Scheldt. , 1982, The Science of the Total Environment 25: 199-223.
  25. ↑ Baars, AJ, Van Beek, H., Spierenburg, Th. J., Beeftink, WG, Nieuwenhuize, J., Pekelder, JJ & Boom, J .: Milieucontaminatie door enige metalen en fluor op het Verdronken Land van Saeftinge en de effectsen daarvan op schapen. , 1987, Landbouwk. Tijdschr.
  26. ↑ Baars, AJ, Van Beek, H., Spierenhurg, Th. J., Beeftink, WG, Nieuwenhuize, J., Pekelder, JJ & Boom, J .: Environmental contamination by some metals and fluorine in the Saeftinge salt marsh (The Netherlands) and its effects on sheep. , 1987, Veterinary Quarterly.
  27. ↑ Baars, AJ, Van Beek, H., Spierenburg, Th. J., De Graaf, GJ, Beeftink, WG, Nieuwenhuize, J., Boom J. & Pekelden JJ: Fluoride pollution in a salt marsh: Its spreading in soil , vegetation and sheep. , 1987, Toxicology of Bull. Environm. Contam. Toxicol.
personal data
SURNAME Beeftink, Willem Gerrit
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beeftink, Wim G.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch botanist
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Nieuwer-Amstel
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 2014
Place of death Middelburg