Wolfgang Schwenke (zoologist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolfgang Schwenke (born March 22, 1921 in Roßlau ; † May 3, 2006 in Fürstenfeldbruck ) was a German forest entomologist . He was best known as the editor of the five-volume work Die Forstschädlinge Europa .

Life

Wolfgang Schwenke was born on March 22, 1921 in Roßlau an der Elbe . After attending high school in Dessau , he went to Berlin in 1939 to study zoology. Because of the outbreak of the Second World War , he was drafted into the Wehrmacht , so that he could not continue his studies in Leipzig until 1946 . 1950 Schwenke with a thesis on the characterization and delineation of was forest types using the insect fauna Dr. phil. doctorate and worked until 1959 as a research assistant at the German Entomological Institute in Berlin-Friedrichshagen . From 1954 he headed the Department of Ecological Entomology there.

In 1958, he completed his habilitation at the Humboldt University in Berlin on the location-related relationship of the population dynamics of forest insects. Schwenke then moved to the University of Munich , where from 1959 he worked as a freelancer for Wilhelm Zwölfer at the Institute for Applied Zoology. As Zwölfer's successor, he was initially acting director of the institute from 1964 to 1966, and then director in 1966. At the same time he was appointed to the chair for applied zoology . He held both functions until his retirement in 1987. In this position, he was also head of the Institute for Zoological Forest Protection of the Forest Research Institute of the Bavarian State Ministry for Agriculture and Forests . As a professor, he supervised around 100 diploma students, 40 doctoral students and three post-doctoral students.

Professor Dr. phil. em. Wolfgang Schwenke, who last lived in Gröbenzell , died on May 3, 2006 after a short illness in Fürstenfeldbruck. He is buried in the forest cemetery in Dachau .

Services

In the course of his scientific work, Schwenke has dealt intensively with the causes of the mass reproduction of forest insects in particular. His focus was also on the influences that the weather or fertilization have on trees and the animals living on them. He succeeded in integrating applied entomology into developing ecosystem research . In accordance with his motto "Don't fight symptoms, but stabilize ecosystems" , he advocated the development of forest protection in the direction of forest hygiene - also inspired by the writings of Karl Gößwald - and set up a focus department at his institute as a counterweight to the chemical pest control that had prevailed up to that point for biological and biotechnological control. In addition, he established a department for small mammals there and built up a mouse monitoring network for Bavaria . He was considered an excellent expert on parasitic wasps and in 1999 submitted a revision of the parasitic wasp family Mesochorinae .

Schwenkes bibliography consists of more than 100 publications. Particularly well-known are the textbook Guideline of Forest Zoology and Forest Protection Against Animals (1981), which is essential for forestry studies, as well as his main work Die Forstschädlinge Europa in five volumes (1972-1986), the publication of which he regarded as his scientific life's work. In addition, Schwenke was editor of the two journals Zeitschrift für Angewandte Entomologie (until 1995) and Anzeiger für Pestkunde . He had great success with a wider audience as the author of popular scientific works such as the ants book The Scented State (first published in 1972). He also worked as a translator.

For the continuation and expansion of the literary work of his predecessor at the Chair of Applied Zoology, Karl Escherich , his investigations on the mass change of insects in commercial forests and his successful work in the dissemination of research results in the field of applied entomology, he was honored by the German Society for General and applied entomology on March 28, 1995 with the Karl Escherich Medal .

Works (selection)

Scientific publications and textbooks

  • Comparative biocoenological studies in the forest area of ​​southwest Fläming and its Elbe foreland. A contribution to the problem of delimiting biocoenological units . (Dissertation.), Leipzig 1950
  • About the location dependence of the mass change of larch leaf miner (Colephora laricella Hb.) And the Ahorneule (Acronycta aceris L.) ... etc . (Habilitation thesis.), Berlin 1958
  • Guide to forest zoology and forest protection against animals , Hamburg 1981
  • Revision of the European Mesochorinae ( Hymenoptera , Ichneumonoidea , Ichneumonidae ) , Munich 1999

Popular science publications

  • Between poison and hunger. Pest control yesterday, today and tomorrow , Berlin, Heidelberg and New York 1968
  • The scented state , 1972
  • The unknown forest , Hanover 1987

Editorial activity

As translator

  • Peggy Pickering Larson, Mervin W. Larson: Insect States. From the life of wasps, bees, ants and termites (OT: Lives of social insects ), Hamburg and Berlin 1971
  • Stanley Baron: The eighth plague. The desert locust , the world's largest pest (OT: The desert locust ), Hamburg, and Berlin 1975

literature

  • Wolfgang Schwenke . In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2003. 19th edition. Volume III: Schr - Z. Bio-bibliographical directory of German-speaking scientists of the present . KG Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-23607-7 , p. 3125.
  • Forestry Faculty Munich: Professor Dr. Pan 65 years old . In: The forest and wood host . Volume 41, issue 7/1986, p. 193, ISSN  0015-7961 .
  • Forestry Faculty Munich: Professor Schwenke 70 years . In: Forest and Wood . 46th volume, issue 8/1991, p. 227, ISSN  0932-9315 .
  • Forestry Faculty Munich (LMU): Professor Schwenke 60 years . In: Allgemeine Forst Zeitschrift (AFZ) . 36th year, issue 9/10 1981, p. 228, ISSN  0002-5860 .
  • Wolfgang Schwenke 1921-2006 , in: DGaaE-Nachrichten 20 (3) 2006, pp. 118–119.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schwenke, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German forest entomologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Rosslau
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 2006
Place of death Fürstenfeldbruck