Göte Turesson

Gothenburg Vilhelm Turesson ( born April 6, 1892 in Malmo, † 30 December 1970, Uppsala ) was a Swedish botanist and evolutionary biologist. His botanical author abbreviation is " Turesson ".

Life

Turesson, who grew up in Sweden, studied natural sciences at the University of Washington, where he graduated in 1915 with a Master of Science. He then returned to Sweden, where he performed from 1916 plant ecological studies. In 1921 he became professor of plant genetics at Lund University, where he received his doctorate in 1922.

From 1922 to 1927 he was a lecturer at the University of Lund, before he was employed from 1927 to 1931 at the Agricultural Research and Experimental Institute Weibullsholm at Landskrona and there undertook studies to plant breeding.

In 1931, he returned as a lecturer at the University of Lund in 1935, and received the a call from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala Ultuna as Professor of Botany and Genetics, where he remained until his retirement in 1959.

Work

The pioneering plant ecological studies Turessons date from the period between 1919-1927, thus partially before his promotion. It was the fact that he used experimental methods to study the genetic differences between different "races" of a plant species, and thus to show their adaptation to different habitats, one of the pioneers of evolution, ecology and genetics. He coined the terms ecotype among others (1922 ), Glazialrelikt (1927) and Agamospezies ( 1929).

His research findings he was able to show, among other things, that the genetic makeup of a population, ie, the genotype, is essential for the differentiation into subpopulations. This view was then in contrast to the view that the phenotype play the decisive role in the natural selection in the Darwinian sense.

Turesson has let pubescens plants from different Swedish regions on the grounds of the Agricultural College in Ultuna a row of trees with Betula. The trees represent a " genetic gradient " of Skåne in southern Sweden to Lapland and occupy today in their phenological phenomena research results Turessons in a spectacular way: The departure of birch buds begin to " Südbäumen " first and is gradually " north " continue, while the leaf color in the fall begins at the trees in the north and the leaves of the birch trees in the south discolour and fall than last.

Quote

• (1925 ): " With the increase enlarge in our knowledge of ecotypes, now in its beginning, a natural system of life forms will doubtlessly be built up There can be no doubt as to the great, importance of seeking a system for the understanding of the inter- relations of plants and Their habitats ... "

Honors

Selected Literature

• The cause of plagiotropy in maritime shore plants. Lunds Universities Arsskrift. N. F. Avd. 2 Vol 16, No. 2 1919
• The species and variety as ecological units. Hereditas 3:100-113. Hereditas 3:100-113. 1922 text
• The genotypical response of the plant species to the habitat. Hereditas 3:211-350. 1922
• The scope and import of genecology. " Hereditas 4:171-176. 1923
• The plant species in relation to habitat and climate. Hereditas 6: 147-236. 1925
• Contributions to the genecology of glacial relics. Hereditas. 9:81-101. 1927
• The selective effect of climate upon the species plans. Hereditas 14: 99-152. 1930
• The geographic distribution of the alpine ecotype of some Eur- Asiatic plants. Hereditas. 15: 329-346. 1931

Swell

• Frederic L. Holmes (ed. ): Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol 18 (1990). Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-19178-4.
• Richard B. Walker: Gothenburg Turesson. In: Arthur Kruckeberg, Richard B. Walker and Alan E. Leviton (eds.): Genecology and Ecogeographic Races. Papers in the Biological Sciences Presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division AAAS on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Gothenburg Turesson. 285 pp. 9-36. Pacific Division, Amer. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Calif. Acad. of Sciences, San Francisco. 1995 ISBN. 0-934394-10-5.
• D. Briggs, SM Walters: Plant variation and evolution. Pp. 167-174. 3rd. edition. 1997th Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, London, New York.