Karl Möbius

Karl August Möbius ( born February 7, 1825 Eilenburg, † April 26, 1908 in Berlin) was a German zoologist and ecologist.

Life

With four years of Karl August Möbius attended the Mountain School of haste castle. His father sent him 12 years to a private teacher training college. In 1844, he put in Weissenfels from the teacher's exam with distinction.

Employee he was in the secondary school of Seesen am Harz. Although he received much recognition as a teacher, he enrolled in 1849 for science and philosophy at the University of Berlin. After graduating, he became in 1853 teacher of zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, physics and chemistry at the Johanneum the city of Hamburg. In 1863 he taught in the Zoological Garden of Hamburg, the first public aquarium a on German soil. This was followed by a doctorate at the University of Halle.

1868 Charles A. Möbius was appointed a full professor in Kiel at the newly founded Department of Zoology; his responsibilities included the management of the Zoological Museum. There he worked intensively with the study of marine animals, first in his published together with Heinrich Adolph Meyer two-volume work, The fauna of the Bay of Kiel ( 1865/1872 ). Already this publication reflects the clear ecological traits. He also taught at the Naval Academy and School (Kiel).

Möbius in 1868 was commissioned by the government of Prussia and the fishing club to inspect the plant of artificial oyster farms. Therefore, he undertook extensive research trips to France and England. In its first report of 1870 About oyster and mussel farming and raising them on the north German coast, he denied the possibility of an artificial breeding for Germany. Despite the negative opinion he was charged with further research, which he now experiences in the U.S. that involved. In his final book The oyster and the oyster industry he could therefore represent the changing structure between the oysters and the other animals and plants an oyster bank exactly.

Mobius had recognized the strong interdependence of all living things an oyster bank there and coined the concept of biocenosis or " life community " " for the average conditions of life corresponding selection and number of species and individuals, which are mutually dependent and by propagation in a measured field continually receives " ( according to Schramm 1984, p 161). The biocenosis concept is a key concept of Synecology.

As Möbius in 1879 rector of the University of Kiel was, he used his influence to demand more clarity and complexity of natural history education in Germany: " Who writes difficult to understand, has no clear insight into what he wants to share with others. " His most important enhance the content of biology teaching was to extend the time alone usual taxonomic method towards a more oriented to biological phenomena lessons. This concept has also had an impact on his student Friedrich boy.

1888 took over Mobius the management and redeployment of the zoological collection in the new Museum of Natural History in Berlin and professor of systematic zoology and geography at the university there. For the benefit of both visitors and researchers he separated in the Museum 's main scientific collection of the public display collection. At the same time he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. At the age of 80, he ended December 30, 1905 his scientific activity. 1908 died Möbius age of 83 and was buried at the cemetery Luis III in Berlin- Westend.

His brother in law was the philosopher Jürgen Bona Meyer ( 1829-1897 ).

Works (selection)

• Animal life on the ground of the German Baltic and North Seas: Lecture, held on Nov 26, 1870 hall of harmony in Kiel. Lüderitz, Berlin 1871 ( digitized )

• Together with Heinrich Adolph Meyer: The fauna of the Bay of Kiel: Vol I: The opisthobranchs or Opisthobranchia. (1865 ); Vol II: The Prosobranchia and lamellibranch. (1872 ) With hand-colored lithographs.

• For biocenosis - term. The oyster and the oyster industry. With introductions and notes by Günther Leps and Thomas Potthast, Frankfurt: Verl H. German, 2nd exp. Edition 2006, ISBN 978-3-8171-3406-9. (1877 )

• The formation, validity and identification of the specific concepts and their relation to the theory of evolution. In: Zoological yearbooks, Journal of Systematics, biology and geography of animals 1, 241-274. (1886 )

• Aesthetics of wildlife. With 3 plates and 195 illustrations in the text. Jena: Verl of Gustav Fischer (1908 ). Now: with contemporary reviews, and a foreword by Christoph Kockerbeck, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verl, 2008 ( usually scientific culture around 1900, vol 5), ISBN 978-3-515-09281-4.