Wolfgang Schwenke

Wolfgang Schwenke ( born March 22, 1921 in Roßlau; † 3 May 2006 Fürstenfeldbruck ) was a German zoologist, entomologist and forest scientists. He was known primarily as the editor of the five -volume work The forest pests in Europe.

Life

Wolfgang Schwenke was born on 22 March 1921 in Roßlau on the Elbe. After attending high school in Dessau in 1939 he went to Berlin to study zoology. Because of the outbreak of the Second World War he was drafted into the army, so he only was able to continue his studies in 1946 in Leipzig. 1950 Schwenke was phil with a thesis on the characterization and delineation of forest types using the insect fauna of Dr.. doctorate and was thereafter until 1959 as a research associate at the German Entomological Institute in Berlin- Friedrich Hagen worked. He was head of 1954, the Department of Environmental Entomology.

In 1958 the Habilitation at the Humboldt University in Berlin on the site binding of the population dynamics of forest insects. Schwenke then moved to the University of Munich, where he was from 1959 freelancer for Wilhelm Twelve at the Institute of Applied Zoology. As the successor Zwölfer he was from 1964 to 1966, first acting director of the Institute, 1966 then head. At the same time he received the appointment to the chair of Applied Zoology. He held until his retirement in 1987 Both functions. At the same time in this position, he was head of the Institute of Zoology of the Forest Protection Forest Research Institute of the Bavarian State Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. As a professor, he had around 100 undergraduates, 40 graduate students and postdoctoral three.

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

Services

Schwenke has been employed by forest insects in the course of his scientific work intensively with the causes of proliferation specifically. Yet his focus was also on the influences that have the weather or fertilization on trees and the living of them animals. He succeeded in engaging the Applied Entomology in the evolving ecosystem research. His motto, " Do not fight symptoms but ecosystems stabilize " as he sat down - also inspired by the writings of Karl Gößwalds - for a development of forest protection towards the forest hygiene and taught as a counterweight to the then prevalent chemical pesticide at his institute a focus department for biological and biotechnical a fight. In addition, he established there a department for small mammals and mice built a surveillance network for Bayern on. He was considered an excellent connoisseur of parasitic wasps and put in 1999 a revision of the parasitic wasp family Mesochorinae ago.

Swing to bibliography consists of more than 100 publications. Particularly well known are the principal for the forestry studies textbook guide of Forest Zoology and Forest protection against animals ( 1981), and his major work, The forest pests in Europe in five volumes (1972 - 1986), the publication of which he regarded as his scientific life's work. In addition, Schwenke was also editor of the journals Journal of Applied Entomology (until 1995 ) and indicators for pest customer. With a wider audience, he had great success as a writer of popular scientific works such as the ant - book The fragrant steered state (first published 1972 ). In addition, he was also active as a translator.

For the continuation and expansion of the literary work of his predecessor at the Department of Applied Zoology, Karl Escherich, his studies on the population dynamics of insects in managed forests, as well as his successful efforts in the dissemination of research results in the field of applied entomology awarded him the German Society for General and Applied Entomology from on 28 March 1995 with the Karl Escherich medal.

Works (selection)

Scientific publications and textbooks

  • Comparing - biocoenologische investigations in the forest area of southwestern Flämings and his same - foreland. A contribution to the problem of demarcation biocoenologischer units. ( Dissertation. ), Leipzig 1950
  • About the site dependence of the mass change of larch leaf miner ( Colephora laricella Hb ) and the Ahorneule ( Acronycta aceris L.) ... etc.. ( Habilitationsschrift. ), Berlin 1958
  • Guide of Forest Zoology and Forest protection against animals, Hamburg 1981
  • Revision of the European Mesochorinae (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonoidea, Ichneumonidae ), Munich 1999

Science and publications

  • In between toxic and hunger. Pest yesterday, today and tomorrow, Berlin, Heidelberg and New York 1968
  • The fragrant steered state, 1972
  • The unknown forest, Hannover 1987

Publishing activities

  • The forest pests in Europe. A handbook in 5 volumes Volume 1: worms, snails, spiders, millipedes and insects hemimetabole, Hamburg and Berlin 1972
  • Volume 2: Beetles, Hamburg and Berlin 1974
  • Volume 3: butterflies, Hamburg and Berlin 1978
  • Volume 4: Hymenoptera and Diptera, Hamburg 1982
  • Volume 5: vertebrates, Hamburg 1986

As a translator

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