Helgoland und die Erforschung der marinen Benthosalgen

Abstract

Early phycological research on the island of Helgoland was performed by amateur phycologists from the adjacent coastal regions of Germany (Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein). These pioneers were followed by professionals, and by collectors from the mainland universities, particularly from Berlin. This second phase group includes the naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, the zoologists Johannes Müller, Ernst Haeckel and Anton Dohrn, and the botanists Alexander Braun, Nathanael Pringsheim, and Ferdinand Cohn. The leading marine phycologist in Germany, towards the end of the 19th century, was Johannes Reinke, who finally worked at the University of Kiel. Paul Kuckuck's doctoral thesis had been supervised by Reinke who recommended him for the post of the first curator of botany at the Biological Station of Helgoland, which was founded in 1892. Kuckuck worked on the island from 1892 to 1914. After World War I, and after Kuckuck's untimely death, Wilhelm Nienburg became the second curator of botany on Helgoland, from 1921 to 1923. The next permanent phycologist on the island, from 1925 to 1936, was Ernst Schreiber. He was followed in 1936 by Peter Kornmann, who retired in 1972 but still continues as a research worker, together with Paul-Heinz Sahling, who started to work as a technical assistant under the guidance of Ernst Schreiber in 1927.