Richard Kolkwitz (March 23, 1873 – April 16, 1956) was a German

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who was a native of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. He studied

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

under Adolf Engler (1844–1930) and

Simon Schwendener Simon Schwendener (10 February 1829 – 27 May 1919) was a Swiss botanist who was a native of Buchs in the Canton of St. Gallen. In 1856 he received his doctorate at the University of Zurich, where afterwards he was an assistant to Carl Wilhelm ...

(1829–1919), and from 1895 to 1900 was an assistant at the university under Leopold Kny (1841–1916). Afterwards, he became a professor of botany in

, and from 1901 until 1938 was also in charge of the Biological Prussian Experimental and Testing Institute for water supply and

sewage disposal Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding envir ...

. In 1954 he became a professor of botany at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

Saprobic Studies

Kolkwitz is known for work with Maximilian Marsson (1845–1909) in the development of the " saprobic system" as a

biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...

determination of water quality and levels of organic waste (pollution) in rivers and streams. Their methodology was a non-chemical analysis that was based on patterns of abundance and distribution of various biological species. They examined the biological patterns of approximately 800 species of water plants and

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s in their studies, and produced a saprobic index of four zones defining levels of water quality. The term "polysaprobic" was used for river environments with a large amount of decaying organic matter; "oligosaprobic" described locations with the least amount of organic waste, while alpha- and beta-"mesosaprobic" defined moderately polluted habitats. Later, this index was expanded into nine zones, with "xenosaprobic" being the least polluted and poly-saprobic" having the highest level of waste.

Eponyms

The genus ''Kolkwitzia'' is named after Kolkwitz. It contains one species, '' Kolkwitzia amabilis'', which is commonly known as a "beauty bush". Also a device known in Germany as a ''Kolkwitzkammer'' is named after him, which is an instrument used to determine the quantity of cells and cell aggregates of

phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. Ph ...

References

* ''This article is based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia.''
Water Pollution: Causes, Effects and Control
by P K Goel {{DEFAULTSORT:Kolkwitz, Richard 20th-century German botanists Scientists from Berlin 1956 deaths 1873 births