Eugenius Warming facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Eugen Warming
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| Born | 3 November 1841 Mandø, Denmark
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| Died | 2 April 1924 (aged 82) Copenhagen, Denmark
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| Nationality | Danish |
| Known for | founding ecology plant life forms tropical botany |
| Awards | Commander 1st Degree of the Order of the Dannebrog Commander of the Royal Victorian Order Imperial Order of the Rose Erzherzog Rainer-Medaille, Kaiserlich-königlichen zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien (1911) Great Linnean Medal in Gold, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1922) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Ecology |
| Institutions | University of Copenhagen |
| Doctoral students | Christen C. Raunkiær Wilhelm Johannsen Frederik Børgesen Morten Porsild Johannes Schmidt Olaf Hagerup Henning Eiler Petersen Carl Hansen Ostenfeld Ove Paulsen |
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Johannes Eugenius Bülow Warming (born November 3, 1841 – died April 2, 1924), known as Eugen Warming, was a Danish botanist. He is famous for being a main founder of ecology, which is the study of how living things interact with each other and their environment.
Warming wrote the very first textbook on plant ecology in 1895. He also taught the first university course on ecology. Many people believe he gave the science of ecology its true meaning and purpose. A scholar named R. J. Goodland said in 1975 that if one person could be called the founder of ecology, it should be Warming.
Warming wrote many important books about plants, plant geography, and ecology. These books were translated into several languages. They had a huge impact on science at the time and for many years after. His most important books were Plantesamfund and Haandbog i den systematiske Botanik.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Warming was born on a small island called Mandø in Denmark. He was the only child of Jens Warming, who was a minister. His mother was Anna Marie von Bülow af Plüskow.
When his father died early, Eugen and his mother moved to Vejle. This town is in eastern Jutland, Denmark.
On November 10, 1871, he married Johanne Margrethe Jespersen, also known as Hanne Warming. They had eight children together. One of his sons, Jens Warming, became a professor of economy.
Education and Career Journey
Eugen Warming went to high school in Ribe, Denmark. In 1859, he started studying natural history at the University of Copenhagen.
He took a break from his studies for three and a half years. From 1863 to 1866, he worked as a secretary for a Danish scientist named Peter Wilhelm Lund. Lund studied ancient life forms, like fossils, in Lagoa Santa, Brazil.
After returning to Europe, Warming continued his studies in Germany. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Copenhagen in 1871.
Warming became a professor of botany at Stockholms högskola (now Stockholm University) from 1882 to 1885. He was even chosen as the head of the university during that time. In 1885, he returned to the University of Copenhagen as a botany professor. He also became the director of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden. He held these important jobs until he retired in 1910. He was also the head of the University of Copenhagen from 1907 to 1908.
Warming often visited universities in other countries. He went to conferences for scientists in Scandinavia and Germany. He also attended international meetings for botanists. He was a member of many important scientific groups, including the Royal Society in London. He received several awards, including the Order of the Dannebrog from Denmark. Eugen Warming is buried in Assistants Cemetery in Copenhagen.
Exciting Expeditions
Eugen Warming loved to explore and study plants in different parts of the world. He went on several important expeditions:
- 1863-1866: Brasil, especially Lagoa Santa. This trip was very important for his later work.
- 1884: Greenland (on the Fylla expedition).
- 1885: Norway, in the Finnmark region.
- 1887: Norway, in the Dovre mountains.
- 1891-1892: Venezuela, Trinidad, and the Danish West Indies.
- 1895: Faroe Islands.
He also made shorter trips to places like the Alps mountains.
Plantesamfund: A Groundbreaking Book
Warming's famous book, Plantesamfund, was based on his lectures at the University of Copenhagen. The title means 'Plant Communities' or 'Oecology of Plants'.
This book introduced the main types of plant environments around the world. Warming wanted to explain how nature solves similar problems. For example, how do plants deal with dry weather, floods, or cold? He showed that different plants in different parts of the world use similar ways to survive these challenges. This was a very new and modern idea at the time. It was different from just describing what plants grew where.
The book was first published in Danish in 1895. It was quickly translated into German in 1896. Later, it was translated into Polish, Russian, and English. The English version, Oecology of Plants, came out in 1909.
Warming as a Teacher
Warming was a very good teacher who cared about his students. He wrote many textbooks for university students and even for schools. These books helped people learn about botany far beyond his classrooms in Copenhagen.
Handbook of Systematic Botany
Warming's book on how to classify plants was very popular. It was used in many universities, even outside Denmark.
- It was first published in Danish in 1878.
- It was translated into German in 1890.
- A Russian version came out in 1893.
- The English translation, A handbook of systematic botany, was published in 1895.
Handbook of General Botany
Warming also wrote a textbook about how plants are built (their morphology), their internal structure (anatomy), and how they work (physiology).
- This book was published in Danish in 1880.
- It was translated into Swedish in 1882 and German in 1907-09.
His school textbook, Plantelivet (Plant Life), was also used in other countries. It was translated into English, Russian, and Dutch.
Outdoor Learning: Excursions
Warming believed that students needed to learn about plants outside, not just in a classroom. He used the Copenhagen Botanical Garden to show live plants. But to teach plant ecology, he knew students had to go into nature.
He got money from the Danish government to take students on longer trips every year starting in 1893. These trips helped students see how plants adapted to different places. They visited dunes, salt marshes, and other habitats. Warming wrote notes about these trips, which were published and helped others learn about plant adaptation.
Warming's Scientific Discoveries
Plant Classification
His time in Brazil was very important for his future work. He collected 2,600 plant species there. About 370 of these were completely new to science! He wrote a huge 40-volume work about these plants called Symbolæ ad Floram Brasiliæ centralis cognoscendam. For this project, he worked with over fifty other plant experts.
Favorite Plant Family: Podostemaceae
Warming was especially interested in a plant family called Podostemaceae. He first saw these plants in Brazil. They are very unusual angiosperms (flowering plants) that look more like liverworts. They live in harsh environments, often in fast-flowing water. He wrote a five-part study about this family.
Studying Lagoa Santa Plants
After finishing his work on classifying the plants, Warming published an important study about the plant communities in the Lagoa Santa area. This area has a type of vegetation called cerrado.
- His book, Lagoa Santa, was published in 1892.
- It was later translated into Portuguese.
Plant Life Forms
Warming was very interested in how plants adapt to their environment. He started studying plant life-forms in the 1880s. A life-form describes how a plant grows and survives, especially during winter or dry periods.
He published a paper in 1884 about how plants grow, survive winter, and renew themselves. He classified plants based on how long they live, how they spread, and how their shoots and roots grow. He observed these things by growing wild plants from seeds in a garden.
Later, his student Christen C. Raunkiær developed his own famous plant life-form system. Warming then returned to this topic in his 1908 book, Om planterigets livsformer (On the life forms in the vegetable kingdom). Warming's system was more detailed than Raunkiær's.
His very last published work, in 1923, was another attempt to create a system for all plant life forms, including bacteria and algae.
Greenland, Iceland, and Faroe Islands Plants
Warming wrote several papers based on his trip to Southwest Greenland in 1884. He studied the vegetation of Greenland and how its plants came to be there.
He also edited large books about the plants of the Faroe Islands and Iceland. These books were based on studies by Danish scientists.
- Botany of the Færöes (1901–1908)
- The Botany of Iceland (1912–1932)
Plants of Denmark
Warming also wrote a series of books about the plants of his home country, Denmark:
- Dansk Plantevækst. 1. Strandvegetationen. (Danish Plant Growth. 1. Beach Vegetation.) (1906)
- Dansk Plantevækst. 2. Klitterne. (Danish Plant Growth. 2. The Dunes.) (1909)
- Dansk Plantevækst. 3. Skovene. (Danish Plant Growth. 3. The Forests.) (1917)
Warming's Impact on Ecology
Warming's work had a huge impact on the development of ecology, especially in Britain and the USA. Even though his first books were not in English, they were translated and widely read.
For example, the British ecologist Arthur Tansley was greatly influenced by Warming's book Plantesamfund. Reading it made Tansley switch from studying plant anatomy to studying ecology. Tansley even used Warming's book as a textbook in his university courses.
American naturalists like Henry Chandler Cowles were also inspired by Warming. Cowles' famous studies of Lake Michigan sand dune plant communities were directly influenced by Warming's studies of Danish dunes.
Warming's ideas also influenced the American sociologist Robert E. Park. Park read Oecology of Plants and used the ideas of how plant communities change over time (called ecological succession) to think about how human communities change. This led to the idea of human ecology.
Warming had a big influence on ecology in Scandinavia too. He especially inspired Christen Raunkiær, who was his student and later took over his teaching position at the University of Copenhagen.
Warming and Evolution
Warming strongly believed that living things adapt to their environment. He thought that new species could appear in a few ways:
- Through inheritance of acquired characters: the idea that traits an organism gains during its life can be passed to its children.
- Through hybridization: when two different species create offspring together.
- Through natural selection: the process where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. Warming thought this was the least important way.
He observed that the same plant could grow very differently depending on its environment. This is now called phenotypic plasticity.
Warming's Beliefs and Views
Warming grew up in a Christian home and remained religious throughout his life. He accepted the idea that living things change over time (evolution). However, he believed that the rules governing evolution, like the rules governing planets, were created by God. He felt that science could not fully explain how life began, and that a powerful creator must have been involved. Many other scientists at the time, like Alfred Russel Wallace, shared this view.
Politically, Warming was a national-conservative. He supported the idea of Scandinavian unity and was against Prussia (a German state). He was sad that his birthplace, Schleswig, was taken by Prussia in 1864. He even secretly gave money to help Danish farmers in Schleswig buy land to prevent German influence.
Named in His Honor
Many things have been named after Eugen Warming to honor his contributions to science:
- The Orchid genus Warmingia
- Dozens of different plant species.
- Several types of fungi, like Microbotryum warmingii.
- Warming Land, a peninsula in northern Greenland.
Since 1994, the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil has held a series of 'Eugen Warming lectures in Evolutionary Ecology'.
Images for kids
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Eugen Warming in 1879
See also
In Spanish: Eugenius Warming para niños
