Anton Kerner von Marilaun

Kerner was born in Mautern, Lower Austria, and studied medicine in Vienna, graduating in 1854 with a medical degree. He also studied the flora of Wachau. He then became a teacher at Often and continued his studies in natural history. In 1858 Kerner was appointed professor of botany at the Polytechnic Institute at Buda, and then in 1860 was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Innsbruck. During this period he carried out phytosociologic studies in Central Europe. He resigned the latter position in 1878 to become professor of systematic botany at the University of Vienna, and also curator of the botanical garden there. As part of his expansive exsiccata series Flora exsiccata Austro-Hungarica, which he started in 1881, von Marilaun recruited botanists as collectors including Vincze von Borbás, Karl Eggerth and later as editor including Richard Wettstein.{{cite web

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| quote = }}{{cite journal |last1=Svojtka |first1=Matthias |date=2009 |title=Sammler als Wegbereiter naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis – Fallstudien Leopold Johann Nepomuk von Sacher-Masoch (1797-1874) und Karl Eggerth (1861-1888) |url=https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:244263 |journal=Berichte der Geologischen Bundesanstalt |volume=45 |pages=40–43 |doi= |access-date=9 February 2023}}{{Cite web |title=Flora exsiccata Austro-Hungarica, a museo botanico universitatis vindobonensis edita: IndExs ExsiccataID=240009546 |website=IndExs - Index of Exsiccatae|publisher=Botanische Staatssammlung München |url=http://www.botanischestaatssammlung.de/DatabaseClients/IndExs/Exsiccatae_IndExs_Details.jsp?ExsiccataID=240009546 |access-date=1 June 2024}}

In 1863 he wrote in his Das Pflanzenleben der Donauländer that much more was known about the plants of south America than of Austro-Hungary thanks to a traveller like Alexander von Humboldt. He set about fixing this imbalance by examining in detail the physical structure of vegetation in the region. He examined plants and their associations.{{Cite journal |last=Nicolson |first=Malcolm |date=1996 |title=Humboldtian Plant Geography after Humboldt: The Link to Ecology |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4027735 |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=289–310 |doi=10.1017/S0007087400034476 |jstor=4027735 |issn=0007-0874}} Kerner was particularly active in the fields of phytogeography and phytosociology.{{Cite journal |last=Egerton |first=Frank N. |date=2013 |title=History of Ecological Sciences, Part 48: Formalizing Plant Ecology, about 1870 to mid-1920s |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/bullecosociamer.94.4.341 |journal=Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America |volume=94 |issue=4 |pages=341–378 |doi=10.1890/0012-9623-94.4.341 |issn=0012-9623}}{{Cite journal |last1=Fekete |first1=Gábor |last2=Tóthmérész |first2=Béla |date=1993 |title=Vegetation Science in Hungary |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3236116 |journal=Journal of Vegetation Science |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=279–282 |doi=10.2307/3236116 |jstor=3236116 |issn=1100-9233}} Kerner also examined plant-insect interactions and noted the role of mechanical defences, chemicals, stinging hairs and so on and termed the relationship as "armed freedom."{{Cite journal |last=Hartmann |first=Thomas |date=2008 |title=The lost origin of chemical ecology in the late 19th century |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=105 |issue=12 |pages=4541–4546 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0709231105 |doi-access=free |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=2290813 |pmid=18218780}} He was knighted and given the title of Ritter von Marilaun in 1877. Marilaun was the summer family home in Trins in the Gschnitztal valley. Here he established an alpine garden. He compared the growth of plants in this garden and at Vienna and Innsbruck conducing an altitudinal adaptation experiment for 6 years involving about 300 annuals and perennials. He died of a stroke in 1898 in Vienna at the age of 67.

He said "… and years pass by until a second generation [of plants] can develop stronger and richer on the prepared soil; but restless works the plant kingdom and constructs its green building further; on the corpses of perished roots, new, younger plant forms germinate, and so it goes on in tireless change until, finally, the shady treetops of a high forest murmur above a humus rich soil."Das Pflanzenleben der Donauländer 1863

Kerner's son Fritz became a pioneer paleoclimatologist and geologist.

• Das Pflanzenleben der Donauländer ([https://books.google.com/books?id=q2nSfVD7qJsC The Background of Plant Ecology], translated by Henry S. Conard, 1951), Innsbruck, 1863. This book established his reputation and reports on his botanical explorations in Hungary.
• Die Kultur der Alpenflanzen, 1864. On the culture of alpine plants.
• Die botanischen Gärten, 1874. A sketch of a model botanical garden.
• Vegetationsverhältnisse des mittlern und östlichen Ungarn und Siebenbürgen, Innsbruck, 1875.
• {{cite book|last=von Marilaun|first=Anton Kerner|title=The natural history of plants, their forms, growth, reproduction, and distribution', trans. FW Oliver et al. from Pflanzenleben, 1890-1891|publisher=Holt|location=New York|page= 4: 603|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/54631#/summary|accessdate=5 February 2014|year=1895–96}} See also [https://web.archive.org/web/20140221173359/http://naturalhistoryofplants.com/ HTML version ]

One of his most important works.

In 1867, he finished the publication of the results of his studies with respect to the limits of vegetation of more than a thousand species of plants.

• Frederic Clements
• Eugenius Warming

{{reflist}}

• Knoll, Fritz (1950): "Anton Kerner von Marilaun, ein Erforscher des Pflanzenlebens." in: "Oesterreichische Naturforscher und Techniker" ed. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 216 p.
• Petz-Grabenbauer, Maria, Kiehn, Michael (2004): "Anton Kerner von Marilaun", Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, {{ISBN|3-7001-3302-2}}.
• {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Kerner, Anton|year=1905}}

{{commons|Anton Kerner von Marilaun|Anton Kerner von Marilaun}}

• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Anton Kerner von Marilaun |sopt=t}}
• [http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/3302-2 Petz-Grabenbauer, Maria, Kiehn, Michael (2004): "Anton Kerner von Marilaun" - A new book about Anton Kerner von Marilaun published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (written in German)]
• [http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/chronob/KERN1831.htm Chrono-biographical Sketch: Anton Kerner von Marilaun]
• [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v58/n1498/pdf/058251a0.pdf Obituary of Anton Kerner von Marilaun] written by Otto Stapf, Nature 58, 251 - 252 (1898)
• [https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryof01kernrich Full text of The Natural History of Plants, Their Forms, Growth, Reproduction, and Distribution: from the German of Anton Kerner von Marilaun (Volume 1) (1895-96)]
• [https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryof02kernrich Full text of The Natural History of Plants, Their Forms, Growth, Reproduction, and Distribution: from the German of Anton Kerner von Marilaun (Volume 2) (1895-96)]
• [https://archive.org/search.php?query=kerner%20anton Digitalized books written by Anton Kerner von Marilaun, mostly English translations]
• [http://www.pnas.org/content/105/12/4541.short PNAS-Artikel written by Thomas Hartmann about the lost origins of chemical ecology in the 19th century (containing a paragraph about Anton Kerner von Marilaun, p. 4542)]

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Category:1831 births

Category:1898 deaths

Category:Botanists from Austria-Hungary

Category:Academic staff of the University of Vienna

Category:Academic staff of the University of Innsbruck

Category:Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala