Wilhelm Barthlott


Wilhelm Barthlott is a German botanist and biomimetic materials scientist. His official botanical author citation is Barthlott.
Barthlott's areas of specialization are biodiversity and bionics/biomimetics.
He is one of the pioneers in the field of biological and technical interfaces. Based on his systematic research on plant surfaces, he discovered the self-cleaning biological surfaces and developed superhydrophobic technical surfaces for different applications. The Bartlott Effects led to a paradigm shift and disruptive technologies in material science and facilitated the development of superhydrophobic biomimetic surfaces. His map of the global biodiversity distribution is the foundation for numerous research topics. Barthlott has been honored with many awards and memberships in academies. A large red-flowering tropical shrub, Barthlottia madagascariensis, and other plants are named after him.

Career

Barthlott descends from a French Huguenot family, which arrived with Jacques Barthelot in 1698 on the territory of the Maulbronn Monastery in Germany, where his mother's family houses had existed before 1500. Wilhelm Barthlott studied biology, physics, chemistry, and geography at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He earned his doctorate in 1973 with a dissertation supervised by Werner Rauh on systematics and biogeography of cacti investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy. He held a professorship at the Free University of Berlin at the Institute for Systematic Botany and Plant Geography from 1982 to 1985. In 1985 he became the chair of systematic botany at the Botanical Institute of the University of Bonn and also the director of the Botanical Garden. In 2003 he established the Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants as founding director. He was influential in the reorganization and expansion of both institutions.
Barthlott took emeritus status in 2011, and continued as the head of a long-running research project Biodiversität im Wandel. He is investigating biological and technical superhydrophobic interfaces within the scope of his research projects in biomimetics.
Barthlott published one of the most cited papers plant science and materials science. His work in materials science based on superhydrophobic lotus effect surfaces "can be considered the most famous inspiration from nature ... and has been widely applied ... in our daily life and industrial productions".

Fields of work

Botanical Research

Barthlott has done extensive research focusing on Andean South America and Africa, in particular, on the taxonomy and morphology of cacti, orchids, bromeliads and the Titan Arum, applying scanning electron microscopy and molecular methods. Barthlott's studies on carnivorous plants converged systematic and ecological research. These studies led to the discovery of the first protozoan trapping plant in the genus Genlisea. This plants also exhibit one of the highest evolutionary rates and has the smallest known genome among all flowering plants. The naming of Genlisea barthlottii pays tribute to his investigation in this regard. The shrub Barthlottia madagascariensis or the miniature titan arum and further species were named after him. Among his discoveries are the giant bromeliad Gregbrownia lyman-smithii and epiphytic cacti such as Rhipsalis juengeri, Pfeiffera miyagawae and Schlumbergera orssichiana or the succulent Peperomia graveolens. A complete list of plants can be found on the International Plant Names Index or in Plants of the World Online.
His biogeographic-ecological work was mostly conducted in South America, West Africa and Madagascar concentrating on arid regions, epiphytes in tropical forest canopy, as well as tropical inselbergs. Additional works concentrated on the global mapping of biodiversity and its macroecological dependencies on climate change and other abiotic factors, including migration and globalization. His Biodiversity Distribution Map has been published in numerous textbooks and has been the foundation for many postgraduate studies. In the framework of the BMBF-BIOTA-AFRICA project, which was co-founded by him, the biodiversity patterns in Africa as a model continent were analyzed and potential impacts of climate change are investigated.

Bionics, biomimetics and materials science

Barthlott was the first botanist using high resolution scanning electron microscopy systematically in the research of biological surfaces since 1970. Most prominent among his results was the discovery of the self-cleaning effect of superhydrophobic micro- and nanostructured surfaces, which were technically realized with the trademark "Lotus Effect" from 1998 on, and resulting products distributed worldwide. The patents and the trademark Lotus Effect are owned by the company Sto-AG. Today about 2000 publications per year are based on his discovery, while the physics behind self-cleaning surfaces is still not completely understood.
Currently, the research on biological interfaces and bionics is Barthlott's central area of interest. He provided the first evidence that superhydrophobicity evolved probably as a "key innovation" for the land transition of life already in Precambrian cyanobacteria a billion years ago. Ongoing research areas include air-retaining surfaces on the model of the floating fern Salvinia, which is based on a complex physical principle. Technical application of this effect is conceivable in shipping: By means of a reduction in frictional resistance, a 10% decrease in fuel consumption could potentially be achieved. Another application is the oil-water-separation by adsorption and transportation of oil on air retaining surfaces. Barthlott very early warned that the addition of surfactants within the global application of pesticides in agriculture disrupts the pathogen defense of crops and should be reduced

Honors and awards

Barthlott's publications comprise more than 480 titles, including many books. List in and

Selected works

  • Beek, L., Barthlott, W. et al, : Self-driven sustainable oil separation from water surfaces by biomimetic adsorbing and transporting textiles - Separations 10, 2023 - https://www.mdpi.com/2297-8739/10/12/592/pdf
  • Barthlott, W.. . in: Handbook of Self-Cleaning Surfaces and Materials: From Fundamentals to Applications, Chapter 15, pp. 359–369 - Wiley-VCH.
  • Barthlott, W., : "Superhydrophobic terrestrial Cyanobacteria and land plant transition". Frontiers of Plant Science.
  • Gandyra, D. et al. : . ''Small. 16 : 2003425. PMID 32996250. S2CID 222165388
  • Barthlott, W. : Plants and nature in Bible and Quran - how respect for nature connects us. - pp. 233–244 in Proceed. Conf. "Science and Actions for Species Protection: Noah's Arks for the 21st Century, May 2019, Eds. J.von Braun et al. – The Pontifical Academy of Sciences PAS, Vatican City
  • Da, Sié et al. .'' "Plant biodiversity patterns along a climatic gradient and across protected areas in West Africa". African Journal of Ecology. 56 : 641–652. .
  • Moosmann, M. et al.:. ''. Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology. 8 : 1671–1679. . ISSN 2190-4286. . PMID 28875104
  • Barthlott, W. et al: Bionics and Biodiversity – Bio-inspired Technical Innovation for a Sustainable Future, in: "Biomimetic Research for Architecture and Building Construction: Biological Design and Integrative Structures", Springer Publishers.
  • Barthlott, W. et al. : Pflanzen der Heiligen Bücher Bibel und Koran - النباتات في الكتب السماوية: الإنجيل و القرآن. BfN Skript No. 448, 106 S. https://www.bfn.de/publikationen/bfn-schriften/bfn-schriften-448-pflanzen-der-heiligen-buecher-bibel-und-koran
  • Barthlott, W. et al. : Biogeography and Biodiversity of Cacti. - Schumannia 7, pp. 1–205, ISSN 1437-2517
  • Barthlott, W. et al. : Orchid seed diversity: A scanning electron microscopy survey. – Englera 32, pp. 1–244.
  • Barthlott, W. et al.:. "A torch in the rain forest: thermogenesis of the Titan arum ". Plant Biology. 11 : 499–505. . .
  • Barthlott, W. et al. : The curious world of carnivorous plants. 244 pp., Timber Press
  • Barthlott, W. et al. : Global centres of vascular plant diversity. Nova Acta Leopoldina 92 : 61-83
  • Barthlott, W. eds.. Biodiversity. .
  • Barthlott, W. Lobin, W., Amorphophallus titanium, 226 pp, Trop. Subtrop. Pflanzenwelt Vol. 99, Akad. Science, Mainz, F. Steiner, 1998''
  • Burr, B. et al. : Untersuchungen zur Ultraviolettreflexion von Angiospermenblüten. III. Dilleniidae und Asteridae. 186 pp, Akad. Wiss. Lit. Mainz. F. Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart.
  • Barthlott, W., Wollenweber, E. : Zur Feinstruktur, Chemie und taxonomischen Signifikanz epicuticularer Wachse und ähnlicher Sekrete. 67 S., Akad. Wiss. Lit. Mainz. F. Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart.
  • Barthlott, W. : Cacti. 249 S., Stanley Thornes Publishers, London.
  • Barthlott, W., Ehler, N. : Raster-Elektronenmikroskopie der Epidermis-Oberflächen von Spermatophyten. 105 pp., Akad. Wiss. Lit. Mainz. F. Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart. http://lotus-salvinia.de/pdf/024.%20Barthlott_Ehler%201977%20Epidermisoberflaechen%20Spermatophyten.pdf or