Jürgen Haffer (9 December 1932 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

– 26 April 2010 in

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

) was a German

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

, biogeographer, and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

. He is most remembered for his theory of Amazonian forest refugia during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

that would have contributed to

speciation Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...

and the diversification of the biota.

Biography

At the age of 13 Haffer found a dead bird with a ring and had taken it to the Berlin Museum where he met

Erwin Stresemann Erwin Friedrich Theodor Stresemann (22 November 1889, in Dresden – 20 November 1972, in East Berlin) was a German naturalist and ornithologist. Stresemann was an ornithologist of extensive breadth who compiled one of the first and most comprehe ...

who took time to explain to him the purpose of ringing. This made a big impression on him and it marked the beginning of his ornithological interest. He was the fourth child of Oskar Haffer and Margarete. His father was a high school teacher with a training in biology who encouraged an interest in natural history. After schooling, Haffer worked during the summer of 1951 under Stresemann before going to university. Knowing that ornithology did not offer a career, he studied geology and paleontology. He obtained a Diploma in 1956 and continued on for a doctoral degree in 1957 at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

- working on "Early heterodont Lamellibranchs of the Rhineland Devonian". He obtained employment with Mobil Oil as a field geologist and went to remote places like lowland Colombia and lived in South and North America,

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. During his stay in Colombia he met Maria Kluge, a teacher in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

with an interest in Amazonia, marrying her in 1959. During this time he studied the bird faunas of Amazonia and Iran. In close communication with evolutionary biologist

Ernst Mayr Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and ...

since the early 1960s, Haffer formulated his ideas on the diversification of birds and the effects of barriers. In 1978 Beryl B. Simpson and Haffer published their analysis of speciation patterns in Amazonia. From his studies on the Amazonian avifauna, Haffer authored several papers on

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

ornithology and devised his Amazonian refugia theory to explain the rapid diversification of the Neotropical fauna in Pleistocene times. He used the toucanet of the genus '' Selenidera'' to explain

using the idea of refugia. Haffer's scientific output was substantial, with some 200 scientific publications. Haffer wrote the first book-length biography of

and co-authored a biography of

, Mayr's teacher and friend. Haffer's foreword on species concepts is included in volume 4 of the

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

. He also wrote extensively on the history and development of ornithology. In 1975, he was awarded the William Brewster Memorial Award. In 2013, Haffer was commemorated with the newly described Campina jay, ''Cyanocorax hafferi''.

References

Sources

* Haffer, Jurgen (1969)
Speciation in Amazonian Forest Birds
''Science''. Vol. 165:131-137. {{DEFAULTSORT:Haffer, Jurgen 20th-century German biologists 20th-century German zoologists German ornithologists Biogeographers 1932 births 2010 deaths