J OURNAL OF C RUSTACEAN B IOLOGY, 35(1), 116-119, 2015
KLAUS ANGER, RECIPIENT OF THE CRUSTACEAN SOCIETY EXCELLENCE IN
RESEARCH AWARD
Raymond Bauer 1 , Luis Gimenez 2 , and Volker Storch 3
1 Department
of Biology, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70504, USA
of Natural Sciences, School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, UK
3 Centre for Organismal Studies, Faculty of Biosciences, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
2 College
DOI: 10.1163/1937240X-00002289
Klaus Anger.
N OMINATION
Klaus Anger has had a long and distinguished career
as a researcher in carcinology at the Biologische Anstalt
© The Crustacean Society, 2015. Published by Brill NV, Leiden
Helgoland, Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Germany, retiring recently as Emeritus Researcher, having achieved many important contributions
DOI:10.1163/1937240X-00002289
KLAUS ANGER, RECIPIENT OF THE CRUSTACEAN SOCIETY EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH AWARD
to our field. The research of Klaus, together with that
of his students and collaborators, concentrated on larval
biology, embryonic development, and adaptations of these
life history stages to transitional environments (estuarine
habitats, diadromous species).
His research has resulted so far in some 190 publications
in refereed journals (which Thomson’s Web of Knowledge
reveals has attracted some 4690 citations). He also has
written 13 book chapters, presented several plenary and
keynote lectures, and contributed many papers at scientific
meetings around the world. Most recently, Klaus published a
major review (2013) “Neotropical Macrobrachium (Caridea:
Palaemonidae): on the biology, origin, and radiation of
freshwater-invading shrimp” in the Journal of Crustacean
Biology.
The crown jewel of Klaus’s achievements is his 2001
book “The Biology of Decapod Crustacean Larvae.” This
tome of 420 pages is the “bible” of crustacean larval
biology, a worthy successor to Gurney’s “Larvae of Decapod
Crustacea” that was published in the 1930s and 1940s.
Klaus’ book goes well beyond Gurney’s work, however, by
delving deeply into the detailed morphology, ecology, and
physiology of decapod larvae, and of course by synthesizing
work on decapod larvae extending from Gurney’s time to the
publication of Klaus’s book.
The theme of his individual papers address many central questions of larval biology that were never formally researched, perhaps due to serious logistic limitations in physiological, biochemical, and larval rearing techniques in those
times. During the 1980s and 1990s, a considerable part of
Klaus’ work consisted establishing the patterns of larval
growth and physiological adaptations and responses to food
limitation and temperature in marine crustacean larvae. This
work involved, with great effort, the fine-tuning of methods
developed by other colleagues in addition to the development of new techniques. From the 1990s to the present day,
and through international collaborations, Klaus has uncovered a diverse array of the life history adaptations of decapod crustaceans to estuarine, freshwater, semi-terrestrial,
and polar habitats. Much of this work was summarized in
his review paper in 2006.
Klaus has mentored many graduate students (46 masters,
17 doctoral), all dedicated to some aspect of crustacean
biology. Just by itself, this contribution to the future of
carcinology is worthy of the significant recognition by the
TCSERA. His work ethic along with his open, friendly, and
sincere nature have motivated more than two generations
of students, from across the world, to pursue a careers in
crustacean biology.
As Emeritus Researcher, Klaus remains as active as always, continuing to work with numerous collaborators – especially in recent years in Brazil and other South American countries. He serves the carcinological and aquatic biology communities as Editor-in-Chief of the new journal
Sexual and Embryonic Development of Aquatic Organisms
(SEDAO), Associate Editor of both Invertebrate Biology and
Scientia Marina, and acts as a frequent reviewer for a wide
variety of journals.
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Dr. Klaus Anger, as a senior scientist who is an internationally recognized and outstanding carcinologist, is most
very deserving of the TCSERA.
[RB & LG]
P RESENTATION
Dr. Klaus Anger is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence
in Research Award. Klaus Anger obviously deserves it! He
conducted experiments with over 50 species of crustaceans
belonging to 40 genera and published about 200 scientific
papers. Among the species he studied, the record holders
were a subarctic spider crab (Hyas araneus), a South
American saltmarsh crab (Neohelice granulata), and a
tropical river prawn (Macrobrachium amazonicum).
What makes a scientist excellent? Klaus Anger’s personal
development can help us to understand this. First, he was
obviously equipped with excellent genes obtained from
his parents, but good genes are not sufficient for lifelong success; the eternal nature-nurture controversy has not
been settled yet. Klaus’ educational situation, however, was
certainly favorable, too. For instance, he had the opportunity
to engage in scuba diving when he was only twelve years
old, discovering the amazing life in freshwater lakes and
the sea. A few years later, he was lucky again, meeting
an enthusiastic high-school teacher who opened his eyes
to the microorganisms that could be found outside next to
the classroom. Also, Klaus had the opportunity to study
the classic languages Latin and ancient Greek for many
years – in my eyes helpful for anybody who later has to
learn technical terms and a nomenclature based mainly on
these two languages.
After his graduation from high school (1967), Klaus had
to join the army. Military service had never been his dream,
and being kept busy doing nothing of importance utterly
bored him. This situation only stimulated his appetite for
more interesting tasks such as learning, and in particular,
deepening his knowledge of the natural sciences. In 1968,
he entered the University of Giessen where he completed
his undergraduate education with enthusiasm. From 19701975, he studied in Kiel, near the Baltic Sea, and thereafter
concentrating on marine sciences. During this period, he was
also trained as a research diver, so that he could spend many
weeks in the underwater laboratory “Helgoland”, mostly in
the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, but also a few days off
the Bahamas, in the US-run underwater habitat “Hydrolab”,
studying the ecology of benthic marine animals.
At the University of Kiel, Klaus met a senior professor of
zoology, the late Wolfram Noodt, a crustacean taxonomist,
who offered who offered to guide his Ph.D. studies. Klaus
accepted and subsequently worked on the effects of sewage
pollution on the benthic fauna in Kiel Bay, mostly analyzing
formaldehyde-fixed samples – not really Klaus’ favorite kind
of work. After the termination of his Ph.D. project in 1975,
there appeared a job opportunity on the offshore island of
Helgoland in the North Sea. It offered a chance for experimental work with live animals, at last! Helgoland actually
comprises two neighboring islets, composed of sandstone
and limestone, respectively, both with a rich marine life that
has been studied by a time-honored marine research institution, the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland (BAH). So Klaus
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JOURNAL OF CRUSTACEAN BIOLOGY, VOL. 35, NO. 1, 2015
went to Hamburg, where the director of the BAH, Professor
Otto Kinne, had his office. After presenting a lecture on his
Ph.D. work, he was placed on the shortlist, implying that he
had to go also to Helgoland for another lecture and interview
by the scientists of the marine station. The island is normally
reached by boat, but on the very day of his second, decisive
interview, Klaus missed it! Not thinking twice, he spent a lot
of his sparse student’s stipend to hire a pilot, an ex-champion
in stunt flying; Klaus arrived in a tiny plane even before the
ship came into port, and his future colleagues admired him
for this stunt.
After a “trial-and-error phase” (as he calls it himself) in
the 1970s – working with polychaetes and various other invertebrate groups – Klaus began to concentrate on studies
of complex life cycles, larval development, dispersal, settlement, and bioenergetics of decapod crustaceans. In the
1980s, he mainly investigated larval physiology and chemical composition in relation to variations in temperature,
salinity, and feeding. Beginning in the 1990s, he shifted
increasingly towards larval adaptations to non-marine and
cold-water environments.
In his professional life, Klaus Anger co-operated – and
published – with more than 120 scientists, visited and
worked at many institutes in various countries in Europe,
the United States, Brasil, Argentina, Chile and Argentina.
He has been a door-opener for many young scientists –
intelligent, inquisitive and innovative.
Certainly Klaus Anger is a worthy recipient of this August
award.
[VS]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The above comments were digested by the General Editor from the
nomination and a seconding letter submitted for consideration by the
TCSERA committee, and the presentation laudatum by Prof. dr. Volker
Storch at the 8th International Crustacean Congress held in Frankfurt am
Main, Germany, August 2014.
R EFERENCES
Anger, K. 2001. The biology of decapod crustacean larvae, pp. 1-405. In,
R. Vonk (ed.), Crustacean Issues 14. A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam.
. 2006. Contributions of larval biology to crustacean research:
a review. Invertebrate Reproduction & Development 49: 175-205.
. 2013. Neotropical Macrobrachium (Caridea: Palaemonidae): on
the biology, origin, and radiation of freshwater-invading shrimp. Journal
of Crustacean Biology 33: 151-183.
C OMMENTS BY K LAUS A NGER ON
ACCEPTING THE AWARD
Honorable representatives of The Crustacean Society, dear
friends and colleagues, I want to express my sincere thanks,
immediately to Professor Volker Storch from the University
of Heidelberg for his detailed, friendly and thoughtful
laudation, next to those colleagues who had proposed me as
a candidate for the 2014 TCSERA, to those who supported
this proposal, and last but not least, to the members of the
TCS board that took the final decision. The presentation of
this award to me is a great and unexpected honor, for which
I am deeply grateful!
As it is difficult to assess one’s own achievements, I am
myself not sure whether I truly deserve this honor but, if
I do, then certainly not alone. In agreement with Professor
Storch’s remarks on the significance of cooperation in both
science and evolution, there have been numerous colleagues
and students who collaborated with me, some occasionally,
others over extended periods, some even through decades.
They participated in the planning and execution of rearing
experiments, took and processed samples, or were engaged
in elemental or biochemical analyses, physiological, microscopical or ultrastructural studies, the evaluation of data, and
the writing and publishing of papers. They all have contributed to our knowledge of life histories and, in particular,
the larval biology of decapod crustaceans, mostly in ecological and evolutionary contexts. Also, cooperating with highly
trained specialists from various disciplines, I have learned
quite a lot about, and from, different ways of scientific thinking and the addressing of problems, using new techniques,
and a broader range of literature. Hence, I have many reasons why I owe my thanks to all those colleagues and students who worked with me!
Throughout my career, I had the unearned luck to belong to an older generation that did not have to worry too
much about fund-raising, always writing reports for finished projects, and proposals for new ones. Another privilege was to belong to a governmental institute with a stable
and mostly sufficient budget, and with bosses who allowed
us full bent for finding our own lines of research, even if
these were not directed toward applied, but rather basic science. Among those mentors and wise bosses, I would like to
mention at least one: Professor Otto Kinne, long-time director of the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland (BAH), who later
founded a private institution, InterResearch, where several
high-ranking scientific journals are produced, and of which
he still is the CEO. As a consequence of the favorable working conditions at the BAH, our projects could, but did not
necessarily have to, follow the current mainstream or politically fashionable issues, which nowadays should better be
included in proposals and papers, at least as attractive keywords meant to enhance the chances of funding or publication. Whenever the final results of our work turned out
to be good, then this was largely due also to the enthusiasm, or one can say joy, that we felt doing our sometimes
tedious research. It was this favorable environment that also
allowed me to remain for almost four decades on the tiny island of Helgoland in the North Sea, 40 miles off the German
coast. Nowadays, such working conditions might not exist
any longer, not even on remote islets. If I can wish something to future generations of young scientists, then at least
a partial return of the insight that working with enthusiasm
and fun is a much better guarantee for success than pressure
from policy makers and bosses worried about the profile and
publicity of their ministries or institutes. Not all science can
be based on short-term projects, there must be also long-term
lines of research, not all progress can precisely be designed
in detailed projects and time schedules, and success may not
be defined as a congruence between a previous proposal and
the subsequent report, but by originality and scientific quality of the output.
I feel (or hope) that this 2014 award was also meant
to honor a multi-disciplinary, rather unspecialized approach
addressing far-scattered scientific questions. I am therefore
KLAUS ANGER, RECIPIENT OF THE CRUSTACEAN SOCIETY EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH AWARD
particularly thankful and proud that the laudation was presented here by Professor Storch, a renowned scientist who
has worked in many fields, authored numerous textbooks,
and is a university teacher who knows how to transfer his
own enthusiasm to both students and laymen. He is also a
good example for those colleagues who significantly contributed to our work, adding to it highly interesting and
awarding new questions, views and techniques. As an expert in electron-microscopical studies already 30 years ago,
he helped me to study the ontogeny of the hepatopancreas in
larval crabs and lobsters, find ultrastructural and biochemical responses of this of key organ to changes in nutritional
conditions, and understand critical points within the larval
moult cycle such as the “point of no return”.
In conclusion, all those colleagues who have cooperated
with me, many of whom became good friends, should
consider this honorable award also as their own! When I
browsed through the list of participants of the ICC-8 meeting
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here in Frankfurt, I found no less than 16 names of such
friends and colleagues, and of course there are many more
out there, who could not come. Also remarkably, three out
of the nine symposia at this congress were organized by
former students and close collaborators of mine – and all of
these belong to a much younger generation than myself. This
strong presence of young people, who had accompanied me
for some time on my way, suggests that I somehow might
have helped stimulate their appreciation of scientific work
in general, or their particular interest in crustacean biology.
This is something I am much more proud of than of any
highly cited publication in an international journal, and it
nourishes my hope that our loose, old-fashioned approach of
studying life cycles and the ontogeny of specific biological
traits might hopefully persist into the future of crustacean
research.
AVAILABLE ONLINE: 6 November 2014.