Arnold Edward Ortmann

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A.E. Ortmann

Arnold Edward Ortmann (April 8, 1863 – January 3, 1927) was a Prussian-born United States

naturalist and zoologist who specialized in malacology. The standard author abbreviation A.E.Ortmann is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[1]

Biography

Ortmann was born in

University of Kiel and the University of Strasbourg. From 1886 on, he worked as an instructor at the University of Strasbourg.[2] Together with Haeckel, he participated in an expedition to Zanzibar in 1890/91. Three years later, he emigrated to the United States, where he got a post as the curator of the department of invertebrate paleontology at Princeton University.[2] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897.[3] In 1899, he participated in the Peary Relief expedition, and one year later, he was naturalized as a U.S. citizen.[2]

In 1903, he moved to

Sc.D. In 1925, he became the chair of zoology at the University of Pittsburgh. He died in Pittsburgh on January 3, 1927.[4]

Work

Ortmann's thorough taxonomic studies of freshwater mussels and crustaceans with a special focus on the geographical distribution of species was a fundamental groundwork that is even valid today. In 1920, he formulated "Ortmann's Law of Stream Position", which said that a species of mussels can have a different appearance depending on where in a river system the individuals live:[4]

While studying the Naiad-shells of the upper Ohio-drainage, the fact was forced upon my mind, that certain species which inhabit the headwaters and smaller streams are represented, in the larger streams, by different, but very similar forms, which are distinguished from them chiefly by one character, namely obesity. The headwater-forms are rather compressed or flat, the large-river-forms more convex and swollen. I also found that in the rivers of medium size intergrades between the extremes are actually present.

— A. E. Ortmann (1920)[5]

This observation helped greatly to simplify the taxonomy of molluscs, because previously, researchers had all too often assigned such different

morphotypes to different species
.

The standard

author abbreviation "A.E.Ortmann" is used to indicate Ortmann when citing a botanical name.[6]

Publications

He was associate editor of

American Naturalist
for a time, and contributed to periodicals.

References

  1. ^ International Plant Names Index.  A.E.Ortmann.
  2. ^
    University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
    . Retrieved 16 July 2022.
  3. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  4. ^ a b Smith, Charles H. (2005). "Ortmann, Arnold Edward (Prussia-United States 1863-1927)". Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches. Western Kentucky University. Retrieved August 5, 2013.
  5. JSTOR 983485
    .
  6. International Plant Name Index
    . Retrieved August 5, 2013.
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