From 1967 to 2017: fifty years since the creation of the Department of Ecology of the UB

This year it is fifty years since the creation of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona.
This year it is fifty years since the creation of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona.
Institutional
(17/05/2017)

On June 1, 1967, the scientist Ramon Margalef took office of the first position as Professor of Ecology at the University of Barcelona and in all Spain. According to the academic tradition, this fact marked the creation of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona, which holds the ephemerides this year with a program of activities -available on the website 50 years of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona.

This year it is fifty years since the creation of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona.
This year it is fifty years since the creation of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona.
Institutional
17/05/2017

On June 1, 1967, the scientist Ramon Margalef took office of the first position as Professor of Ecology at the University of Barcelona and in all Spain. According to the academic tradition, this fact marked the creation of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona, which holds the ephemerides this year with a program of activities -available on the website 50 years of the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona.

 

Ramon Margalef: the master of a model in modern ecology

Ramon Margalef (1919-2004) is internationally regarded as one of the three most prestigious Spanish scientists of the 20th century, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Severo Ochoa, awarded with the Nobel Prize. He has been a model to generations of ecologists and naturalists from all the State, the first professor of Ecology in the State and one of the highest international exponents in the world of modern ecology. Margalef is the creator of a vast scientific school in the field of ecology, and a great part of the chairs in Ecology in the Spanish universities are currently held by his disciples. He is the author of mandatory reference works such as Ecología (1974), Limnología (1983) and Our Biosphere (1997), and is regarded as one of the most productive scientists and one of the most cited in Ecology.

Margalef, the first scientist awarded with a Saint Georgeʼs Cross in 1997, received the Gold Medal from the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2003 and was given the title Doctor Honoris Causa (honorary doctorate) by the universities of Laval (Canada), Aix-Marseille (France), Luján (Argentina) and Alicante (Spain). In 180, the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Canada) awarded him the Huntsman Award for excellence in marine sciences, regarded as the Nobel of oceanography.

A building of the Faculty of Biology of the UB was named after the scientific figure of Ramon Margalef, as well as a prestigious award from the Generalitat de Catalunya, which, since 2004, has awarded the scientists Paul Dayton, John Lawton, Harold Mooney, Daniel Pauly, Paul Ehrlich, Simon Levin, Juan Carlos Castilla, Daniel Simberloff, Sallie Chisholm, David Tilman, Robert E. Ricklefs, and last year, Josep Peñuelas.

Ecology at the UB: 50 years of education and research to improve the natural environment

Generation after generation, the former Department of Ecology of the UB consolidated under the mastership of Professor Margalef, until becoming a scientific and social model in the fields of research such as limnology, hydrology, forest ecology, marine ecology, biogeochemistry, paleoecology and evolutionary ecology. The celebration events for the fiftieth anniversary of the former Department of Ecology, now part of the Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, will start next Friday, May 19, with an Eco Café (11.30 h) that will lead to a first lecture, entitled “La recerca en ecosistemes terrestres i el paper de Ramon Margalef en la impulsió dels seus estudis” (11.30h), in the seminar of the Ecology Section at the Faculty of Biology.

In this first lecture session, dedicated to the pioneers of research on terrestrial ecosystems in the Department, the experts Carles Gràcia (UB), Antoni Escarré (University of Alicante), Ferran Rodà and Jaume Terrades (UAB) will participate, telling their experiences as members of the first Department of Ecology of the State and as disciples of Professor Margalef. All the commemoration acts for the 50th anniversary of the Department of Ecology will be available in the website soon.  

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of his death, in 2004, Professor Margalef was honoured with a broad program of institutional events organized by the University of Barcelona, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), the Institute for Catalan Studies, the Botanical Institute of Barcelona, the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona, the Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre , and Carl Faust Foundationʼs Marimurtra Botanical Garden. The institutional website Ramon Margalef (1919-2004), formed out of the commemoration events, is dedicated to the memory of the life and scientific legacy of the prestigious Catalan ecologist.