Name Jozef Paczoski | ||
 | ||
Józef Konrad Paczoski /ˈjʊzɛf pəˈtʃɒski/ was an eminent Polish botanist, who coined the term "Phytosociology" and was one of the founders of this branch of botany.
Contents
Early life
Paczoski was born on 8 December 1864 in Byalohorodka near Iziaslav in Volhynia, and died on 14 February 1942 in Sierosław near Poznań, Poland. From 1877 he studied botany at faculty of Biological Science at Jagiellonian University and Kiev University under the guidance of Ivan Ivanovich Schmalhausen.
Phytosociological research
He was an early pioneer of the science of phytosociology, the study of natural plant communities. In 1896 he coined the term "phytosociology". In 1923 he became a scientific manager of the forest reserves in the Białowieża Forest. He did much of his research on the vegetation of the Białowieża National Park. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (Polska Akademia Umiejętności), the predecessor of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He established the first Institute of Plant Sociology in the world, at Poznań University. From 1925 to 1931 he was Professor of Plant Systematics and Sociology at that University.
Death
He died in 1942 of a heart attack, when he heard that his grandson had been injured by the Gestapo (Poland being occupied at that time by Nazi Germany).