Wilhelm Barthlott (born 1946 in Forst, Germany) is a German botanist and biomimetic materials scientist. His official botanical author citation is Barthlott.
Barthlott's areas of specialization are biodiversity (global distribution, assessment, and change in biodiversity) and bionics/biomimetics (in particular, superhydrophobic biological surfaces and their technical applications).
He is one of the pioneers in the field of biological and technical interfaces. Based on his systematic research on plant surfaces, he developed self-cleaning (lotus effect) technical surfaces and technical surfaces, which permanently retain air under water (Salvinia effect). This led to a paradigm shift and disruptive technologies in material science and facilitated the development of superhydrophobic biomimetic surfaces. His map of the global biodiversity distribution is the foundation for numerous research topics. Barthlott has been honored with many awards (e. g. the German Environmental Prize) and memberships in academies (e. g. the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina). A large red-flowering tropical shrub, Barthlottia madagascariensis, and other plants are named after him.
Career
Barthlott descends from a French Huguenot family, which arrived with Jacques Barthelot in 1698 on the grounds of the Maulbronn Monastery in Germany, where his mother's family houses had existed before 1520. William Barthlott studied biology, physics, chemistry, and geography at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He earned his doctorate in 1973 with a dissertation on systematics and biogeography of cacti investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy. He held a professorship at the Free University of Berlin at the Institute for Systematic Botany and Plant Geography from 1982 to 1985. In 1985 he became the chair of systematic botany at the Botanical Institute of the University of Bonn and also the director of the Botanical Garden. In 2003 he established the Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants as founding director. He was influential in the reorganization and expansion of both institutions.
Barthlott took emeritus status in 2011, and continued as the head of the long-running research project Biodiversität im Wandel (Biodiversity in Change) until 2015, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. In 2011, he co-founded with Walter Erdelen (UNESCO) the Biodiversity Network Bonn (BION), which was implemented by Barthlott and his successor Maximilian Weigend in 2013. He is investigating biological and technical superhydrophobic interfaces within the scope of his research projects in biomimetics.
Barthlott published one of the most cited papers in plant science. His work in materials science based on superhydrophobic lotus effect surfaces "can be considered the most famous inspiration from nature ... and has been widely applied ... in our daily life and industrial productions".
Fields of work
Research
Barthlott has done extensive research focusing on Andean South America and Africa, in particular, on the taxonomy and morphology of cacti, orchids and bromeliads, applying scanning electron microscopy and molecular methods. Barthlott's studies on carnivorous plants converged systematic and ecological research. These studies led to the discovery of the first protozoan trapping plant in the genus Genlisea. This plants also exhibit one of the highest evolutionary rates and has the smallest known genome among all flowering plants. The naming of Genlisea barthlottii pays tribute to his investigation in this regard. The shrub Barthlottia madagascariensis or the miniature titan arum (Amorphophallus barthlottii) and further species were named after him. Among his discoveries are the giant bromeliad Gregbrownia lyman-smithii (syn. Mezobromelia lyman-smithii) and epiphytic cacti such as Rhipsalis juengeri, Pfeiffera miyagawae and Schlumbergera orssichiana or the succulent Peperomia graveolens. A complete list of plants can be found on the International Plant Names Index (IPNI).