Wolfgang Schleidt

Wolfgang M. Schleidt (born December 18, 1927 in Vienna) is an Austrian scientist in the area of bioacoustics, communication and classical ethology.[1] He was assistant to Konrad Lorenz (1950 – 65), professor of zoology, University of Maryland (1965–85) and director at the Konrad Lorenz Institut for Ethology, Vienna of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was an early pioneer of Bioacoustics and of the quantitative analysis of behaviour.[2][3]

Schleidt grew up in Vienna, Austria and – age 17 – was drafted into the German Army in 1944, has his left hand crippled in an encounter with a Soviet tank and – while recovering in the Army hospital in Memmingen – survived the air raid of the US Air Force with a permanent hearing loss of 60 DB at 4 kHz. The crippled hand disqualified him for medical school (his preferred academic institution), and he decided to study biology and anthropology, with special emphasis on sensory and behavioral physiology.[1]

His hearing loss around 4 kHz increased his awareness of vocalizations of mice in the range between 10 and 20 kHz. At that time, the technology for electronic sound recording and loudspeakers was limited to the range between 100 Hz and 8 kHz and, in order to provide a convincing proof of the use of ultrasound, Schleidt started to develop and build his own electronic gadgets and thus became a pioneer of bioacoustics and animal communication.[2][3][4][5][6]

Konrad Lorenz became Schleidt's most influential teacher and when he became the Director of his own Forschungsstelle of the Max-Planck Gesellschaft in Buldern (Westphalia, Germany) he asked him to become his first Assistant. Schleidt served as the Supervisor of construction of the newly founded Max-Planck-Institut for Behavioral Physiology in Bavaria, Germany, suggested the Name “Seewiesen” for this location and became its first resident together with his wife Margret Schleidt, daughter Christiane and a flock of 400 wild geese. During his tenure at Seewiesen he started his critical review of basic concepts of Ethology.[5][7][8]

After one year as visiting research professor at Duke University (1964–65) with Peter H. Klopfer and Donald K. Adams[9] Wolfgang M. Schleidt became professor of zoology at the University of Maryland (1965–85) and leader of the ethology group at the department of zoology, where he continued his research in quantitative ethology and animal communication.[6][9][10][11][12] Schleidt became a director at the Institute for Comparative Behavior Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1985. He retired in 1992, but continued teaching at the University of Vienna until 2003, and is to this day working and publishing.[13][14][15][16]

References
  1. Schönberger, A.: Wolfgang Schleidt – Der Tonmeister. In: Alwin Schönberger: Grenzgänger. Österreichische Pioniere zwischen Triumph und Tragik. Brandstätter Verlag (2015), ISBN 978-3850338974; Schönberger, A., Horak P.: Portrait Wolfgang Schleidt, Pionier der Verhaltensforschung. Profil 49 (17), pp. 70-73 (2018).
  2. Schleidt, W. M.: Töne hoher Frequenz bei Mäusen. Experientia: interdisciplinary journal for the life sciences 4 (4), pp. 145-146 (1948), doi:10.1007/BF02164342
  3. Schleidt, W. M.: Reaktionen auf Töne hoher Frequenz bei Nagern. Die Naturwissenschaften 39 (3), pp. 69-70 (1952) doi:10.1007/BF00596819.
  4. Zippelius, H. M.; Schleidt, W. M.: Ultraschall-Laute bei jungen Mäusen. Die Naturwissenschaften 43, pp. 502-502 (1956) doi:10.1007/BF00632534.
  5. Schleidt, W. M.: Reaktionen von Truthühnern auf fliegende Raubvögel und Versuche zur Analyse ihrer AAM's. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 18, pp. 534-560 (1961) doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1961.tb00241.x.
  6. Schleidt, W. M.: How "fixed" is the fixed action pattern? Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 36, pp. 184-211 (1974) doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1974.tb02131.x.
  7. Schleidt, W. M.; Schleidt, M.; Magg, M.: Störung der Mutterkind-Beziehung bei Truthühnern durch Gehörverlust. Behaviour 16 (3-4), pp. 254-260 (1960) doi: 10.1163/156853960X00179
  8. Schleidt, W. M.: Tonic communication: Continual effects of discrete signs in animal communication systems. Journal of Theoretical Biology 42 (2), pp. 359-386 (1973), doi:10.1016/0022-5193(73)90095-7
  9. https://scholars.duke.edu/person/phk; https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/adams-donald-keith
  10. Schleidt, W. M.; Crawley, J. N.: Patterns in the behavior of organisms. Journal of Social and Biological Structures 3 (1), pp. 1-15 (1980) doi:10.1016/0140-1750(80)90016-0.
  11. Schleidt, W. M.: Learning and the description of the environment. In: Issues in the ecological study of learning, pp. 305-325 (Hg. Johnston, T. D.; Pietrewicz, A. T.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey (1985)
  12. Schleidt, W. M.; Yakalis, G.; Donnelly, M.; McGarry, J.: A proposal for a standard ethogram, exemplified by an ethogram of the bluebreasted quail (Coturnix-chinensis). Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 64 (3-4), pp. 193-220 (1984) doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1984.tb00360.x
  13. Schleidt, W. M.: Epilog: Wer war der Vater der Graugänse wirklich? In: Eigentlich wollte ich Wildgans werden. Aus meinem Leben, pp. 97-122 (Hg. Lorenz, K.). Piper, München, Zürich (2003), ISBN 978-3-492-04540-7
  14. Schleidt, W. M.; Shalter, M. D.; Moura-Neto, H.: The hawk/goose story: The classical ethological experiments of Lorenz and Tinbergen, revisited. Journal of Comparative Psychology 125 (2), pp. 121-133 (2011) doi:10.1037/a0022068 and doi:10.1037/a0022068.supp, (PDF),
  15. Schleidt, W. M.: Lorenz, Konrad (1903–89). In: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2 Aufl., pp. 366-371 (Hg. Wright, J. D.). Elsevier, Oxford (2015) doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.61078-4
  16. Schleidt, W. M.; Shalter, M. D.: Dogs and mankind: Coevolution on the move - An update. Human Ethology Bulletin 33 (1), pp. 15-38 (2018). Also hanging in the net as: http://ishe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/HEB_2018_33_1_15-38.pdf
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