Hustedt Diatom Study Centre

PLEASE NOTE:

The Hustedt Centre for Diatom Research is located in Berlin.

The Hustedt collection was transferred to the Freie Universität Berlin, Central Facility Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum (ZE BGBM) in summer 2024.

The collection is now housed in the premises of the Botanical Museum and is looked after and maintained by the Diatom Research Group (https://www.bo.berlin/de/forschung/forschungsgruppe-diatomeen).

Please contact Dr Nélida Abarca for further questions (n.abarca@bo.berlin)

History of the Hustedt Collection

The majority of this collection goes back to Dr Friedrich Hustedt. For the Bremen art teacher and later school director, microscopy of diatoms was initially a hobby. Hustedt took his own samples from local waters and prepared them very carefully. Over the years, he has described around 2000 new diatom species and made over 7000 detailed sketches of the single-celled organisms. In addition to the local species, Hustedt also collected samples and specimens from all over the world. Some of them are now over 160 years old and are extremely valuable both historically and scientifically, such as the samples from the Norwegian polar explorer Fritjof Nansen, or from the Gauss Expedition, the first German Antarctic expedition (1901-1903).

Hustedt spent over half a century researching his private collection, which grew to become the largest of its kind in the world. As Hustedt grew older, he wanted to make sure that his work would be preserved in the long term. He therefore sold his collection to the city of Bremen on the condition that the collection remained complete and was professionally looked after. In 1965, the Friedrich Hustedt Centre for Diatom Science was established at the Institute for Marine Research in Bremerhaven. Both were transferred to the AWI in 1986.

The Hustedt Collection was initially managed and curated there by Dr Reimer Simonsen, from 1989 to 2008 by Dr Richard Crawford and subsequently by Dr Bank Beszteri until 2017. Numerous scientific successes and expansions of the collection as well as the first digital database date back to this era. In addition, the AWI department of Bionic Lightweight Construction and Functional Morphology benefited from the cooperation with the Hustedt Collection. Among other things, it founded Synera GmbH in 2018 and has since researched and developed many sustainable innovations in lightweight construction.

In 2017, Dr Beszteri accepted an appointment at the University of Duisburg/Essen, where he became Professor of Phycology. Due to the need for comprehensive digitisation of scientific collections and the increasing effort involved, it was decided that it would be more effective in the long term in terms of science if the collection were to move to an institute for which the maintenance and expansion of collections is a core business and other collections are digitised and maintained. The process of transferring the collection was highly complex, as several outstanding institutes were interested in the collection and because various legal issues had to be resolved and secure transport ensured.
The constructive contributions of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN) and the Botanical Museum Berlin (BGBM) were a great help. We had a meeting in Bremerhaven in September 2022 to clarify which steps would lead to the best outcome. This was supported by the former curator, Prof Bank Beszteri from the University of Duisburg-Essen. Scientific as well as knowledge and technology transfer co-operations between Duisburg-Essen, AWI Bremerhaven, MfN Berlin and BGBM Berlin were agreed upon. The AWI will not give up its work with diatoms, but intensify it!

We would like to thank all those who have supported the process critically and favourably, but always constructively, and wish the diatom community many interesting projects and insights through their work with the Hustedt collection!

Diatom Research Group

Contact person:
Frau Dr. Nélida Abarca  
n.abarca@bo.berlin