DR. LAZARE BOTOSANEANU AT 75 YEARS - Travaux.ro

438 PETRU BANARESCU
Botosaneanu considered that sympatric speciation is possible and furnished several
examples apparently supporting this oppinion.
His first studies on the underground aquatic fauna were devoted to sampling
the copepods and other animals from the water-works of Bucharest. Later studies
concern the crenobiontic fauna from springs in the Carpathians and the Romanian
(Vallachian) plains. A valuable book, published together with C. Mota~ and St.
Negrea (1962) deals with the biology of the springs and phreatic waters of the
Central Romanian plains. This was followed, many years later (1998) by a book,
edited by Backhuis, Leiden, and stressing the right of Cranobiology to be considered
as a distinct field of Limnology. He extended his studies on the underground fauna
of Cuba and other Carribean islands, and, to a much lesser extent, from the circummediterranean
and southeastern Asia; he described new species and genera from
various peracarid crustacean groups, mainly Cirolanidae and Anthuridae, but also
several Amphipoda, etc.
His major contribution to the field of Stygobiology is the editing of the
volume "Stygofauna Mundi" (1986; 89 chapters, 740 pages, each chapter dealing
with a group of animals, with 65 specialists as authors, L. Botosaneanu being the
author of 7 chapters). A complete list of the species recorded, until 1985, in various
types of fresh and brackish water subterranean habitats, is provided, with detailed
indication of distribution, biology, etc.
Dr. Botosaneanu has also been, between 1985 and 1992, together with the late
prof. Jan H. Stock, editor of the journal "Stygobiologia".
Dr. Botosaneanu has also published on various other topics: ecological
zonation of running waters, a peculiar zoocoenosis of prosobranchiate snails in a
river of the Banat mountains, etc. The concern with environment and nature
protection is present in a number of publications. To all these may be added a
number of popular books.
Years of exploration, with the colleagues from the Institute of Speology, have
resulted in publications of physical speology, especially in a book, published in
1967 by the CNRS editions, on a large number of caves from the southern Banat
mountains. A large number of his publications is based on museum specimens
sampled by others but he made personally field research in Romania, the Balkans,
and the peri-mediterranean countries, in Israel, in most islands of the West Indies, in
Venezuela, etc., participating in several expeditions, organized either by the
Institute of Speology (Bucharest) or by the Zoological Institute and Museum
(Amsterdam).
His early publications were in French and in Romanian, later he published
mainly in English but also in other languages.
Numerous specimens collected by him (or received from his correspondents),
especially caddisflies from Romania, are preserved in the collections of the "Grigore
Antipa" National Museum of Natural History in Bucharest, but most of them are in
the Museum of Zoology in the Amsterdam University, whereas some are in other
museums. In spite of his age, Dr. Botosaneanu continues, but less intensively, his
scientifical activity.
PETRU BANARESCU