C.G. Johannes Petersen

Who was C.G. Johannes Petersen?

Carl Georg Johannes Petersen was a Danish marine biologist, especially fisheries biologist. He was the first to describe communities of benthic marine invertebrates and is often considered a founder of modern fisheries research. Especially he was the first to use the Mark and recapture method which he used to estimate the size of a Plaice population. The Lincoln-Petersen index also known as the Petersen-Lincoln index is named after him.

C.G.J. Petersen studied natural history at the University of Copenhagen under professor Japetus Steenstrup. He participated in expeditions 1883-1886 and sampled the benthic fauna in Danish waters systematically. In 1889, he co-founded Dansk biologisk Station, which was a mobile laboratory in a former naval transport vessel that was put in a new location every spring and anchored for the summer. His research was primarily directed towards understanding the ecology – not the least feeding ecology – and distribution of fish species and to provide the fundament for an evidence-based fisheries policy. Nevertheless, today he is mainly remembered for his significant contribution to the development of the community concept for marine benthos.