biology

Maciej Gliwicz

Maciej Gliwicz is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Maciej Gliwicz rather than just read about it. In short: Maciej Gliwicz (Polish pronunciation: [ma.t͡ɕɛj glivit͡ʂ]; born Zbigniew Maciej Gliwicz; 21 February 1939 – 2 June 2024) was a Polish biologist, evolutionist and professor at the University of Warsaw who specialised in the field of hydrobiology. Life and scientific career Gliwicz graduated from the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Warsaw in 1962.

Key takeaways

Maciej Gliwicz belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
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Reproduce the core statement of Maciej Gliwicz from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Maciej Gliwicz (Polish pronunciation: [ma.t͡ɕɛj glivit͡ʂ]; born Zbigniew Maciej Gliwicz; 21 February 1939 – 2 June 2024) was a Polish biologist, evolutionist and professor at the University of Warsaw who specialised in the field of hydrobiology.

Life and scientific career Gliwicz graduated from the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Warsaw in 1962. He obtained his doctoral degree in 1969 and became a Professor of Natural Sciences in 1988. Between 1987 and 1990 he worked as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw. Since the mid-1980 until 2009, he also worked as head of the Department of Hydrobiology at his alma mater. He collaborated with a number of international institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön. Gliwicz was an author and co-author of several hundred scientific papers and publications primarily in the field of hydrobiology with a special focus on behavioral ecology. Some of his interests concern predator-prey relations and trophic cascades among aquatic organisms. He discovered the relationship between the size of filtrator and minimum quantity of threshold food, thus explaining some of the mechanisms of ecological competition and supporting the size-efficiency hypothesis. He also described the phenomenon of the so-called "lunar trap" and explained the convergence of periodic population declines of zooplankton in African water reservoirs along the Zambezi and the lunar cycles. Gliwicz was one of the members of limnologists who were part of the Plankton Ecology Group, which devised the model of seasonal succession of planktonic events, accepted as the PEG standard model since mid-1980s. He also conducted research into the predation and the evolution of vertical migration in zooplankton. In 2001, he won Poland's top scientific award, Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science in the category of life sciences, for "revealing the role of predation in shaping animal demography, life histories and behaviour." In 2012, he became the recipient (together with Winfried Lampert) of the A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award conferred by the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography "for their outstanding individual and collaborative research, which has laid the foundations for our current understanding of phytoplankton-zooplankton interactions, trophic ecology of zooplankton, and evolutionary relationships in freshwater ecosystems." As a populariser of Neo-Darwinism, he coorganized evolutionary biology workshops and he was appointed a supervisor of the University of Warsaw's honorary doctorate for American evolutionary geneticist Francisco J. Ayala. His scientific contributions in hydrobiology have been recognized by scientists who discovered a new genus of diatoms and named it Gliwiczia in his honour.

Gliwicz died on 2 June 2024, at the age of 85.

Membership Polish Hydrobiological Society Polish Academy of Sciences Polish Academy of Learning International Society of Limnology Fundamental and Applied Limnology Journal of Plankton Research Aquatic Ecology

Awards and honours A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award – American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (2012) Award of the Prime Minister of Poland for outstanding contributions to science (2010) Alfred Lityński Medal – Polish Hydrobiological Society (2009) Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science (2001) Ecology Institute Prize in Limnetic Ecology – International Ecology Institute (ECI) (1997/1998) Honorary Member Award, Ecological Society of America (1995) Naumann-Thienemann Medal of the International Limnological Society (1988) Smithsonian Institution, Award for Academic Achievement (1970) University of Warsaw Rector's Award

See also Polish Academy of Sciences Copernicus Award

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maciej Gliwicz

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maciej Gliwicz claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Maciej Gliwicz before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Maciej Gliwicz ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Maciej Gliwicz

In research: Maciej Gliwicz appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Maciej Gliwicz in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Maciej Gliwicz is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1939 births, 2024 deaths, 20th-century Polish biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maciej Gliwicz outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Maciej Gliwicz in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maciej Gliwicz means in your own words.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Maciej Gliwicz in simple terms?

Why does Maciej Gliwicz matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Maciej Gliwicz?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Maciej Gliwicz.