Meinhard Michael Moser (13 March 1924 – 30 September 2002) was an Austrian mycologist. His work principally concerned the taxonomy, chemistry, and toxicity of the gilled mushrooms (Agaricales), especially those of the genus Cortinarius, and the ecology of ectomycorrhizal relationships. His contributions to the Kleine Kryptogamenflora von Mitteleuropa series of mycological guidebooks were well regarded and widely used. In particular, his 1953 Blätter- und Bauchpilze (Agaricales und Gastromycetes) [The Gilled and Gasteroid Fungi (Agaricales and Gastromycetes)], which became known as simply "Moser", saw several editions in both the original German and in translation. Other important works included a 1960 monograph on the genus Phlegmacium (sometimes considered part of Cortinarius) and a 1975 study of members of Cortinarius, Dermocybe, and Stephanopus in South America, co-authored with the mycologist Egon Horak. After showing interest in natural sciences in his youth, Moser studied at the University of Innsbruck. His university career began during World War II however, and was soon interrupted by military service. Stationed as a translator in eastern Europe, he was captured and placed in a prisoner-of-war camp. He was released in 1948, subsequently returning to Innsbruck to complete his studies. After completing his doctorate in 1950, Moser worked in England for six months, researching the symbiotic relationships between plants and fungi. Upon his return to Austria, he joined the Federal Forestry Research Institute, where he remained until 1968, conducting influential research on the use of mycorrhizal fungi in reforestation. He began lecturing at the University of Innsbruck in 1956, and in 1972 became the inaugural head of the first Institute of Microbiology in Austria. He remained with the Institute until his retirement in 1991, and his scientific studies continued until his death in 2002. An influential mycologist who described around 500 new taxa, Moser received awards throughout his life, and numerous fungal taxa have been named in his honour.
Life and career
Early life, university, and military service Meinhard Michael Moser was born on 13 March 1924 in Innsbruck, Austria, to Margaretha and Josef Moser. His father was a teacher at a technical college in the city, while his mother was the daughter of the botanist Emil Johann Lambert Heinricher. Moser attended primary school and grammar school in the city. His interest in natural sciences was cultivated from a young age by Heinricher. Moser's earliest paintings of mushrooms date to 1935, when he was 11 years old. In 1942, Moser enrolled at the University of Innsbruck, taking classes in botany, zoology, geology, physics, and chemistry. Austria was under the control of Nazi Germany at this time, and did not exist as an independent state. Moser became an "authorized mushroom controller and instructor", and was in turn directed to attend mycological seminars around Germany and Austria. At these seminars, he met prominent mycologists, including Ernst Thirring, who introduced Moser to the large genus Cortinarius and its scientific challenges, which remained an interest of Moser's for the rest of his life. In 1943, aged 19 and after only three terms at Innsbruck, his studies were interrupted by military service. Having shown earlier promise in languages, he was trained as a translator, then sent to the Balkan Peninsula. He continued to have an active interest in mycology, collecting and identifying mushrooms and reading the mycologist Rolf Singer's Das System der Agaricales [The Agaricales in Modern Taxonomy]. In 1945, when Moser was 21 years old and still carrying out active military service, he was captured in Czechoslovakia by Soviet soldiers and made a prisoner of war. He was imprisoned in a labour camp in Crimea. While a prisoner, he was involved in repairing the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, Sevastopol. Working in construction at the camp, he had to labour to his physical limits, and was involved in a serious crash that killed several other prisoners. Moser was released in 1948, and chose to return to his studies at the University of Innsbruck. His first publication came in 1949; "Über das Massenauftreten von Formen der Gattung Morchella auf Waldbrandflächen" ["Mass-fruiting of forms of the genus Morchella on forest-fire areas"] was published in the journal Sydowia. In 1950, under the supervision of the botanist Arthur Pisek, Moser completed his doctoral thesis, Zur Wasserökologie der höheren Pilze, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Waldbrandflächen [Water Ecology in Higher Fungi with Special Emphasis on Forest-Fire Areas]. During his time at university, he became a member of both the Société mycologique de France and the British Mycological Society. Having become friends with prominent German mycologists during the War, he was keen to re-establish academic relationships throughout Europe in the years following the conflict's resolution.
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