Peter Casper with one of his tools to take sediment samples. I Photo: David Ausserhofer
Almost forty years later, Peter Casper is still glad that he was able to escape the "workplace control" of the GDR. "Otherwise, I might have been shaking test tubes for a brewery or industrial production," says the IGB ecologist. That's because his major in microbiology at the University of Greifswald was designed to train students in the research and production of industrial yeasts.
Peter Casper's parents lived in Rheinsberg and so, after completing his degree, he heard about a vacancy for microbiology in the Limnology Research Unit at Lake Stechlin and applied without hesitation. The research unit belonged to the Central Institute for Microbiology and Experimental Therapy (ZIMET) in Jena. "The idea of working at an aquatic research institute suited my desire for nature-based research very well. I had decided to study biology with the intention of doing behavioral research – like Konrad Lorenz or Günter Tembrock", says Peter Casper.
"Fieldwork is the highlight of any ecologist"
Instead, he quickly discovered his enthusiasm for the processes that take place hidden and invisible in the sediment: the cycles of carbon and the formation of methane. Still a niche topic at the time, the study of greenhouse gases would not let him go throughout his career.
"In the mid-1980s, we succeeded for the first time in locating the zones in the bottom of Lake Stechlin where methane is formed; and in identifying the microorganisms that influence the carbon cycle and the formation and metabolism of methane," he says. Later, Peter Casper published a well-cited study on greenhouse gas emissions from a nutrient-rich lake. Findings such as these contributed to the recognition of inland waters as an important natural source of methane and to their consideration in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Peter Casper is also committed to environmental protection in his private life: since the end of the 1980s, he has been involved in an environmental group that has critically monitored the operation and deconstruction of the nuclear power plant in Rheinsberg. He is also active on the board of the Förderverein Naturlandschaft Stechlin und Menzer Heide e.V. (Association for the Promotion of the Stechlin and Menzer Heide Natural Landscape).
Peter Casper accompanied the transformation of the Limnology Research Unit into an internationally oriented, modern research department of the IGB. "From the former living rooms and bedrooms of the fishermen's families in the old fishermen's hut, we moved into a new laboratory building," he recalls.
"You have to experience a water body in order to research it"
Once a freshwater scientis, always a freshwater scientis – When Peter Casper rows a boat across the lake, his brain imperceptibly stores information such as the depth profile, the depth of visibility, the shoreline structures and the scent of the water. He laughs: "This state – being bond to a freshwater through the heart, but also through the mind – will never change, even if I don't go out to take samples in the future, but just go out on the lake for leisure.
Dear Peter, we wish you all the best and always a hand's breadth of water under your keel!
Peter Casper will remain connected to the IGB as a guest scientist.
