Erwin Baur (16 April 1875, in Ichenheim, Grand Duchy of Baden – 2 December 1933) was a German geneticist and botanist. Baur worked primarily on plant genetics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research (then in Müncheberg, now in Cologne, and since 1938 the Erwin Baur-Institute). Baur is considered to be the father of plant virology. He discovered the inheritance of plastids.

In 1908 Baur demonstrated a lethal gene in the Antirrhinum plant. In 1909 working on the chloroplast genes in Pelargonium (geraniums) he showed that they violated four of Mendel's five laws.

Baur stated that

  1. During asexual reproduction, nuclear genes never segregate during cellular divisions. This is to ensure that each daughter cell gets a copy of every gene. However, organelle genes in heteroplasmic cells can segregate because they each have several copies of their genome. This may result in daughter cells with differential proportions of organelle genotypes.
  2. Mendel states that nuclear alleles always segregate during meiosis. However, organelle alleles may or may not do this.

References

  • Short Biography, bibliography, and links on digitized sources in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science