Jakob Eriksson

Jakob Eriksson (30 September 1848 - 26 April 1931) was a Swedish plant pathologist, mycologist and a taxonomist. Eriksson was the first to describe the special forms within morphologically similar species of rust fungi. He has over 400 publications on studies primarily focusing on fungal pathogen in cellular level and understanding the process of infection.

Eriksson was born in Hyllie, near Malmö, Sweden. His father Anders Eriksson was a farmer by profession. Eriksson got interested in botany when he was pursuing his high school degree in Malmö. He started collecting plants for his class project. Eriksson received his PhD from University of Lund (Sweden) in 1874 entitled “Studies over leguminosernas tubers”. Italian physician and anatomist Marcello Malpighi considered the tubers in legumes as galls. It was Eriksson who described that a fungus is responsible for the galls and therefore could be pathogenic in nature. Although now it's clear that a nitrogen fixing bacteria live in symbiosis with legumes but the work of Eriksson was valued at that time and his dissertation was published in Lund university year book and he was awarded with Zetterstedtska award.

Immediately after his PhD, he was appointed as a lecturer (docent) in botany at the university. Eriksson had a 22-year-long teaching experiences in university of Lund, university of Uppsala and New elementary school in Stockholm. In 1876 he accepted the botanist position in Academy of Agriculture. In 1885, he was appointed as a professor and director of a newly established plant physiology division. With time the division kept expanding and it was reorganized and expanded to Central Institution for experimental system in agriculture. Eriksson was the director of the center from 1907 to 1913 before his retirement.

Eriksson primary research interest was in diseases of crops with primary focus on mildew and parasitic fungus. The most significant finding of his research work was to describe the special forms within morphologically similar species of rust fungi. His conclusion was rust fungi are specialized and they are biologically different although they exhibit similarity in morphology. Studies of fungal plant pathogen at cellular level by Eriksson provided the better understanding of the infection process and also contributed to the plant breeding programs. Besides working on rust, Eriksson also studied a lot of other pathogens including clover rot, potato disease and fungus, fruit scab and mold, felt sick on carrot, floral and branch disease in fruit trees, spinach mildew and gooseberry mildew. Eriksson is considered to be first in writing the growers manual on fungal diseases. Eriksson published several books and monographs during his academic career. He also travelled to different countries in Europe. He participated in several international conferences as a representative of the Swedish government. The credit for establishment of plant physiological laboratory in Erescati near Stockholm goes to him.

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