Lourens Baas Becking

Lourens Gerhard Marinus Baas Becking (January 4, 1895 in Deventer – January 6, 1963 in Canberra, Australia) was a Dutch botanist and microbiologist. He is known for the Baas-Becking hypothesis, which he originally formulated as "Everything is everywhere, but the environment selects".

Baas Becking was born in Deventer on January 4, 1895. Baas Becking studied microbiology at Delft University before studying biology at Utrecht University with a focus on botany. In between completing his studies in Utrecht and submitting his thesis, Baas Becking worked in the laboratory of Thomas Hunt Morgan in the United States. In 1923, Baas Becking accepted the position of professor at Stanford, where he taught economic botany and plant physiology.

Baas Becking's studies at Stanford heavily influenced his later work by introducing him to research on extremophiles, research he conducted himself as the director of the Jacques Loeb Marine Laboratory in Pacific Grove. In particular, Baas Becking studied the salt lakes and methane-rich reservoirs in California.

Baas Becking returned to the Netherlands in 1930 as a professor of general botany at the University of Leiden and prefect (director) of the Hortus Botanicus Leiden. It was in Leiden that Baas Becking formulated the hypothesis known by his name. In 1934 he published the book Geobiology after a series of lectures in Pulchri Studio in The Hague. While in Leiden in 1940, he was appointed Director of the state-financed Botanical Garden of Buitenzorg in present-day Bogor, on the island of Java, with the intention of restoring the garden to its former glory Under his leadership, a new botanic garden branch for dry-tropical plant was opened in the town of Purwodadi in 1941.

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