Nils Eberhard Svedelius

Nils Eberhard Svedelius ForMemRS HFRSE (5 August 1873 – 2 August 1960) was a Swedish phycologist and professor of botany at Uppsala University. An expert on marine algae, Svedelius made contributions to the understanding of algal life cycles, particularly in red algae, and coined terminology like "diplobionts" and "haplobionts" in 1915. His extensive field work across the Baltic Sea, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia resulted in numerous publications that advanced phycology, including his influential 1942 memoir on the genus Galaxaura that advanced taxonomic understanding of calcified red algae.

Biography

Svedelius was born in Stockholm on 5 August 1873 into a family whose name derived from the Sveden estate in Dalecarlia, where his forebears had farmed since the sixteenth century.