Arthur Hasler was a world renowned limnologist, who enjoyed a 41-year career as a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty. Born in Lehi, Utah, on January 5, 1908, Hasler graduated from Brigham Young University in 1932, and earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from UW-Madison in 1937. He then joined the UW-Madison faculty as an instructor and achieved the rank of professor in 1948.
During the 1940s Hasler spent time working in postwar Germany as a research analyst for the Air Force Strategic Bombing Survey. While in Germany he developed a lifelong love for German language and literature, and was known to pepper his popular undergraduate lectures with lines from Goethe to convey to his students nature’s moral and ethical beauty.
Hasler was best known for his research within the Center for Limnology. Limnology, as Hasler describes in this clip, is “the science of lakes,” a field in which he and his students attempt to “unfathom the unknowns of the aquatic community."
Hasler played a vital role in the construction of the Laboratory of Limnology on Lake Mendota and the Trout Lake Station on Trout Lake, continuing the legacy of limnology leadership of his predecessors E. A. Birge and Chancey Juday.
In the late 1940s, Hasler began his seminal research on the homing behavior of salmon. Hasler showed how “olfactory imprinting” allowed salmon to swim thousands of miles to spawn in the stream of their birth.
Hasler also researched land-water interactions that shed light on the impact of agricultural runoff on water quality in Lake Mendota. His work with local politicians, civic groups, and the state legislature helped combat the effects of cultural eutrophication, the excessive loading of nutrients into lakes from urban and agricultural runoff, and was an example of effectively using science to guide public policy.
Hasler enjoyed a prolific career in and out of the university before retiring in 1978. He advised 52 doctoral students, authored more than 200 publications and seven books, and served as chair of the Department of Zoology in 1953 and 1955-1957. Additionally, he served as president of the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography, the American Society of Zoologists, and the Ecological Society of America.
In addition to his numerous honorary degrees and achievements, Hasler was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1969, and in 1972 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died March 23, 2001.
For more information about Hasler’s background, work and service, you can listen to more than 4 hours of recorded audio interviews through the UW-Madison Oral History Program. To see what the Center for Limnology is up to these days, check out its blog.