The Algal Organism at the Beginning of Biology

In the eighteenth century, algae were wretched organisms, receiving scant attention from naturalists, who largely preferred animals as their subjects of research. This predilection held true for J. F. Blumenbach, who devoted less than 5% of his influential Handbuch der Naturgeschichte to plants and even less to algae. It is surprising, then, that a species of algae, Conferva fontinalis, played a crucial role in Blumenbach’s own research program and contributed essentially to the advent of biology. I argue that C. fontinalis was so important for this development because it functioned as a proto-model organism, in that Blumenbach selected it precisely for its epistemological and practical advantages. First, he recognized that its physiological simplicity enabled him to overcome foregoing difficulties in embryology, which freed him to formulate a new theoretical foundation of biology that contributed to knowledge of living beings as such. Second, because C. fontinalis was easy to procure, maintain, and propagate, Blumenbach knew that any naturalist could replicate his experiments. This self-consciousness in selecting a subject of study predates the reasoning that stands at the beginning of Gregor Mendel’s famous work on peas by 84 years, the latter often cited as the first example of a model organism. In the history of biology, then, the model organism is not a phenomenon that occurs after the science has already begun, but one which is concomitant with its beginning. Blumenbach’s work on C. fontinalis forces us to reassess the inauguration of biology, in its history and its present.