Acta Univ Latv (2004) 676: 7–15

The impact of the Latvian plant physiologist Auseklis Veģis (1903 – 1973) in modern natural sciences

Abstract

By showing that the dormant condition in plants is induced by external factors, Latvian plant physiologist Auseklis Veģis contributed to the formation of modern theory of plant dormancy. The present paper evaluates the impact of Veģis major publication, Dormancy in higher plants, published in the Annual Review of Plant Physiology in 1964, on modern natural sciences by means of citation analysis. This paper was cited 365 times within 40 years after its publication. In this respect, the Veģis paper ranks 86th among the most frequently cited papers of the 1082 review papers published in Annual Review of Plant Physiology from 1950 until 2001. It is interesting to note that the number of papers citing Veģis paper has been continuously increasing during the last six years. The increase is mostly contributed by publications in the field of seed dormancy and germination, dormancy of trees, and physical properties of disaccharide. The paper Dormancy in higher plants stands out among the most important and highly ranked plant physiology papers published so far.