Forschungskonzept des Programmbereichs Aquatische Biodiversität

Aquatic biodiversity research is of global relevance for human well-being and are essential to understand ecosystem functioning and its changes in relation to anthropogenic land use and global warming. Two percent of the earth surface are covered by freshwater but harbour more than 10% of all described species. Due to preferential anthropogenic use of freshwater and global change the current loss of freshwater biodiversity has reached an inacceptable level. On the other hand, bioengineering on the level of organisms to ecosystems develops rapidly and bear additional hazards for natural biodiversity and functioning in aquatic ecosystems.

  The integrative research focus Aquatic Biodiversity (Programmbereich Aquatische Biodiversität) aims on a better understanding of the coupling between aquatic biodiversity ranging from bacteria to fish and ecosystem functioning in various aquatic ecosystems spanning from a local to a global scale. Future goals of this research focus are to integrate biodiversity related work at IGB into a common frame work by linking conservation with functional studies to provide the scientific basis for a sustainable freshwater ecosystem management. The far reaching goal is to integrate current and future knowledge on aquatic biodiversity into predictive models for providing society, economy and politicians with a tool to evaluate consequences of future changes in biodiversity.