News

Biological invasions are widely acknowledged as a serious threat to biodiversity, global economies, and a good quality of life. Yet, they are not universally perceived as a nuisance and are sometimes gaining – often unexpectedly – cultural acceptance in local communities around the world. The consequences of this acceptance are not trivial for the management of invasive species.

A study in Nature Cities shows that artificial light, together with urban heat, may be lengthening the growing season in urban environments by as much as 3 weeks compared to rural areas. Light pollution has a greater impact than urban heat, particularly at the end of the growing season. For the study published in Nature Cities, the researchers analysed satellite data from 428 urban centres in the northern hemisphere over a period of seven years.

A new joint Policy Report by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (Academia Brasileira de Ciências, ABC), to which IGB researchers also significantly contributed, shows what sustainable and circulation-orientated aquaculture could look like in Germany and Brazil.

Experiments are an essential part of the scientific process – and ecology is no exception. A new publication in the journal Nature Communications, looks at the challenges experimental ecology faces in predicting and mitigating the effects of global change. And it points to new approaches for research.

IGB gave feedback in the Call for Evidence on the new EU Bioeconomy Strategy and highlighted the central role of water and freshwater ecosystems.

Promoting scientific progress as a top priority. This is how Mark Gessner outlines the core mission of the Society for Freshwater Science, the world's most important professional society for river ecology today. Equally important, however, particularly in these disturbing times for science policy, is to highlight the relevance of freshwater research for intelligent water resource management and to communicate the importance of freshwater to the broader public.

Tina Heger, an IGB scientist, was recently appointed as an honorary professor at Leuphana University Lüneburg and as an adjunct professor at Technical University Munich. The ecologist develops concepts for pooling knowledge and making research findings more accessible. She also creates scientific visions on how to improve the relationship between people and nature. She enjoys working interdisciplinarily, for example with philosophers. This gives her a very broad view of the topic of ecology. We wanted to find out more about her work.

Freshwater mussels are the industrious cleaners of lakes and rivers, filtering small algae out of the water and keeping it clear. This positive image has suffered since the spread of the invasive quagga mussel. The voracious appetite of this newly introduced species means that fish in Lake Constance and other water bodies are deprived of plankton as a source of food. Keeping them in check also costs a lot of money: masses of quagga mussels clog up pipes and boats. We put five questions to IGB researchers to find out more about these industrious filter feeders.