News

Professor Luc De Meester is stepping down after five years of leading the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) to return to the University of Leuven in Belgium. During his time in charge, the Institute established important strategic initiatives and increased its international visibility. Professor Sonja Jähnig will take over as interim director.

New impulses for designing water-conscious cities: The Kurt Eberhard Bode Foundation is funding a junior research group led by Dr Maria Warter. She will investigate the impact of human activity on urban freshwater ecosystems and how they can be restored.

A research team has investigated the interplay between hydrology and microbial communities in small water bodies in Berlin. They discovered many microorganisms that indicate a higher anthropogenic influence. The reason: small watercourses such as the Panke or the Erpe mainly carry treated effluent – accounting for up to 100 per cent of the total discharge volume in summer.

Researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) analysed various bodies of water in Berlin for traces of nicotine. They detected nicotine in all of the samples, with concentrations ranging from 7 to around 1,500 nanograms per litre. Nicotine from discarded cigarettes primarily enters water bodies via heavy rainfall and the sewage system. 

When predators strike, fish need to decide fast: dive or stay? It’s a life-or-death choice, and getting it wrong, whether by overreacting to harmless disturbances or missing a real threat, can be costly. Now, researchers from the Cluster of Excellence “Science of Intelligence” (SCIoI) with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), have shown that wild fish shoals become not just faster, but better at making these decisions as they grow in size.

Too little rain, too little water in the landscape – so simple, so serious. Even if the drought is obvious because freshwaters carry less water, plants wither and the soil becomes brittle and cracked, the drying out itself is a complex process in which the spatial context plays an important role. Professor Dörthe Tetzlaff from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) is investigating this interplay of environmental factors, water storage and water flows in the landscape, focussing on the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

Tires abrade fine particles when driving. These contain a complex mixture of different compounds, including toxic substances. If the tire wear particles end up in freshwater ecosystems, the pollutants are leached out there. A new review article in the Journal of Environmental Management summarises the current state of knowledge on the occurrence of tire wear particles and the release of pollutants in aquatic ecosystems. The researchers warn of the toxic effects on aquatic organisms and associated ecological consequences.

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.