News

Over the past two decades, shrimp aquaculture has grown enormously worldwide and consumer awareness of ethical, environmental and sustainability issues has increased. A new IGB Manual provides guidance on how to assess animal welfare in shrimp aquaculture.

The 41st Annual Meeting of the German Society for Limnology (DGL) and the 16th Water Research Horizon Conference (WRHC) organised by the Water Science Alliance are being hosted by IGB in collaboration with the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

When people think of toxic cyanobacteria, they usually picture green algal blooms. However, these organisms can also grow on aquatic plants, meaning they are found in places where they come particularly close to humans and animals.

Scientific findings demonstrate how phosphorus enters the lake and explain why tackling pollution sources and chemical phosphorus removal by precipitation within the lake are both appropriate measures. Only by combining these approaches can the ecological condition of Saxony-Anhalt's largest lake be improved sustainably, and can the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive and Natura 2000 protected area be met.

In nature, the rarest ingredient can be the one that holds everything together. In a new article in the Cell Press journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Dr Erika C. Freeman argues that a handful of scarce molecules can shape entire living communities, far out of proportion to how little of them is present. These are what ecologists call “keystone molecules”.

A study published in Science shows that the exposed sediments of the desiccated Aral Sea have already released vast amounts of carbon dioxide since 1960, but also that they still contain a vulnerable carbon sink that could be protected through hydrological restoration.

In the second half of June 2026, record-breaking heat was recorded not only on land but also in bodies of water. On 29 June 2026, for example, a water temperature of 30.2 °C was measured in Berlin’s Müggelsee – the highest temperature ever recorded for this lake. Near the shore, the temperature even reached 32.7 °C. But how do extremely high temperatures affect the lake and its wildlife? Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) provide an overview.

On 30 June 2026, Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) and IGB opened their new collaborative building for biodiversity research on the Dahlem research campus. Here, eight research groups from the two institutions will work together under one roof.