News

The IGB river researcher Sonja Jähnig is calling for further migratory fish species to be included in the appendices of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS).

In a statement released today, the Leibniz Association's Senate recommended continued funding for IGB. This attests to the Institute's very positive development. The Senate thus agrees with the assessment of an international expert panel who conducted a comprehensive review of the Institute’s achievements. Particular emphasis was placed on the structural adjustments and scientific development of the IGB over the past seven years.

This study elucidates a promising method that considers complex human-nature interdependencies when managing invasive species. 

Over 40 percent of extant large freshwater animals (megafauna) have been deliberately introduced outside their natural ranges, often for economic gain. While these alien species can provide substantial benefits to certain groups in the introduced regions, they also posed profound and often underestimated risks to native biodiversity and local people. 

The new “Environment90m” dataset from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) provides standardized, high-resolution environmental information to characterize freshwater habitats around the world.

Oceans are important carbon sinks and bacteria play a central role in the carbon cycling. In a study published in Nature Geoscience, an international research team including IGB has now quantified the effect of bacteria in the middle ocean layers, known as the twilight zone.

Protected areas are meant to preserve endangered species and stabilize ecosystems. But for many European rivers, this protection apparently falls short. This is the finding of a new study in Nature Communications led by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, in which IGB participated.

A new article in Nature Reviews Biodiversity states, that the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) does not adequately address the issue of migratory freshwater fishes. Of the more than 1,100 migratory species listed, only 23 are freshwater fishes.