News

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.

A new report provides practical guidance for monitoring the biodiversity and ecological functionality of urban water bodies. 

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 special issue “Wetlands in a Changing Climate: Restoring Coasts and Floodplains” explains in detail why Europe's wetlands urgently need more protection and restoration in the face of climate change. More than 100 authors from across Europe contributed to the publication, including Prof. Sonja Jähnig and Dr Martin Pusch from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). All articles are open access. 

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.

Researchers from IGB investigated the litter pollution in the River Spree in Berlin and its tributaries. They found that over 95 percent of the waste in the waterways and on the riverbanks is macroplastic. Food wrappers accounts for around one-third of this. In the study published in Environmental Research, the researchers identified waste hotspots and recommended focusing on cleaning certain riverbanks, as this is where most of the plastic enters the waterways.

Researchers at IGB have used long-term data from the Spree River to discover that aquatic plants can compensate for declining water levels in a drier climate. In recent summers, the growth of aquatic plants in the lower part of the Spree has led to an increase in water levels of around 50 to 60 centimetres compared to previous years, thus compensating for the declining discharge.