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The brackish lagoons around the German island of Rügen in the southern Baltic Sea are known as outstanding fishing areas, especially for large pike. However, pike catches and catch sizes have been declining for several years.  There are many reasons for this: loss of spawning grounds, decline in nutrition, increased natural mortality due to cormorants and other natural predators, climate change and overfishing.

Gabriela Costea is part of an international team developing concepts for better management of the Danube. In an interview, she explains why communication is so important when it comes to implementing research findings – and why a children’s book can help.

When an endangered species succeeds in repopulating its former habitat, the immediate reaction is one of joy. In the long term, however, its spread is often associated with conflict. One example is the beaver, a keystone species. Other keystone species include the wolf and the bison. These are animals that have an extraordinary impact on the ecosystems in which they live. The reintroduction of such keystone species often restores important processes and ecosystem functions.

Professor Dörthe Tetzlaff was today awarded the highly endowed Water Resources Award of the Rüdiger Kurt Bode Foundation. The prize, which is awarded every three years for outstanding work on the sustainable use of global water resources, honours Tetzlaff's pioneering research on the interactions between climate, land use, water quality and the ecohydrological processes that control water dynamics in landscapes.

A team of authors has been awarded the BWK Publication Prize for their research into the ecological impact of hydropower plants. The paper, published in the journal WASSER UND ABFALL, provides a comprehensive analysis of how hydropower plants affect the hydromorphology and ecological condition of German streams and rivers, thereby counteracting efforts to revitalise them.

By choosing the right food, you can do a lot for your own health – and also contribute to more or less environmentally friendly consumption. This also applies to fish and their food. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) are working on feed for aquaculture and aquaponics. Their aim is to optimise the nutrition of fish and at the same time protect the environment.  

The evaluation of different management approaches for macrophytes showed that the "do nothing" option can also be considered when dealing with aquatic plants. According to the study, mass developments of aquatic plants primarily impair the recreational value of a water body, while they are often beneficial for other ecosystem services

A team of scientists collected and analysed water samples at the time. The result, published in Nature Water today, showed that high concentrations of organic micropollutants exacerbated the lethal effects of prymnesin.