Projects

Our surface and groundwaters struggle with a variety of different pressures, like water shortage, flow regulation, straightening or sediment and nutrient loading. The project MARS analyses how the combination of these stressors impacts aquatic ecosystems and their functions.

The main objective of this project is to identify the key-factors of organic matter turnover in inundated peatlands. Based on our findings we might improve our predictions regrading the restoration of degraded peatlands.

The recent discovery of a so-far disregarded diversity of abundant fungal (chytrid) parasites of phytoplankton is challenging our understanding on how aquatic ecosystems function. Combining physiological, ecological and evolutionary approaches, we aim to disentangle the role of chytrids in the aquatic food webs. 

Climate change affects not only air temperature and precipitation, but also our streams and rivers: water temperature is rising, river flow characteristics are changing, oxygen concentration is sinking, while nutrient concentrations increase. This is not without consequence for the plants and animals living in freshwaters.

Invasion biology has addressed or even solved several key questions about biological invasions, but the central issue of long-term effects of invasive species has remained critically unexplored. Several case studies exist about long-term population dynamics of invasive species and their impacts, but a general synthesis or understanding is currently lacking. This knowledge gap is critical, as long-term shifts in invader population densities and traits are likely and may have large consequences of ecological and economic interest. This project aims to narrow the knowledge gap.

The DASTMAP project develops and applies new genetic markers to characterize four in the Danube River endangered sturgeon species as a prerequisite for sustainable fisheries and conservation management.

Large-scale citizen science study on green-house gas concentration and microbial diversity in German inland waters

We analyse the effects of wind-induced mixing on phytoplankton development in the shallow lake Tai near Shanghai.