Selected publications

The authors add a new perspective to the topic of "recreational use of wild animals". The hypothesis is that an emotionally intense interaction between hunters / anglers and wild animals can create a particularly strong sense of responsibility, described as "environmental stewardship". This in turn would be an incentive for many to commit to lifelong environmental and species protection action. 

The authors introduce the concept of novel river landscapes, the limitations of current fish habitat models and opportunities for new models. They outline 3 priority data-driven opportunities that incorporate the novel riverscape concept: fish movement, river behavior, and drivers of novelty that all are integrated into a scale-based framework to guide the development of new models. 

Conservation efforts have led to the recovery of pinnipeds populations worldwide after decades of intensive hunting and culls. However, this positive development has led to conflicts with fisheries, particularly small-scale fisheries. They are almost three times more likely to come into conflict with seals, sea lions and walruses, and lose four times more of their catch than larger fisheries.

This study investigated how organic micropollutants and the algal toxins prymnesins interact as mixtures in water extracts from the Oder River using neurotoxic effects on human nerve cells in vitro. The authors showed that prymnesins dominate the neurotoxic effects, but many of the detected organic micropollutants exacerbate the lethal effect of prymnesins.

The research team has sequenced the complete genome of the microalga from the the Oder disaster 2022 in order to identify future risk factors under which the alga multiplies and produces its toxin. They were able to identify the gene sequences that encode the toxins an important step toward an early warning system. 

The authors have identified a gene locus responsible for sex determination in the European green toad. This reveals only the second known genetic mechanism for sex differentiation in amphibians.

Using a comprehensive set of long-term data, the authors show that shipping has contributed to a significant loss of biodiversity of fish and macroinvertebrates in European rivers in recent decades – and that the animal communities are becoming increasingly homogeneous and river-typical species are being lost. Invasive species, on the other hand, are significantly increasing. 

The research team estimates that recreational fishing in lakes and rivers accounts for more than 11 per cent of the annually reported catches in inland fisheries worldwide. The analyzed total consumption value of harvested fish is around 10 billion US dollars per year. Due to climate change and direct human impacts on freshwater ecosystems, the productivity of important fish species is declining.