News

IGB has provided feedback on the government draft of the National Water Strategy, emphasising, among other things, the relevance of aquatic biodiversity and the large practical implementation deficit in water management.

Alexander Sukhodolov has been carrying out a research on the Tagliamento River in the north-east of Italy for almost a decade and a half. Scientists are fascinated by this river because it has a number of features that makes it a unique object of study. IGB operates a River Lab at the Tagliamento, where researchers study river hydrodynamics and its effect and interactions with aquatic biota.

Studies of the Anthropocene continue to uncover the complex and dynamic interrelations between the societal world and the Earth system. At an international conference, researchers from the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities have joined forces to address the question of how these increasing mutual impacts can be better understood and further developed towards global sustainability.

Researchers from IGB and the Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań (Poland) tested whether water fleas (Daphnia) are more frequently infected by the parasite Caullerya mesnili in warmer waters. For the infected water fleas, the disease usually ends fatally.

IGB’s LakeLab in Lake Stechlin, containing “24 lakes within a lake”, is globally unique. This year, the large-scale experimental facility is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Reason enough to look at the past and the future with Mark Gessner, head of the “Plankton and Microbial Ecology” department at Lake Stechlin and initiator of the LakeLab.

A Chinese team, in collaboration with IGB researcher Sabine Hilt, has shown in a large mesocosm experiment how heat waves, nutrients and pesticides promote algae growth and cause aquatic plants to dwindle. This shift in plant types may increase the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions from shallow lakes, as Sabine Hilt and Dutch colleagues demonstrated in another mesocosm experiment.

IGB researchers have carried out sample fishing in the River Oder to get a better overview of the remaining fish population after the man-made environmental disaster. The results are very sobering.

How are species richness and the characteristics of running waters related worldwide? This question is being addressed by a team led by IGB scientist Sami Domisch. The researchers have developed the highest-resolution map of the world’s river systems ever produced. The map provides a basis for the detailed analysis of what characterises riverine habitats and how they are interconnected.