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Hydroelectric turbines put fish at risk of severe injury during passage. To support an informed debate on the sustainability of hydropower, reliable data of turbine-induced fish mortality are pivotal. A team of researchers has now provided a first global analysis. On average, 22.3 percent of all fish passing through turbines got killed or showed severe, potentially lethal injuries.

Due to global climate change, lakes around the world are getting warmer and freezing over on fewer days of the year. An international research team with Georgiy Kirillin from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) has recently shown that the changes would not have occurred without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The beginning of 2022 marks a special milestone for IGB, because a lot has changed: We have restructured our departments and recruited two excellent heads for the management board. At the same time, new programme areas are being prepared. And we have also made a visual change. With all of these changes, we intend to express our current mission and research priorities more clearly.

Jonathan Jeschke took over as head of the new IGB Department of Evolutionary and Integrative Ecology on 1 January 2022. In an interview, he tells us why integration is his guiding principle, what new methods and approaches he is pursuing, and how he would like to promote young scientists in particular.

Lakes in alpine locations react sensitively to climate change. Researchers led by IGB and the Faculty of Geosciences at Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, China, have analysed in detail the changes in a lake in the northern Tibetan highlands since the end of the last ice age. Sediment samples dating back thousands of years show strong ecological changes due to rising temperatures and the influence of melting glaciers. 

Sonja Jähnig has been appointed Head of Department at IGB since 1 January 2022. In an interview, the professor talks about her personal goals, what each of us really should know about rivers and lakes, and why water bodies are often overlooked.

Researchers at IGB have found that the Mexican waves collectively produced by tiny fish in Mexico actually reduce both their predatory birds' propensity to attack as well as the birds’ hunting success.  Functionally, these waves may work as a signal from the fish to the birds: “We know you are there, don’t waste your time on attacking us!”

Light pollution is a serious threat to all levels of biodiversity – from genes to ecosystems. An international team of researchers has identified 11 urgent research questions that need to be addressed in order to mitigate the effects of light pollution on biodiversity.