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Taxonomy, or the identification of animal and plant species, can be very time-consuming, especially when a large number of objects are being analized. For example, scientific studies on the global decline of insects are often challenging from a taxonomic point of view. Molecular methods can now replace the human eye in identifying species. For the first time, researchers from the Biological Station Doñana (CISC) in Spain, with the participation of the IGB, have compared the efficiency of conventional and molecular methods using non-biting midges.

Submerged macrophytes are declining in many shallow lakes around the world, with more algae and free-floating plants taking their place. But an opposite trend is also emerging: water bodies with improved water quality are increasingly experiencing a mass growth of aquatic plants. Given that these plants perform many important ecosystem functions, careful management is required. 

On 8 May 2023, around 2,000 juvenile fish will be stocked near Stützkow. The original plan was to release the fish in the autumn of 2022, but this was not possible due to the man-made environmental disaster on the river. Now, the partners involved are making a new attempt and sending a signal for better protection of our river habitats. 

Weirs and other transverse structures in rivers not only impede migratory fish on their way to spawning grounds, but even if they are able to pass, many of them die in the turbines of hydroelectric power plants. Traditional fish ladders are often not designed for sturgeon, and as a result on average only about 2 per cent of the sturgeon use them. A team of researchers from Germany and China has now presented a recommendation on how to facilitate effective passage and even promote sturgeon with bypass channels at dams that can serve as additional habitat.

Cyclists need light, bats need darkness - a new science-based approach can help.

How do animals and plants survive and thrive in cities? Urban ecology is a growing research field. To find orientation in the information jungle on urban ecology, a team led by IGB and Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin) has created a map of 62 important research hypotheses in urban ecology. Among them are the idea of the daring city dweller, life on credit or the biological monotony of cities. Research has yet to show how robust the hypotheses are and to which cities they apply. The overview provides an important basis for this endeavor. It is openly available in Wikidata.

A chronicle of an environmental disaster on the River Oder: Images of huge quantities of dead fish – covering all species and sizes – shocked the German, Polish and international public in August 2022. IGB researchers set about tracking down the causes. IGB was the first institution to determine that the disaster was definitely man-made.

An international team has set up a database with geo-referenced occurrence records of four groups of freshwater invertebrate taxa across Cuba. Detailed knowledge of the spatial distribution of freshwater species is an important basis for monitoring changes in aquatic ecosystems.