Projects

New sYsteM-driven bioremediation of Polluted Habitats and Environment

RESIST- A Collaborative Research Centre on multiple stressor affecting streams and rivers.

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.

Climatic extremes, in particular storms and heat waves, are now becoming more frequent, a trend that has been linked to directional climate change and is projected to continue. The overarching aim of the MANTEL European Joint Doctoral (EJD) Training Network is to train a cohort of Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) to investigate the effects of the most extreme events, and more subtle lower magnitude episodic events, on lake and reservoir water quality.

Mass development of aquatic macrophytes – causes and consequences of macrophyte removal for ecosystem structure, function, and services

International research network on the impact of artificial illumination on nature and society

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.

In this project, the effect of climate change on the physical processes of lakes will be investigated. Several lakes with a diverse set of boundary conditions (e. g. differing mean depth or different wind exposure) will be instrumented with logger chains. They will measure temperature and oxygen in high resolution and make it possible to resolve changes in physical conditions in response to varying climatic forcing.  In addition to direct measurements, numerical models can be used to reproduce water temperatures in lakes.