Projects

A training network at the interface between the science and the policy of international biodiversity conservation.

Water and energy are crucial to sustainable development, both globally and within Germany. WANDEL focuses on the question of whether limited water availability restricts the use of conventional energy systems and thereby accelerates the energy transition, or whether it actually slows the transition down.

Our aim is the investigation of regional, i.e. landscape-scale, mechanisms of carbon dissimilation in ‘fluvial metaecosystems’.

Eutrophication is a worldwide environmental problem accelerated by global warming, affecting the stability of aquatic ecosystems and having long-lasting consequences. In this project we investigate if and how eutrophication affects two interacting evolutionary processes: disease spread and interspecific hybridization.

BIBS is a BMBF project for biodiversity data collection and synthesis in Germany

Skyglow, the diffuse illumination of the night sky by artificial light, has never before been experienced during evolutionary history. Together with another feature of global change – the brownification of lakes caused by humic substances – skyglow disrupts the current light conditions in lake ecosystems. We will elucidate the ecological consequences of these phenomena and the mechanisms underlying them.

A new EU regulation to address invasive species entered into force at the beginning of 2015. IGB is involved in a project run by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) in which a method is being further developed to identify invasive species that are of particular concern in Germany in the context of this EU regulation.

Comparing phenotypic plasticity in bacterial prey traits and ecological consequences by using specialist vs. generalist strains and organic aggregates as model systems.