Selected publications

A research team has studied the close relationships between infectious diseases and biological invasions. The "One Health" approach considers the health of humans as well as animals, plants and other elements of the environment to prevent pandemics and the spread of invasive alien species.

The authors analyzed 18 long-term high-frequency lake datasets to assess the magnitude of wind- vs. rainstorm-induced changes in epilimnetic temperature. They found small day-to-day epilimnetic temperature decreases in response to strong wind and heavy rain during stratified conditions, but day-to-day temperature change, in the absence of storms, often exceeded storm-induced temperature changes.

The authors investigated the recovery of a small, temperate shallow lake from a strong flooding-induced browning and nutrient loading event. Concentrations of dissolved organic carbon and phosphorus remained elevated and affected primary production despite water levels dropping to pre-flood levels indicating consequences of extreme precipitation for lake water quality and aquatic food webs.

The authors used the IGB model EcH2O-iso with isotope tracers to quantify how different vegetation communities in lowland German catchments partition rainfall into evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge. This showed that forests account for greater water losses to the atmosphere and reduced recharge. Future losses under climate change can be optimised by species selection and management. 

The authors investigated thermal adaptation of Daphnia from lakes that had been exposed to artificially elevated temperatures for six decades, in comparison to Daphnia that lived in control sites at ambient temperature. Daphnia from heated lakes evolved larger body size, which is contradictory to general expectations and theory. They suggest that large size is adaptive during active overwintering.

The authors investigated the effects of recent years’ droughts on ecohydrological processes in an agricultural catchment using an isotope-aided model (EcH2O-iso). Stream discharge could be sustained by deep, old groundwater, while transpiration fluxes were heavily reduced by drought stress. Crucially, tracer-based water age estimates can be used as potential indicators of drought impacts.

67 scientists reviewed 1700 peer-reviewed articles on soil-erosion modelling. The study addresses the relevance of regions, models, and model validation and includes the open-source database. 

The authors studied water partitioning in different urban green spaces using stable isotopes. During the warm and dry 2019, evapotranspiration losses of grass and trees were higher than those of potentially more drought-resilient shrub. The study contributes to a better understanding of urban ecohydrological partitioning, which will be essential to sustainably meet water demands of urban green.