Selected publications

The authors used isotope tracers and water quality measurements, hydrometric and climatic data to investigate seasonal changes in water sources in the River Erpe. Downstream, flows were dominated by effluent from a large wastewater treatment plant, especially in summer. They gained new insights into how lowland, peri-urban catchments with complex land use function hydrologically.

The authors exposed three freshwater ciliates to long-term selection of increasing salinity in the absence and presence of competitors. Their results show that the evolutionary and plastic responses to increasing salinity depended both on interspecific competition and the magnitude of the abiotic salinity change, ultimately determining species persistence.

The authors propose a framework to study eco-evo dynamics in communities by considering interactions between the processes of evolutionary biology (selection, gene flow, genetic drift and mutation) and community ecology (selection, dispersal, ecological drift and speciation). Such a framework will enable explorations of the full range of eco-evo dynamics and guide the design of novel experiments.

The authors advocate the worldwide development of a dark infrastructure. This refers to areas and corridors without excessive artificial light at night that protect biodiversity from light pollution. A guide to getting there.

The authors investigated the genetic basis underpinning the adaptation of prey to predation. The expansion of multiple gene families might be a key evolutionary event for Daphnia to survive in a habitat containing predators. For example, the expansions of gene families associated with chemoreception and vision allow Daphnia to enhance detection of predation risk.

The paper reports impacts of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and ionic silver (Ag+) on an aquatic processing chain of leaves, microbes, shredders and collectors. AgNPs and Ag+ affect multiple links of the processing chain at environmentally realistic concentrations. Shredders respond more sensitively than collectors. Leaf-associated fungal biomass and microbial leaf decomposition are being reduced.

The authors identified limitations to the development of multiple-stressor management strategies and address these within an empirical framework. They give recommendations for the use of empirical models and experiments to predict the effects of freshwater degradation in response to changes in multiple stressors and offer practical advice for management strategies in 3 multiple-stressor scenarios.

The study wanted to determine whether detritivore diversity enhances leaf litter decomposition in streams and how patterns vary across realms, biomes and climates. It indicates a positive relationship between detritivore diversity and decomposition rate particularly in the tropics, whereas at higher latitudes decomposition rate was more strongly correlated with detritivore abundance and biomass.