Category Archives: Research

Troubled Water: Pesticides are Long-Term Pollutants of European Surface Waters

In this blogpost, Larissa Herrmann talks about her latest research on pesticide reoccurrence in European surface waters, revealing that over 76% of compounds reoccur in aquatic ecosystems, with 40% previously unknown for long-term pollution. Her study, conservative in scope, highlights the need to reassess environmental risks, emphasizing the importance of understanding the long-term occurrence of pesticide impacts on water ecosystems.

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A synthesis of research related to aquatic-terrestrial coupling through emergence-mediated contaminant transfer

In this blogpost, Ralf Schulz talks about a recent review paper summarizing the newest literature on how anthropogenic stressors, such as pollutants, invasive species and hydromorphological changes in aquatic ecosystems affect the aquatic-terrestrial ecosystem coupling and particularly the food webs in terrestrial recipient food webs.

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Bio-QSARs: the inclusion of physiological trait information in machine learning QSARs allows predictions across species

In this blogpost, Jochen Zubrod talks about developing an innovative machine learning approach for ecotoxicity predictions. These cutting-edge models show impressive predictive power for acute pesticide toxicity in freshwater organisms, holding promise for applications in environmental risk assessment and pesticide research and development.

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Does global warming lead to taxonomical and functional reorganization of insect communities in European rivers?

In this blogpost, Dr. Alessandro Manfrin, postdoc of the DFG RTG SystemLink,  talks about his recent study published “Taxonomic and functional reorganization in Central European stream macroinvertebrate communities over 25 years”. Here they observed that because of increasing temperatures, species that favour cold waters are progressively replaced by those that favour warm temperatures leading to functional alterations of the community.

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Unveiling the Hidden Sources of Plastic Pollution: Shedding Light on Overlooked Microplastics and Novel Plastic Forms

The impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems has received substantial attention. However, there are emerging concerns regarding overlooked sources and novel forms of plastic pollution that have remained largely unexplored. This blog post covers the Special Issue of – ‘Frontiers in Marine Science’ , which sheds light on these hidden sources of plastic pollution.

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Beyond the classroom: 1st semester ends on the field

In May 2023, a group of M.Sc. Ecotoxicology students along with Carsten Brühl went to the Ecosystem Research Facility, Eusserthal (EERES) and the Riparian Stream Mesocosms (RSM). This excursion was a part of a module in the study program of M.Sc. Environmental Pollution Management (Ecotoxicology). In this blogpost, Danisa Lione and Hajar Bourassi (student representatives of the 2022 cohort), present some brief details about the excursion and their experience.

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Impacts of Anthropogenic Stressors on Aquatic Insects and Terrestrial Food Webs

Anthropogenic stressors have a significant impact on the delicate balance of ecosystems such as emergence of aquatic insects, connecting aquatic and terrestrial food webs. These insects act as a high-quality food source for terrestrial consumers, such as spiders. In this blogpost, Sebastian Pietz talks about his latest publication on exploring the potential effects of subsidy quality on spiders.

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