As a result of two projects funded by the DBU, in cooperation with the Stiftung Lebensraum Moor and the company Gramoflor GmbH & Co KG, we are now pleased to present our compact guide to peat moss propagation and establishment for restoration purposes. It is now available for download, among other things, here (German). This guide includes in a practical, short and concise form our results and recommendations for the propagation and active establishment of peat mosses in peatland restoration sites. The guide offers concrete instructions for implementation and is also intended to provide orientation for further scientific work. An English language version will be published shortly.

We welcome Dr. Peter Müller at the Institute for Landscape Ecology! We are very happy that he will establish his DFG funded Emmy Noether research group “Rhizosphere Biogeochemistry” at our institute. Müller gained international reputation for his research on carbon cycling in coastal wetlands. His key interest are interactions between plants and soil microbes in the rhizosphere and how these biotic interactions control the ecosystem carbon balance. He conducted research at the University of Hamburg, the GFZ Helmholtz Center Potsdam and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland (USA). At the Institute for Landscape Ecology, Müller plans on expanding his rhizosphere research to freshwater wetlands, including bogs and fens. We are looking forward to an exciting collaboration!

The long-time secretary of the Institute of Landscape Ecology retired  on 30.06.2022. The Executive Director of the ILÖK, Prof. Dr. Klaus-Holger Knorr, paid tribute to Ute Goerzen and expressed his thanks to her on behalf of the Institute's staff. "We will miss you" said the Executive Director and "will have to get used to the time without you". The Institute wishes Ute Goerzen all the best for her future!


 

The Jeannine Böhmichen Prizes were awarded during the Geo.Science.Day on 30 June 2022. The prize is awarded to a Bachelor's thesis that, among other things, presents complex issues from landscape ecology in a clear and concise manner, independently raises questions of high originality or topicality, presents multi-layered information in a clear and concise manner or demonstrates the creative scope of students. As a rule, only one prize is awarded per academic year. This year, however, everything was different. Due to the pandemic, the last award ceremonies could not take place live. In addition, two prizes were awarded in 2021. The picture (from right to left) shows the prize winners from 2019 (Thomas Middelanis), 2020 (Nadine Jöllenbeck) and 2021 (Hanna Schlüter). Svenja Hirsch was unable to accept the award in person. She was represented by Till Wendtland, as she has taken up a position at the Berchtesgaden National Park and was unable to travel. We would like to congratulate the winners!

The regulating functions of peatlands in the water and material cycles, their ecosystem functions and their role in the conservation of biodiversity have increasingly become the focus of scientific and public discussion, especially in the wake of climate change and the more frequent occurrence of droughts and heat waves. The working groups Ecohydrology, Remote Sensing and Spatial Modelling and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research as well as working groups from the Netherlands, Poland and Austria will collaborate in this project to investigate raised bogs of the nemoral zone of Central Europe with regard to their historical development, current state and potential development. As the project progresses, the Animal Ecology and Biosphere-Atmosphere Interaction working groups will also join and strengthen the project with their expertise.
 

The Institute of Landscape Ecology warmly welcomes Prof. Dr. Mana Gharun, who took up her position as Junior Professor with TT for "Biosphere-Atmosphere Interaction" at the ILÖK on 1 March. We are looking forward to working with her and wish her a good start in Münster. Mana Gharun's work focuses on the alteration in exchange processes between ecosystems and the atmosphere in the course of current climate change. Extreme events, such as the dry years 2018 and 2019, are used as natural experiments to gain insights into future changes in the carbon and water balance of ecosystems.
 

The Institute of Landscape Ecology warmly welcomes its new colleague Sascha Buchholz. He has formerly worked at the TU Berlin and is now leading the Animal Ecology Groupat the institute (the website is under construction) . He is working on urban ecology, invasion ecology, cultural landscapes, nature conservation, species protection, science-policy interfaces and many more. We are looking forward to fruitful collaboration.
 

The Climatology Research Group and the Micrometeorology Group of the University of Bayreuth concluded their intensive observation period of urban climate. The focus was on the analysis of weak wind situations in urban settings and their role in surface exchange processes. Further, the urban heat island of the city of Münster was intensively studied and its relation to the spatial distribution of the atmospheric aerosol concentrations. Further information... [de] (available in German language only)

 

A feature on the project "Microplastics in dams and reservoirs: sedimentation, distribution, effects (MikroPlaTaS)" has been published in the series Sustainability at the WWU (in German Language).
A new video informs about the project on which Dr. Friederike Gabel and Diana Michler-Kozma are the involved researchers at ILÖK. Numerous theses have also been written in this field of reserach.

Significant amounts of carbon are stored in Central European forests. In addition, forests and their soils are important for biological diversity, which in turn strengthens the adaptability and stability of the forest ecosystem. The aim of this project, which is carried out jointly by the Soil Ecology and Land Use Research group and the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group with the NABU-Naturschutzstation Münsterland [de] and the Landesbetrieb Wald und Holz Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW), is a synoptic view of the carbon balance and biodiversity - above and below ground. The studies planned for the next three years should help to better assess the influence of the intensity of use on the performance of forests in terms of biodiversity, carbon storage and climate stability.

Further information:
Project homepage [de]
Project homepage of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group

Plastic pollution of the oceans has gained broad media coverage. However, also freshwater ecosystems are heavily polluted by microplastics with crucial impacts on aquatic organisms. The Institute of Landscape Ecology is a partner of the joined research project MikroPlaTaS (funded by the BMBF), which investigates the distribution and sedimentation of microplastics and the impacts on aquatic organisms. In the framework of this project, a travelling exhibition to the topic of microplastics was developed that can be hired by schools for free. The exhibition was first presented at the Mariengymnasium Warendorf (school's report [de]). If you are interested in the borrowing the exhibition, please contact Dr. Friederike Gabel.
 

"Monitoring of modern agroforestry ecosystems - new cultivation systems as meeting points for agriculture, civil society and science" is the name of the research project that Julia Binder and Thomas Middelanis have designed. The two students of the “Master Landscape Ecology” want to develop and apply over several years an ecological catalogue of methods together with fellow students, the working groups of the ILÖK and above all interested volunteers, school classes, farmers or conservationist groups. The multi-perspective cooperation has the aim to examine ecological interactions and climatic advantages that the integration of trees in the arable context brings with it. The University of Münster supports the initiative within  the "WWU-Citizen-Science-Competition" with 7.500 € [de].

Soil is a huge habitat hidden beneath our feet, especially during this online semester. The education videos of the Research Group Soil Ecology and Land Use [en] deliver a first insight into pedologic methods and into soils which frequently occurr not only in the Münsterland.
 

From subtropical marshlands, methane fluxes and flood protection areas: 16 students of Geography and Landscape Ecology at the University of Münster set off for Taiwan to study the topics of climate, environmental meteorology, air hygiene and bio- and atmosphere. Click here for the blog [de]...