University of Duisburg-Essen
Faculty of Biology
Aquatic Ecology
Universitätsstr. 5
45141 Essen, Germany

Head of research group
Prof. Dr. Bernd Sures
Prof. Dr. Daniel Hering

Office
Birgit Rieth
Jutta Schumacher

Read which research projects are currently being carried out by the Aquatic Ecology group or in which projects our scientists are involved.

Find out what exciting and interesting topics our doctoral students are currently researching in their work and projects.

We offer doctoral, master, bachelor and examination theses as well as internships in all research areas, in a dynamic and internationally networked working group in a good atmosphere. If you are interested, please contact us or the persons mentioned in the text.

RESIST investigates how water bodies and their habitats respond to multiple stresses. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and runs for four years with a funding volume of 12.3 million euros.

MERLIN – Mainstreaming Ecological Restoration of freshwater-related ecosystems in a Landscape context: INnovation, upscaling and transformation

MERLIN seeks new, widely applicable solutions for restoring the functions of freshwater ecosystems, for example to improve flood retention and store carbon dioxide.

The project involves 44 partners from across Europe, including universities, research institutes, nature conservation organizations, and stakeholders from business, government, and municipalities.

The platform serves to provide online calculation tools for determining the ecological quality of water bodies and is operated by Aquatic Ecology on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency.

Currently available are the methods  Phytofluss (Phytoplankton), Phylib (Phytobenthos and Makropyhten), Perlodes (Makrozoobenthos) and fiBS (Fische).

The use of all services of gewaesser-bewertung-berechnung.de is free of charge.

At the moment the platform is only avalibale in German, but other languages are possible and might come in the near future.

The online platform bundles information and results from freshwater ecosystem research. It makes data freely available and is intended to stimulate new research approaches in this field. It offers a unique and comprehensive knowledge base for a sustainable and evidence-based management of our threatened freshwaters and resources. The Aquatic Ecology operates the platform together with three other European institutes.