News

November, 2023

Water heating solution for ExStream outdoor mesocosms

Innovative solutions were required to perform our ExStream-mesocosm experiment including temperature treatments. The results have recently been published in Limnology and Oceanography: Methods.

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October , 2023

Metabarcoding and non-target screening to detect wastewater contamination

Experiments in the CRC AquaFlow mesocosms proved the efficiency of both non-target screening for contaminants and metabarcoding of microbial communities for the detection of wastewater contamination peaks. The results of this collaborative study involving five CRC subprojects were recently published in STOTEN

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October , 2023

Explaining CRC concepts to junior researchers

A recently published paper in Frontiers for Young Minds explains the relevance and effects of multiple stressors for river ecosystems to young researchers at the age of school children. The article was an initiative of CRC doctoral researchers and is a great way to communicate scientific content to a broader, non-scientific audience.

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September , 2023

Two poster awards

Two poster awards at the DGL conference (German Limnological Society) in cologne for CRC topics. Congratulations to Alexandra Schlenker (Project A12) and Svenja Gillmann (Project A17)!

August , 2023

Nature paper

Biodiversity of European freshwater ecosystems is not improving further

Analysis of a large number of Europe-wide time series datasets shows that freshwater biodiversity is not improving further despite of restoration measures. Apparently, the emergence of additional stressors in freshwater ecosystems prevents further enhancement of biodiversity. Those results were published recently in Nature including several RESIST PIs as authors.

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October , 2022

First batch of AquaFlow experiments are finished

Effects of stressors on microbial communities are investigated in six large scale AquaFlow mesocosms. The mesocosms simulate the riffle-pool-sequence of streams and allow the study of stressors and their effects under controlled conditions in a greenhouse. A two-month experiment on the effects of temperature, salinity and flow velocity was successfully completed in October.

October , 2022

Annual CRC RESIST general assembly

From October 24-26, our annual general assembly took place in the Salvador-Allende-House in Oer-Erkenschwick. The more than 50 project partners discussed the current project status and worked out first possible syntheses in teams. The main focus, however, was on the RESIST early career researchers, who impressively presented the results achieved so far in 21 short presentations as well as on research posters. Furthermore, the first synthesis projects integrating across the individual projects were started.

July , 2022

Summerschool CRC RESIST 2022

The second summerschool was focused on bioinformatics and eDNA and took place from June 27th – July 1st, 2022, in Essen, Germany. It comprised an introduction to R graphs and ggplot2 as well as some hands-on training in the lab. Further, the doctoral researchers learned how to work with the metabarcoding pipeline Apscale and analysed the processed data with TaxonTableTools. The summerschool was rounded up with two lectures on DNA analytics and start-ups as well as a soft skill workshop on science communication to improve the knowledge of the doctoral students about how to disseminate their work inside and outside of academia. Besides workshops and lectures, the students had a great team event with geocaching and solving riddles to figure out their way to the location of the team event. The team event took place on the SeaSide-Beach at the Baldeneysee in Essen. The main task of the team event was to build a raft which was able to swim and the day was finished up by a nice BBQ.

Lectures on bioinformatics and eDNA were given by Florian Leese, Alexander Probst, Till Macher, Robin Schütz and André Rodrigues Soares. The two additional lectures on DNA analytics and startups were given by Todd DeSantis (Co-founder & Vice President of Informatics at Second Genome, Inc.; www.secondgenome.com). The networking workshop was held by Andrea Tronscoso from city2science GmbH (Wissenschaftskommunikation und Strategieberatung, Science Communication and Strategy Consulting; www.city2science.de). The team event was organized by Teamgeist West GmbH (www.teamgeist.com).

Juni , 2022

Summerfestival at the University of Duisburg-Essen

On June 8th, 2022 the summerfestival of the University of Duisburg-Essen took place in Essen. The doctoral researchers of the CRC participated in the summerfestival by presenting their work on a poster and a miniature AquaFlow system. Not even the heavy rain could stop the doctoral researchers from explaining their work and research topics to interested people.

Next year the summerfestival will take place in at the University in Duisburg.

May 01 , 2022

New CRC-paper from projects A09 and A17 shows that host diversity and environmental parameters do not dictate the occurrence of phylogenetic host generalist microsporidians in environments that experienced anthropogenic disturbance. Production of resistant spores, host switching, and host dispersal might instead be important factors. Find details on our findings here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031182022000452

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April 01, 2022

Video feature about our ExStream experiment and the SFB scientist in action on WDR Lokalzeit - Ruhr (© 2022 WDR media group)

Oct 25-26, 2021

CRC General Assembly

On October 25th and 26th we had our general assembly of the whole RESIST consortium. It was the first time since the start of the project at the beginning of 2021 that we could meet in person with (almost) all doctoral researchers, PIs and postdocs, which is absolutely essential for a successful collaboration. We updated each other on the progress and further plans of the central projects and experiments and discussed possibilities for additional use of samples and data. Also, we took further step towards a collaborative paper on the central hypotheses about the Asymmetric Response Concept, by discussing the first draft.

After the meeting there was the possibility to visit the sampling sites at the Boye River, which was a good opportunity for external members to get to know the study area.
Overall, it was a really successful meeting that significantly increased the momentum of our CRC and which has strengthened the consortium even more.

Oct 4-8, 2021

Summer school CRC RESIST

The first summer school of CRC RESIST took place from October 4th, 2021 till October 8th, 2021 in Essen, Germany focusing on an introduction to „R“ (statistical analyses with a focus on time series analysis). Further, the students made a bicycle tour to some of sampling sites of RESIST in the Boye catchment, followed by a trip to the World Heritage Zeche Zollverein. Additionally, a soft skill workshop about „networking“ was also part of the Summerschool 2021.

June 21-22, 2021

CRC General Assembly

On June 21 to 22 we met to update each other about the progress and further plans of each individual project, and to discuss the underlying principles of our CRC. Furthermore, we heard a great presentation of Klement Tockner (Senkenberg) on “Rivers without water”. All in all, it was a successful meeting that also helped to improve the collaboration and the team spirit in the CRC.

June 01, 2021

Workshop

Today a workshop on "good scientific practice" for the CRC PI's (Principal investigators) held by Valentina Vasilov of the Graduate Center Plus of the University of Duisburg-Essen. We got really valuable input for creating awareness for doctoral students and potential measures to implement in the CRC.

May 28, 2021

First ExStream experiment finished

After about one and a half month, starting with the construction of the system on April 12, the ExStream outdoor mesocosm finished successfully on May 28.

The ExStream experiment is one of the central experimental systems in the CRC. This time we applied a salinity gradient and reduced flow velocity as stressors. The samples taken from the mesocosms will keep several projects of the CRC busy.