2023

Nachruf auf Dr. Andreas Vogel

2022

Dissertation Prize for Ramona Heim

Last Friday, Ramona Heim was awarded the WWU Dissertation Prize by the Rector of WWU, Prof Dr Johannes Wessels, for her dissertation on "Fire ecology in Eurasian wetland and tundra ecosystems". The awarded dissertation consists of five international peer-reviewed articles, the last two of which were published this year in the very renowned journals Global Change Biology and Biogeosciences. We congratulate Ramona on the award and wish her good luck in her new position as a postdoc in the Spatial Ecology & Remote Sensing group (Prof. Dr. Gabriela Schaepman-Strub) at the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

Links:

• Heim RJ et al. (2022) Fire disturbance promotes biodiversity of plants, lichens and birds in the Siberian subarctic tundra. Global Change Biology, 28(3), 1048-1062 [doi: 10.1111/gcb.15963]
• Heim RJ et al. (2022) Fire in lichen-rich subarctic tundra changes carbon and nitrogen cycling between ecosystem compartments but has minor effects on stocks. Biogeosciences, 19(10), 2729-2740 [doi: 10.5194/bg-19-2729-2022]
• University of Zurich https://www.ieu.uzh.ch/en/research/ecology/spatial.html

Grazing and ecosystem functions in drylands

In early summer 2017, the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group organized an expedition to the Betpak Dala, a steppe-and semi-desert region of Central Kazakhstan, to collect data on the impact of grazing on biodiversity and 'ecosystem services' in drylands along a steep climatic gradient over 350 km from the northern desert to the dry steppe. The research is part of the BIODESERT study, coordinated by Fernando T. Maestre of the Dryland Ecology and Global Change Lab at the University of Alicante in Spain. In addition to Norbert Hölzel and Frederike Velbert from our institute, Salza Palpurina and Viktoria Wagner from Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, as well as Tatyana Siderova (botanist) and Asel Esengalyeva (undergraduate student) from our partner organization ACBK (Association for the Protection of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan) were involved in the research.
The data from Kazakhstan have been incorporated into a global study published in the journal Science. Key findings were summarized in a short video.

• Link to the announcement in the wwu news
• Link to the Science paper
• Video of the University of Alicante

Guide to peat moss propagation and establishment for restoration purposes published

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.

Job offer

The Institute of Landscape Ecology (ILÖK) has a vacancy for the position of an
Electronics Technician* or Electrical Engineer* to be filled, full-time and permanently.

Further information can be found here: Job Offer

Welcome Peter Müller

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  Biosphere-Atmosphere Interaction group has set up a new long-term eddy covariance measurement system in the Amtsvenn peatland in NRW. Using this system the group will quantify the exchange of greenhouse gases between the ecosystem and the atmosphere, to better understand the feedback from degraded peatlands to climate change.

all the best - Ute Goerzen

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!

Jeannine Böhmichen Prizes awarded

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!

ReVersal – Interdisciplinary Research Project on the Effects of Climate Change on Peatlands and their Restoration started

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.

Welcome Mana Gharun!

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.

2014-2021

We welcome our new colleague Sascha Buchholz

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.

Field Studies “CalmCity” concluded

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)

Video series "Sustainability at the University of Münster": The research project "MikroPlaTaS“

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.

BiCO2 - New project on the connection between biodiversity and carbon storage

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: Travelling exhibition

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.

WWU-Citizen-Science-Contest: Winning project from the ILÖK

"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].

Video education in soil science

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.

Looking back: 49th annual conference of the GfÖ in Münster

From 9th to 13th September the ILÖK hosted the 49th annual conference of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) in the premises of the Fürstenberghaus. With 689 participants from 25 countries, the conference was one of the best attended GfÖ conferences in the past decades. In eight parallel sessions 380 talks and 180 posters were presented. According to the theme of the conference, many sessions dealt with topical environmental policy issues, such as urban air hygiene, climate change, the decline of insect populations and agricultural policy. The German-language sessions of the "Praktikertag" proved to be a demanded forum for exchange between researchers and practitioners of nature conservation and environmental protection. The conference ended with a conference dinner followed by a club night at the music club Jovel, excursions to the Emsaue and Rieselfelder Münster as well as to the ILÖK's restoration projects in limestone quarries of the Teutoburg Forest and peat extraction sites near Vechta.

25 years Institute of Landscape Ecology

This year, the ILÖK celebrates its 25th anniversary. On this occasion the institute had invited on 10.09.2019 in the context of the annual conference of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) in Münster to a small celebration, attended by more than 80 former and active institute members. Also present were the two founding fathers of the Institute, Prof. Dr. Karl-Friedrich Schreiber and Prof. Dr. Friedrich-Karl Holtmeier, whose untiring efforts over many years have largely led to the founding of the Institute. After greetings of the dean of the department Prof. Dr. Harald Strauss and of the former AStA chairman and ILÖK graduate Dr. Josef Tumbrinck (today sub-department head nature conservation in the BMU), the managing director of the institute Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Norbert Hölzel gave a brief overview of the development of the Institute since its foundation [PDF download] [non-accessible] [de] in 1994. The evening ended with a lively exchange and a friendly get-together of the guests.

On climate excursion in Taiwan

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]...

Institute of Landscape Ecology - Colloquium 2020/2021

On behalf of the Institute of Landscape Ecology, we cordially invite you to the ILÖK colloquium in the winter semester 2020/21! The lectures are public and will take place on Tuesdays at 18.15 h - virtual. "Adaptation strategies of temperate trees to drought". With this topic, Prof. Dr. Ina Meier, Hamburg University continues our lecture series in the winter semester on 09.02.2021. The lecture is creditable in the MSc Lök, module M1.
The Zoom dial-in dates will follow.

The Volkswagen Foundation funds a larger number of inter- and transdisciplinary projects both from the natural and social science in Central Asia and on the Caucasus within the funding measure Between Europe and the Orient.
The AG Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research was asked by the foundation to organize a status symposium of the funding measure jointly with our partner in Kazakhstan, ACBK. Further information....

ILÖK-Colloquium WS 2018/2019

The Institute of Landscape Ecology invites you cordially to the ILÖK - Colloquium during the winter semester 2018/19. The presentations are open to the public and take place on tuesdays at 18.15 h in the lecture room (GEO1),  Heisenbergstraße 2.

Plastic in the environment is a global problem - also in freshwaters. Researchers of the WWU will investigate microplastics in the Rieselfelder of Münster, the River Ems, the River Lippe and reservoirs. The landscape ecologists and microbiologists are interested in which microorganisms colonise on the plastic particles and in the effects on invertebrates such as snails and shrimps ingesting plastic. The joint project lasts for three years and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with 470.00€. For further information please visit the project’s homepage MikroPlaTaS: Microplastics in Dams and Reservoirs: Sedimentation, Spread, Effects.

Early detection of GPP-related regime shifts

The invasion by Acacia in Portugal is a striking example of how exotic plant species can threaten native ecosystems. In the 20th century, the Long-leaved Wattle (Acacia longifolia), which is native to Australia, was planted along the Portuguese coast to stabilize dunes. Since then, the yellow flowering shrub has become invasive, and it is altering water and nutrient cycling with negative effects for the native species. Scientists from the Universities of Münster, Hamburg, Freiburg and Bielefeld show for the first time how to produce high-accurate maps of the wattle including its impact on nutrient cycling in a Mediterranean dune ecosystem. To this end, the team used high-resolution airborne sensor data. The study is published in the journal “Remote Sensing of Environment” 

For further information please check the publication here.

Yellow-breasted Bunting: uplisted to Critically Endangered, consumption and trade go on, but there is hope

Yellow-breasted Bunting, once a superabundant songbird species, has declined by 85-95% since the early 1980s, with heavy, illegal persecution in China being an important driver. The species' status has recently been updated to Critically Endangered on IUCN's international Red List, based on a quantitative assessment of the decline led by Johannes Kamp of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group.

However, birds are still caught and sold in larger numbers, even on eBay-like platforms in China. A price of 15-30 USD per bird suggests high demand. Good news is that conservation organizations along the flyway are raising awareness, see e.g. this excellent video from Hongkong. Also, the Chinese law has been changed, and hunting and consumption are now criminal offences.
More research is underway to shed light on the year-round distribution and flyways of the species. Data on migration routes have been retrieved from geolocator devices by Wieland Heim. This will help us to identify key areas for conservation of the species, and learn more about potential additional drivers of the decline, such as land-use change and agricultural intensification on the wintering grounds.

Klaus-Holger Knorr has qualified as a professor

Dr. rer. nat. Klaus-Holger Knorr (Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry Research Group)was awarded the Venia legendi for Biogeochemistry by the Department of Geosciences on 29.11.2017 with a cumulative thesis on the topic:"Using organic matte quality, stable isotopes, and electron transfer processes as tools to understand mechanisms of element cycling in wetlands". Congratulations!

The Ecohydrology & Biogeochemistry group in the EGU Imaggeo blog

A photograph of one of the field sites of the Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry Group was selected for the Imaggeo-blog of the EGU (European Geosciences Union). Here, scientists provide insights into their ongoing work using selected photographs and in a language also accessible for the broad public audience.

IALE-D yearly conference on water and landscape in Münster

From the 20th to 22nd of September the Research Group Applied Landscape Ecology and Ecological Planning hosted the annual conference of the German Region of the International Association for Landscape Ecology with an overlying topic on water and landscape (Wasser.Landschaft).

About 80 people from all over Germany participated in the conference containing manifold topics. The presentations and posters covered a variety of themes from hydronumeric simulation of model conform replacing structures; microplastics; renaturation and maintenance practices of waters; to issues of water culture or ecosystem services. ...read further.

Publication about pollution measurements on the roadside

In May / June 2016 three students of the working group climatology performed highresolution measurements on pollutants on the roadside. The measurement was setup next to the busy street "Bült" in Münster. The exhaust plumes of the passing traffic fleet were analysed by the amount of nitrogen oxides. The results show that the real-world vehicle emissions exceed the legal limits by far. More projects like this are planned, for example there might be measurments in combination with an automatic detection of the license plates to assign the individual exhaust plumes to the respective types of vehicle. Recently the results were published in the research article "Real-world vehicle emissions as measured by in situ analysis of exhaust plumes" which is freely available. The article is released in the scientific mgazine "Environmental Science and Pollution Research". Press release of the University Münster (german)

New publication about modelling invader impact in dune ecosystems

A new study about modelling the impact of the invasive, nitrogen (N)-fixing shrub Acacia longifolia on N cycling in a nutrient-poor dune ecosystem was published by André Große-Stoltenberg and Dr. Jan Thiele of the research group Ecological Planning within the projects DeInVader (funded by EUFAR) and QUEEN (DFG) in the journal “Scientific Reports”. The team presents a new approach. Read further... The university paper published a short article Link.

Honorary Professor degree for Norbert Hölzel

The University of Tyumen has granted Norbert Hölzel a Honorary Doctor degree, to value his engagement for the german-russian cooperation in research.

press release WWU [de]
press release University of Tyumen [en]

New research project: Investigation of historical land use in the Biodiversity Exploratories

In the current phase of the DFG priority programme 1374 'Exploratories for large-scale and long-term functional biodiversity research' (2017-2020), Dr. Jan Thiele (Research Group Applied Landscape Ecology and Ecological Planning) got a grant for a project on effects of historical land use on species communities in grasslands (HiLUCC) that will be carried out in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Weisser, TU Munich. In this project, previous land use - dating back to ca. 1850 - around study plots (1-km radius) will be digitalised from historical maps. We will study if the land-use history of grassland plots as well as the historical landscape structure continue to have an effect on today's species communities. For example, fragments of previously large grassland areas may have an extinction debt. On new grassland parcels, species richness might depend on the presence of larger grassland areas and, thus, large species pools in the past. There will be possibilities to conduct MSc. theses in the frame of this projcet, e.g. on landscape change in the study areas Schorfheide-Chorin and Schwäbische Alb.
The HiLUCC project is situated in the research topic "Detection of landscape changes" of the Research Group Applied Landscape Ecology and Ecological Planning.

Successful Follow-Up Application - Prolongation of the ESCAPE project

Dr. Ute Hamer (Soil Ecology and Land Use), Dr. Till Kleinebecker and Prof. Dr. Norbert Hölzel (both Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group) successfully applied for a prolongation of the ESCAPE project within the Biodiversity Exploratories at the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - German Research Foundation). In close collaboration with Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer and Dr. Daniel Prati from the University of Bern the effects of seed addition and disturbance on plant diversity, nutrient retention and litter decomposition along a land-use gradient will be further evaluated in the SADE experiment. Coordinated by postdoc Dr. Valentin Klaus this project stage will again facilitates students projects and theses.

Young Researcher's Day at the ILÖK

On 27th of January there will be a "Young Researcher's Day" at the ILÖK.

Main goals of the researchers day are the strenghtening of research activity across the institute and the networking between the different disciplines.
Especially Ph.D. students are inveted to present their projects and doctoral thesis.

...read more (only avalible in german language)

Obituary for Jeannine Böhmichen

Das Institut für Landschaftsökologie trauert um

Jeannine Böhmichen

(1987 - 2016)

Jeannine, Du warst uns Vorbild und Inspiration; Antrieb und Maß. Vor allem aber waren wir einfach
gerne mit Dir zusammen. Wir vermissen Dich.

Anstelle von freundlich zugedachten Blumen und Kränzen, bitten wir um eine Spende an
,Jeannine Böhmichen", Sparkasse Münsterland Ost IBAN: DE68 4005 0150 0134 9575 54,
BIC: WELADED1MST, Stichwort Stiftung Jeannine. Die Spenden werden wir ganz im Sinne
von Jeannine weiterleiten.

Traueranzeige der Familie

Anstelle eines Nachrufes

Obituary for Prof. Dr. Christian Blodau

With great sadness we inform of the passing of

Prof. Dr. Christian Blodau

(1971-2016)

An obituary is available in german language.

Special Issue on Grazing in European open landscapes

[08.12.2016] A Special Issue of Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment edited by Péter Török, Sabine Tischew, Rudy van Diggelen and Norbert Hölzel on Grazing in European open landscapes is out now, compiling papers on the potential of traditional and alternative grazing practices. Topics such as sustaniability, biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services, and agri-envrionmental schemes are covered.
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, Volume 234 (October 2016) Special Issue: Grazing in European open landscapes: how to reconcile sustainable land management and biodiversity conservation?

A winter visit to the Yamal tundra

[29.11.2016] Upon invitation by the government of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district in the very north of Western Siberia, Norbert Hölzel and Ramona Fitz joint an international conference on “Preventing the dissemination of infectious animal diseases on climate change” held in the city of Salekhard at the polar circle  from November 9th to 11th, 2016. more...

Further interesting articles are published on the homepage of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group.

Biodiversity at multiple trophic levels is needed for ecosystem multi-functionality

[19.08.2016] Not only birds and flowers, but also rather unpopular insects and invisible soil-dwelling organisms maintain a wide range of ecosystem services. This is the result of a recent study published in Nature, to which Norbert Hölzel, Till Kleinebecker and Valentin Klaus of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group contributed. The lead author Dr. Santiago Soliveres of the University of Bern synthesized extensive datasets on a large number of taxa, that had been collected since 2009 in the framework of the DFG focal programme “Biodiversity Exploratories”. (press release)

Tracking the carbon in Canadian peatlands: A portrait of biogeochemical research at the Institute of Landscape Ecology

[11.04.2016] Ecosystems are increasingly influenced by climate change and the climate can be influenced by ecosystem change. Feedbacks of this kind are a focus of biogeochemical research worldwide. The documentary illustrates how research proceeds in this field and gives answers on questions that are raised: What is our motivation to address scientific questions? Why do we investigate Canadian peatlands? What are the steps of a successful research project in this field? How does the teamwork between students and scientists look like? How does a day in the field look like? What have we learned from our investigations? And after all: Can science be fun? [watch the movie]

Archive Study

only available in german language