Abteilung Aquatische Ökologie

Aquatische Ökologie

Die Abteilung Aquatische Ökologie der Eawag besteht aus acht Forschungsgruppen und umfasst eine Vielzahl von verschiedenen Disziplinen der Ökologie und Evolutionsbiologie, wobei die gesamte Bandbreite vom individuellen Level über Vergesellschaftungen bis hin zu Ökosystemen abgedeckt wird. Erfahren Sie mehr

Aktuelles aus der Abteilung

Biber schaffen Lebensräume für Fledermäuse

Stehendes Wasser, Lücken im Wald und tote Bäume: hier finden Fledermäuse gute Jagdbedingungen. (Foto: Christof Angst)
13 novembre 2025 –

Landlebende Tiere profitieren vom Dammbau der Biber – zum Beispiel gefährdete Fledermäuse, zeigt eine Studie.

Landlebende Tiere profitieren vom Dammbau der Biber – zum Beispiel gefährdete Fledermäuse, zeigt eine Studie.
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10 Jahre Eawag Sensorlab

Eine Serie von Temperatursensoren mit Funkübertragung liegt bereit zur Generalüberholung, denn die Einsatzbedingungen im Gebirge oder in der Kanalisation können hart sein. (Andri Bryner, Eawag)
11 novembre 2025 –

Das Sensorlab feiert. Mit ihm bleibt die Wasserforschung am Puls der Zeit, mit neuen Mess- und Automationslösungen, Datenübertragung und -management.

Das Sensorlab feiert. Mit ihm bleibt die Wasserforschung am Puls der Zeit, mit neuen Mess- und Automationslösungen, Datenübertragung und -management.
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Indirekte Effekte treiben die Evolution voran

Martin Schäfer nimmt eine Wasserprobe aus einem der Versuchsteiche (Foto: Christoph Walcher, Eawag).
28 agosto 2025 –

Eine internationale Studie in den Versuchsteichen der Eawag weist nach, wie sich indirekte ökologische Effekte auf die Evolution von Arten auswirken.

Eine internationale Studie in den Versuchsteichen der Eawag weist nach, wie sich indirekte ökologische Effekte auf die Evolution von Arten auswirken.
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Informationen für Interessenten (Englisch)

Aquascope

Echtzeit-Unterwasseraufnahmen

Forschungsprojekte

Untersuchung der Widerstandsfähigkeit und Anpassungsfähigkeit der Quagga-Muscheln

Epigenomik der schnellen Anpassung invasiver Quagga-Muscheln
Ein mehrphasiges Forschungsprogramm der Eawag und des Schweizer Bundesamtes für Umwelt (BAFU)

Klimawandel und aquatische Biodiversität
Der Rückgang der biologischen Vielfalt ist neben dem Klimawandel eines der drängendsten Umweltprobleme der heutigen Zeit. Das Synthesezentrum Biodiversität bündelt Erkenntnisse und macht sie allgemein verfügbar.

Translational Centre Biodiversity Conservation (TCBC)
Die Architektur von Artgemeinschaften und trophischen Netzwerke in blau-grünen Ökosystemen

Architektur von blau-grünen Gemeinschaften
Dieses Projekt leistet einen Beitrag zur Blue Green Biodiversity Research Initiative - einer Eawag-WSL-Kollaboration, die sich auf die Biodiversität an der Schnittstelle von aquatischen und terrestrischen Ökosystemen konzentriert.

Wärmebedingter Gemeinschaftswandel in terrestrischen und Süßwasser-Ökosystemen
Warum blühen giftige Cyanbakterien? ...

Cyano Bloom
Understanding and measuring how flow intermittency drives biodiversity and river functions in an alpine environment

Alpine Streams and Flow Intermittency
Eine Zusammenarbeit zwischen Eawag und WSL mit dem Ziel, die Biodiversität an der Schnittstelle von aquatischen und terrestrischen Ökosystemen zu erforschen.

Forschungsinitiative Blue Green Biodiversity

Weitere aktuelle Forschungsprojekte

Neuste Publikationen

Cordier, T., Keck, F., & Lanzén, A. (2025). Benchmarking beta-diversity measures and transfer functions for sedimentary ancient DNA. ISME Communications, 5(1), ycaf230 (13 pp.). doi:10.1093/ismeco/ycaf230, Institutional Repository

Analyzing past ecosystems can improve our understanding of the mechanisms linking biodiversity with environmental changes. Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) opens a window to past biodiversity, beyond the fossil record, that can be used to reconstruct ancient environments and ecosystems functions. To this end, modern biodiversity and environmental conditions are used to calibrate transfer functions, that are then applied to past biodiversity data to reconstruct environmental parameters. Doing this with sedaDNA can be challenging, because ancient DNA is often obtained in limited quantities and fragmented into smaller molecules. This leads to noisy datasets, with a low alpha diversity relative to modern DNA, patchy taxa detection patterns and/or skewed relative abundance profiles. How this affects beta-diversity measures, and the performance of transfer functions remain untested. Here we simulated ancient DNA reads counts matrices from synthetic and empirical datasets, and tested 464 combinations of counts transformations (n=13), beta-diversity indices (n=16), and ordinations methods (n=4), and assessed their performance in (i) separating the ecological signal from the noise introduced by DNA degradation and in (ii) predicting ground-truth environmental conditions. Our results show that commonly used workflows in DNA-based community ecology studies are sensitive to the noise associated to ancient DNA signal. Instead, combinations of methods that include more recent ordination methods proved robust to ancient DNA noise and produced better transfer functions. Our study provides a framework for designing postprocessing workflows that are better suited for sedaDNA studies.
Collart, F., Rey, P. L., Altermatt, F., Külling, N., Guisan, A., & Adde, A. (2025). On the use of neighboring habitats as predictors of species distributions. Oikos. doi:10.1002/oik.11963, Institutional Repository

Choosing the appropriate scale for measuring environmental predictors is needed for accurately modelling species distributions. This need is becoming increasingly important with the use of high-resolution species distribution models (SDMs), emphasizing the challenge of aligning predictors with the spatial and ecological scales at which species interact with their environments. Focal predictors, which summarize landscape information within a spatially moving window, are powerful to account for neighboring information and scale dependency but have remained overlooked in SDMs. Using an automated selection procedure to identify the best predictors and measurement scales from a high-dimensional pool of candidates, including 13 nested circular focal sizes from 25 m to 5 km radius for each landscape feature, this study evaluated the use of focal predictors through a set of national-scale, high-resolution SDMs for more than 7000 species across 17 major taxonomic groups. It further examined whether focal selection depended on species' mobility or body size. Among all species, focal predictors were selected at least once in ≥ 94% of the SDMs, highlighting their important role. For mobile species, larger focal windows were selected for the land use and land cover category, whereas sessile species were associated with larger focal windows for topographic predictors. For small species, predictors with smaller focal windows were more often selected. Given the importance of focal predictors across all studied taxa, adjusting the optimal scale for each predictor and species is of utmost importance to improve model performance and account for species' scale dependency.
Karatayev, A. Y., & Burlakova, L. E. (2025). Invasion dynamics and impact of non-native molluscs in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Journal of Great Lakes Research, 102706 (26 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.jglr.2025.102706, Institutional Repository

The abundances of non-native species in invaded ecosystems can range from negligible to extremely high, and their effects include competition with and predation on native species, habitat alteration, and the transmission of diseases. Currently, 16 non-native mollusc species are established in the Laurentian Great Lakes, including 14 exotics introduced from other continents and two North American transplants. These species represent 52% of the diversity of all free-living non-native benthic invertebrates in the lakes. Early introductions (Bithynia tentaculata, Pisidium moitessierianum, P. amnicum, and Valvata piscinalis) arrived in the 19th century via solid ballast, whereas recent introductions (Dreissena polymorpha, D. rostriformis bugensis, and Potamopyrgus antipodarum) were primarily transported in ballast water. Most exotics originated from Eurasia (64%) and Asia (21%), with single species introductions from Europe and New Zealand. Mollusc densities vary greatly from rare (e.g., Corbicula fluminea and Radix auricularia) to extremely high (D. r. bugensis). Non-native mollusc diversity is highest in shallow Lake Erie and lowest in Lake Huron. The ecological impact of exotic species is largely proportional to their population abundance, ranging from negligible (e.g., sphaeriids, C. fluminea , and Radix auricularia) to the substantial effects from D. r. bugensis , which has transformed entire ecosystems in the four lower Great Lakes. We also examine potential future invaders (e.g., Limnoperna fortunei) and project their likely distributions and impacts. Ongoing and projected temperature increases will likely enhance conditions for currently restricted species and increase the risk of new introductions from warmer regions, further accelerating ecosystem change.

Weitere Publikationen