From Brown to Green: Ground Personnel on Permanent Duty

Soil food webs conduct most of the energy in terrestrial ecosystems. Temperate and tropical forests are home to different communities of soil animals, but to date it was not clear how these differences specifically affect the structure and functioning of Mehr

More Species across Thousands of Kilometers: The Secret Life on the Deep-Sea Floor

Although the deep-sea floor represents around 70 percent of the Earth’s habitats, it is still poorly explored. Therefore, it is also unclear how animal species live in the deep sea, where they occur, and how far they spread. To find Mehr

Type Genomics: DNA Treasure in the Collections

In a joint appeal, an international research team, including Senckenberg scientist Prof. Dr. Steffen Pauls, advocates the targeted and comprehensive genome sequencing of type specimens – the reference specimens of individual species that are kept in natural history collections. In Mehr

Tropical Time Machine: With a Teaspoon of Mud Back into the Past

For a long time, researchers believed that the warm and humid climate of the tropics and subtropics destroyed all traces of old genetic material. A new review, led by Senckenberg scientists, now disproves this dogma. Published in the journal “Trends Mehr

Tiny Archives: Metabolic Molecules Store the Prehistoric World

An international research team, including Senckenberg scientists, has developed a new method to investigate what the habitats of prehistoric animals and humans looked like. Their study, led by Prof. Timothy Bromage (New York University) and now published in the renowned Mehr

Rivers: too little protection in the protected area

Protected areas are meant to preserve endangered species and stabilize ecosystems. But for many European rivers, this protection apparently falls short. This is the finding of a new study led by Senckenberg researchers Dr. James S. Sinclair and Prof. Dr. Mehr

Bears: Changing the Menu in a Warming Climate

Bears are true omnivores. This flexibility has enabled them to successfully survive in a wide variety of habitats. An international research team led by Senckenberg scientist Dr. Jörg Albrecht has now analyzed ecological and paleoecological data on seven bear species Mehr

Hidden gems of the abyss: New Deep-Sea Coral Found Living on Nodules Targeted for Mining

An international research team led by Senckenberg scientist Dr. Nadia Santodomingo and Dr. Guadalupe Bribiesca-Contreras from the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have discovered a new species of deep-sea coral that lives attached to polymetallic nodules – the same mineral-rich Mehr

Ants Worldwide: Diversity Estimated Up To Three Times Higher

Around 14,260 living and 810 fossil ant species are currently known – but this probably constitutes only a fraction of the actual number. A new study, published in the journal “Insect Systematics and Diversity,” shows how modern methods such as Mehr

“Move BON”: New Global Network for the Study of Animal Movement

Move BON, a new international research network for studying animal movement, has now been officially endorsed by the overarching GEO BON network, which brings together global observations on biodiversity and makes them accessible for research and nature conservation. The new Mehr