Article about Urban Algae in the IGB annual report 2018

You can read the article on page 23 in the annual report 2018 of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.

Special Session on the linkage of social and natural sciences at SEFS 11 (July 2019)

Mandy Velthuis (left) and Susanne Stephan (right) convening the Special Session at SEFS11 in Zagreb, Croatia.

We successfully submitted a proposal for having a session at the 11th Symposium for European Freshwater Sciences (SEFS11), which will take place from June 30 to July 5 (2019) in the capital of Croatia - Zagreb.

The Special Session 6 (SS6) is titled "Linking natural and social science in freshwater ecosystems" and was a full success with many interesting talks about exciting projects from all over the world.

The session program and presenters (speakers) from that session can be found here (external download link).

Convenors of the Session were:

Susanne Stephan, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Stechlin, Germany

Mandy Velthuis, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany

Cleo Stratmann, Independent Scientist, (Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands) and

Sonia Herrero, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Stechlin, Germany

Session Abstract

Aquatic ecosystems are prone to be altered by human-driven actions. As a basis for the sustainable preservation of ecosystems and the services they provide, cooperation between social and natural sciences is of special importance. Studies focusing on the linkage between ecology and societal perception are increasing, as well is the relevance of multidisciplinary collaborations. This session aims to bring together projects that use both natural and social science to study freshwater ecosystems and underline the importance of collaborations of e.g. scientists, managers and citizens. Therefore, we encourage oral presentations and posters on projects on (freshwater) ecosystems with multidisciplinary, collaborative and innovative character with societal relevance. Besides discussing interesting hypotheses, methodological approaches and outcomes, we also want to address the pros and cons that the intersection of natural and social sciences brings along.

Urban Algae talk in our session

In our special session, we also gave a talk about the Urban algae project itself. The talk was given by Cleo Stratmann. The audience was broad, and several Urban-algae-ers were amongst it.

The abstract of the talk including the list of authors can be read in the 'book of abstract' of the conference (external download link).

Urban algae project article

An article about the Urban algae project (german only) was published by Katharina Bunk on the 11.07.2018 in the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) Blitzlicht section.

Science day at IGB in Berlin, Germany (December 2018)

IGB Science day

Every year, the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), located in Berlin, organises a one-day inhouse seminar/platform for the inner institutional exchange called the “Science day”.

Everybody gets a chance to introduce (ongoing) projects and research ideas while also using more entertaining formats such as movies, science quizzes or little theatre plays. The scientific part is followed by a party and live music.

In December 2018, the last Science day at IGB took place with a whole morning session on Urban Ecology. Our project Urban Algae had been invited to participate and we used the chance to introduce our research goals, methodology and the team to the institute.

The feedback was very positive and especially young scientists showed great interest. Thanks to the many active members of Urban algae, we had a couple of nice postings on Twitter afterwards as well.

Text written by: Susanne Stephan

Conference poster DGL conference (September 2018)

At the yearly conference of the German Limnological Society (DGL) in Kamp-Lintfort, Germany (September 2018), the Urban Algae project poster was exhibited again.

The poster explains what Urban algae is about, the project aims, scientific hypotheses and methodologies we use.

You can find the poster as PDF for download under Project documents.

Conference poster AIL conference 2018 (June 2018)

First project poster.

'What urban algae is about.'

We were represented with a project poster at the conference of The Iberian Limnological Association (AIL) in Coimbra, Portugal, in June 2018. The poster explains what Urban algae is about, the project aims, scientific hypotheses and methodologies we use.