Newsarchive - Biger in the News
BIGER Group: Coordinating Austria’s Role in DANUBIUS-RI
BOKU University leads Austria’s contribution to the European research infrastructure DANUBIUS-RI (ERIC) via the „Upper Danube Austria“ supersite. The region, which covers the Upper Danube, its floodplains, and pre-Alpine rivers, allows for multidisciplinary research into freshwater ecosystems and their management in the face of climate and land-use change.
The supersite is led by Univ.Prof. Dr. Thomas Hein, the BIGER group’s leader, and its operations are coordinated by Priv.Doz. Dr. Daniel S. Hayes, another BIGER member. Their efforts ensure that Austria’s contribution to DANUBIUS-RI results in strong strategies for managing freshwater ecosystems throughout times of global change.
Read the full paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00027-025-01219-6
ORF Article
Prof. Dr. Thomas Hein and Anna-Lisa Dittrich shared their expertise and insights on the ecological effects of ship-generated waves in the Danube and inland waters. They gave interviews for the ORF article, explaining how shoreline algae, plants, and juvenile fish are affected by these waves. Our team is very happy and grateful to have such knowledgeable colleagues.
https://science.orf.at/stories/3231254/
Photo: Victor Mello
BIGER at the 14th Symposium for European Freshwater Sciences SEFS 14. Preserve Freshwater, Advance Science, and Leave Hope for Tomorrow!
Our working group attended an outstanding conference focusing on freshwater ecosystems, which took place at Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University in Bolu, Turkey, from 20 to 25 July 2025.
The event provided a fantastic opportunity to hear from world-renowned plenary speakers and to engage with fellow scholars, who presented their latest findings and ideas. The conference aimed to foster collaboration among researchers, professors and scientists to promote innovation and advancement in future studies. One of the main topics discussed was the conservation of freshwater systems, an issue that is becoming increasingly important in modern ecological studies.
A new book is out! The Danube River and the Western Black Sea Coast: Complex Transboundary Management.
We are proud to announce the release of The Danube River and the Western Black Sea Coast: Complex Transboundary Management as part of the renowned Elsevier series, Ecohydrology from Catchment to Coast, which focuses on the world’s largest rivers. This volume is edited by the internationally recognised experts Jürg Bloesch, Bernd Cyffka, Thomas Hein, Cristina Sandu, and Nike Sommerwerk.
The book focuses on the catchment area of the Danube, the second longest river in Europe, and the adjacent Western Black Sea coast. It presents the complex interplay between natural and social processes, biodiversity issues, and the intricate links between sea and river.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Hein is one of the editors and authors of the book, and other group members, Dr Andrea Funk and Dr Martin Tschikof, contributed chapters as authors.
More details can be found here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780443186868/the-danube-river-and-the-western-black-sea-coast
IHG is leading the environmental DNA (eDNA) activities for JDS5, the largest river monitoring campaign in Europe. We’re proud that our team member, Dr. Paul Meulenbroek, is in charge of eDNA for fish. The sampling campaign is currently ongoing along the entire Danube River — from the source to the mouth, covering ~3,000 km — and around 300 samples are expected to be collected in just three weeks! A major step toward understanding and protecting biodiversity in one of Europe’s most important river systems.
Exploring Floodplain Ecology: An International Summer School with Hands-On Participation from Our Team.
The CEEPUS–EcoManAqua International Summer School “Floodplain Ecology” was attended by members of the BIGER working group from July 7–11, 2025, at the University of J. J. Strossmayer in Osijek and Kopački Rit. Prof. Thomas Hein gave lectures on floodplain ecology and Dr. Olena Bilous gave a presentation on the ecology of algae, as part of the HR–AT (Croatia–Austria, AT-1101-09-2425) collaboration. Our students actively participated in the program as well: master’s student Nadija Čehajić and doctoral student Bhargavi Nerikar. The school provided students with practical experience in river-floodplain ecology, biodiversity, and conservation.
– Network connectivity (Elisabeth Bondar-Kunze et al.)
– Mitigating shipwave-induced effects (Anna-Lisa Dittrich et al.)
– Large river restoration measures (Andrea Funk et al.)
– Fish ecology and environmental flows in Central Asia within the Hydro4U project (Daniel S. Hayes et al.)
Photos: Mirjam Reither
Participants improved cooperation, exchanged updates, and honed the project’s course for the upcoming stages. The conversations were actively participated in by our team, which included Johannes Luca Kowal, Dr. Ronald Pöppl, Prof. Thomas Hein, and Dr. Sonia Steffany Recinos Brizuela.
DANSER aims to address the impacts of human activity and climate change on river systems, restore sediment balance, and enhance water quality.
New Scientific Paper Published
Celebrating UNESCO’s Water Science Legacy
On June 12, our team member, Dr. Paul Meulenbroek, had the honour of participating in an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) and 60 years of UNESCO’s commitment to water sciences.
The event took place in Paris, where Dr. Meulenbroek contributed as an expert speaker during the side event „Joint Danube Survey 5 – Science, Society, and the Invisible in the River: Bringing Science to Citizens.“
His talk, titled “Biodiversity in a Drop: Monitoring Nature with eDNA,” focused on the innovative use of environmental DNA (eDNA) in tracking and preserving aquatic biodiversity.
#MERI
New Scientific Paper Published
A new Open Access article has been published in the Journal of Environmental Management, titled:
„Assessing Land Use Changes and Agricultural Practices in Highland Valley-Bottom Wetlands in the Taita Hills, Kenya“
by Sharon Gubamwoyo, Thomas Hein, Janne Heiskanen, Damaris Guranya Kisha, Petri Pellikka, Georg Gruber, Victor Apondi Omondi, Sonja Maria Leitner, Gabriele Weigelhofer, James Mwang’ombe Mwamodenyi, Amose Ouko Obonyo, and Gretchen Maria Gettel.
To read the full article online, please click here:
14thInternational Symposium on Biogeochemistry of Wetlands and Aquatic Systems
(Baton Rouge, LA, USA)
Our working group actively participated in the inspiring BioGeo 2025 symposium, engaging with the application of biogeochemical principles to address environmental and societal challenges across diverse systems.
This year’s theme highlighted the critical role of coastal zones—where freshwater from rivers and lakes meets estuarine and coastal ocean waters. Changes in runoff timing and discharge volume in these zones can lead to significant shifts in key drivers of biogeochemical cycling, including temperature, salinity, nutrient availability, sediment transport, and contaminant loads.
Our PhD student, Flavia Byekwaso, contributed to the symposium by presenting her work on urban tropical wetlands.
The EGU General Assembly 2025 was held in Vienna, Austria, from 27 April to 2 May.
During this week-long event, our team presented their achievements. Topics covered during the poster sessions included ecosystem dynamics, sediment transport in the Danube River and its tributaries, and the human impact on tropical urban rivers and wetlands. Our team also delivered oral presentations on topics such as floodplain connectivity, biogeochemical dynamics, and greenhouse gas emissions from tropical, groundwater-fed springs. We also gave a presentation on the drivers of stream metabolism in human-impacted mountain streams in Uganda.
Congratulations to our incredible team on these excellent presentations! Keep up the fantastic work!
Congratulations Peter!
Peter Bader successfully defended his MSc thesis entitled: ‚Analysing amphibian metacommunities in river-floodplain systems using eDNA metabarcoding: The importance of spatial connectivity and environmental conditions‘.
An important study for supported by FWF project RIMECO (Functioning of vertebrate metacommunities in dynamic riverine landscapes: an innovative approach using eDNA metabarcoding) https://forschung.boku.ac.at/en/projects/13766 and several EU projects.
Introducing the newest doctor on our team—congratulations, Sonia!
Please join us in congratulating Sonia Recinos Brizuela on becoming the newest doctor in our team! She successfully defended her PhD thesis titled ‘Network-based approaches to assess restoration of water-mediated connectivity in floodplains’. An outstanding achievement!
The Days of Biodiversity 2025 (Tage der Biodiversität 2025)
Prof. Thomas Hein presented our research findings for „Ecological development perspectives of the Austrian Danube and its tributaries“ (Ökologische Entwicklungsperspektiven der österreichischen Donau und ihrer Zubringer) and as member of the Austrian Biodiversity Council the recent Austrian Biodiversity Barometer. PhD student Johannes Kowal, together with Dr Florian Borgwardt, gave a presentation on „Water connectivity using the example of the AT-Danube tributaries“ (Gewässer-Konnektivität am Beispiel der AT-Donauzubringer). Dr. Martin Tschikof presented his work on „Protection of Danube fish: status assessments and solutions from an expert perspective“ (Schutz der Donaufische: Zustandsbewertungen und Lösungsansätze aus der Sicht von Experten).
A new addition to the team
The BIGER team is delighted to announce our newest team member: Dr Daniel Hayes. He is an expert in freshwater ecology, ecohydrology, ecohydraulics, multiple stressors, river management, biodiversity and ecosystem restoration. We are looking forward to working with him. Welcome Daniel!
Diving into the Danube to bridge Art and Science
Carlos Monleon-Gendall, Artist in Residence of one of the „S+T+ARTS4Water“ projects hosted by the Klima Biennale, was invited to participate in the last sampling campaign of the year, investigating the fish fauna of the Danube River. The artist had a great opportunity to join our CDL MERI team analysing the fish community of different Danube habitats by electro-fishing. Each of us had a wonderful opportunity to be inspired. The bridging of art and science will contribute to more understanding of human interventions and climate change on aquatic habitats to the attention of a wider audience and will be presented in 2025 and during the Klima Biennale 2026.
New Scientific paper
A new Open Access article was recently published in Science of the Total Environment: The effect of ship-induced wave trains on periphytic algal communities in the littoral zone of a large regulated river (River Danube, Austria), by Elisabeth Bondar-Kunze, Anna-Lisa Dittrich, Philipp Gmeiner, Marcel Liedermann, Thomas Hein
Art and Science together for public awareness of climate change
The artist in residence of one of the „S+T+ARTS4Water“ projects, Carlos Monleon-Gendall with the Local Expert Group of Klima Biennale, visited experts from IHG, BOKU University with several members of our working group. The fruitful discussion between scientists and artists provided inputs for the project “Parliaments of Streams”. Our team presented recent results from different projects (CDL Meri, LB4S and others) and several PhD research topics, aiming to explain the impact of human interventions and climate change on aquatic habitats. The main goal of this cooperation is to speculate and ultimately create new sensibilities, responsibilities, and realities reaching out to the wider public. The cooperation will entangle scientific and artistic languages and underlying concepts.
New Paper
Our latest scientific article from the iconn project in collaboration with Durham University is out! From drylands to river-floodplains, this perspective article contrasts water-mediated connectivity in two ecosystem types, integrating ecology and geomorphology. Read more: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eco.2690
Observation.org – biodiversity citizen science and monitoring
Our contribution to global biodiversity was made with some nice pictures of algae from Türkenschanzpark lakes .
We hope that the EU-based platform for biodiversity citizen science and monitoring will develop further with the contributions of our team in the following years as well.
https://www.wur.nl/en/research-results/themes/biodiversity/wageningen-biodiversity-challenge-2.htm
https://observation.org/bioblitz/uni-of-nat-resources-and-life-sci-boku-2024/#sg-19
For 2024, we got a reward from the BOKU BIOBLIZ (https://boku.ac.at/boku-biodiversitaetscluster/veranstaltungen) for participating in supplementing biodiversity.
Congratulations, Praise!
Praise AINOMUGISHA successfully defended her MSc thesis with the title: QUANTIFYING RIVER FLOODPLAIN ECOSYSTEM SERVICES OF THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE AND ITS TWO TRIBUTARIES; TRAISEN AND MORAVA. She is another successful alumna of our international joint degree master program LWM – Limnology and Wetland Management on 26 June 2024.
An important study for the CD Laboratory MERI and several EU projects.
Long Night of Research (Lange Nacht der Forschung)
The Institute for Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management participated in Europe’s most significant research dissemination event, the Long Night of Research (Lange Nacht der Forschung), on Friday, 24 May 2024, from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. In total, the event attracted around 10,000 interested visitors in Vienna.
Our research station was located at the Türkenschanze (Peter -Jordan-Strasse 82, 1190 Vienna). Visitors were able to explore fascinating pioneering research and developments from the CDL MERI and LIFE-Boat4Sturgeon projects. Individually tagged and named sturgeons could be observed passing a PIT-Antenna in a large round tank and live charophytes, filamentous algae from a nearby park, could be experienced under the microscope with further explanantions given by lovely SEM images of diatom algae and silica structures of the cells using 3D models of diatoms.
Lecture „Ecology of Algae“
Our exciting course, Ecology of Algae, is organized by members of the BIGER working group. Feel the joy and fun of our BOKU students while they study the wonderful world of algae.
Congratulations, Martin!
15th European Diatom Meeting