Research institutes
Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei (IGB) im Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
Müggelseedamm 310
12587 Berlin
Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB)
IGB is Germany’s largest and one of the leading international centres for freshwater research. It is also one of the oldest institutions in this field. The roots of its predecessor institutions can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. Today, science at IGB covers a wide range of disciplines – from hydrology, physics, geography, ecology and evolution to socio-ecology, from molecular biology to the study of whole ecosystems and catchments, and from microbial ecology to fish behaviour.
Researchers at IGB seek to improve the mechanistic and quantitative understanding of the fundamental processes that shape our freshwater ecosystems and of how they are embedded in a terrestrial and societal context. They investigate the ecological and evolutionary dynamics that aquatic organisms undergo, and the drivers and implications of changes in biodiversity. And they develop holistic insights into the ecosystem services provided by freshwater systems, ranging from water security and natural flood protection to fisheries and implications for human health.
IGB is an institute of the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. and Germany’s Leibniz Association. It collaborates closely with numerous national and international universities and other partners in science and society.
Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) Researchers
Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grossart
Hans-Peter Grossart is head of the Aquatic Microbial Microbiology working group at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and Professor of Aquatic Microbial Ecology and Functional Biodiversity at the University of Potsdam. He studied biology at the Universities of Mainz and Constance and completed his doctorate at the Limnological Institute of the University of Constance on the diversity and biogeochemical role of aggregate-associated bacteria. After a postdoc at the Yigal Allon Kinneret Limnological Laboratory in Tiberias, Israel and a further postdoc at the Scripps Institute for Oceanography in San Diego, USA, he was an assistant at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment at the University of Oldenburg. He has been a research group leader at the IGB since 2002, where he investigates both the diversity and the ecological role of microbial communities in a wide variety of waters. His main interests are greatly linked to freshwater ecosystems as hotspots in the earth system. In the earth system, especially freshwater ecosystems play a central role in sequestering carbon and regulating natural greenhouse gas dynamics. At the same time, they are hotspots of biodiversity and biochemical processes as they form interphases and boundary layers between terrestrial and aquatic environments. This high potential of aquatic ecosystems for nature-based solutions needs to be secured and better understood. I envision that the department’s research on ecological consequences of global change can be well linked to several national and international initiatives such as the GLEON network, the DFG NFDI4-Biodiversity project or the Leibniz Lab “Systemic Sustainability” for which the water cycle is of particular importance.
