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Markus Grebe looks at an eight-week-old Arabidopsis thaliana in the plant room. Photo: Thomas Roese.

Everything in Its Right Place – Plant physiologists examine control mechanisms in cell plants

Whether in plants, animals, or human beings, cells are the buildings blocks of life. Their interiors are little organisms in themselves, consisting of …
Prof. Dr. Dirk Wagner. Photo: Karla Fritze.

Quite Warm, Quite Cold – Geomicrobiologist Dirk Wagner researches the smallest lifeforms in extreme environments

The Arctic, deserts, and volcanos: Life exists in very unexpected places – and on a surprising scale. Geomicrobiologist Prof. Dr. Dirk Wagner tracks …
Porpoise. Photo: Wikipedia.org/Ecomare.

The Dolphin’s Shy Relative - Genetically analyzing endangered cetaceans in the Baltic Sea

You need some luck to see them. Porpoises are shy and inconspicuous. These two-meter animals flash their dark fins above the water only to immediately …
Prof. Dr. Michael Hofreiter. Photo: Karla Fritze.

Fishing for DNA – A drilling core reveals the history of an entire ecosystem

How wild horses and chickens were bred thousands of years ago, which species were closely related to the long-extinct European straight-tusked …
Prof. Dr. Elke Dittmann. Photo: Thomas Roese.

Old as the Hills and Still in Top Form – Cyanobacteria are survival specialists – and the research focus of Elke Dittmann

It could have all turned out differently. Looking back, Prof. Dr. Elke Dittmann attributes her success in becoming Professor of Microbiology at the …
Hare. Photo: Wiebke Ullmann

Movement in the Fields - Biologists research interactions between biodiversity and movement patterns

A good 50% of Germany’s land – about 18 million hectares – is used for agriculture. This land is subject to rhythms of plowing, sowing, harvesting, …
While the invasion of plants and animals has been widely examined, microorganisms have received little attention. At the University of Potsdam, PD. Dr. Guntram Weithoff and his team will contribute to filling this gap. Photo: Karla Fritze

Who Is the Strongest? – Team of biologists is looking for the invasive success of blue-green algae

 

 

The Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) has succeeded. So has the Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis). Both belong to the plant and animal …
In their experiments the researchers grow the algae under specific conditions. Picture: Elly Spijkerman

A Question of Transport – Microalgae Fixate Carbon Dioxide

They are invisible to the naked eye. Only in massive quantities do they color water green. Aquatic microalgae are tiny organisms, which usually …
Björn Huwe and Annelie Fiedler made the moss fit for space. Foto: Annelie Fiedler

Surviving in Space – Why There’s Moss on the ISS

All the lights on campus are off. Only in Björn Huwe’s office a screen is flickering. The biologist is sitting at his desk in the institute building …
Two levels of fluvial terraces overgrown with vegetation. Today’s riverbed lies a few meters lower than during the time the fluvial terraces were formed. Picture: Taylor Schildgen

On Precipices – Landscape Response to Climate Change

Landscapes change over hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. Tectonic events and erosion create mountain ranges and remove them again. The …