Title of the project
Analysing changes in insect communities in Hamburg's water bodies (funded by the Volkswagen Foundation)
Management
Prof Dr Matthias Glaubrecht, Dr Simon Bober, Dr Martin Kubiak
Org. categorisation
Department of Animal Biodiversity
Description of the
Which animals lived in the Elbe 100 years ago?
The scientific collections of the Hamburg Zoological Museum can look back on a tradition of over 120 years and can make a significant contribution to the clarification of earlier colonisation patterns. And thus also to the structural conditions in Hamburg's waters.
It was above all Hamburg citizens who, with their commitment, established the scientific collections as archives of Hamburg's historical settlement. Now scientists are reconstructing earlier colonisation patterns of the Süderelbe, Isebek, Tarpenbek and Eppendorf Moor.
Various invertebrate groups such as insects (including caddisflies and dragonflies) and freshwater molluscs are being used as indicator organisms. Furthermore, historical documents from the scientific archives of CeNak (LIB since 2021) are being intensively analysed.
How humans influence natural habitats
As a city on the water, Hamburg owes its economic and cultural success to its many waterways more than almost any other German metropolis. In addition to their economic importance, bodies of water provide recreational areas for the population and serve as the basis of life for a number of animal and plant species.
In a research project, zoologists are using historical specimens to investigate how human intervention has affected the unique material balance of selected urban watercourses and their interwoven biocoenosis over the last 120 years.
Each aquatic ecosystem is characterised by a specific biocoenosis that is adapted to the ecological conditions. They react extremely sensitively to changes caused by nutrient input, wastewater and pesticide pollution, bank development or regulation of the discharge regime.
Hamburg collection provides unique data basis
Especially in urban areas, watercourses were subjected to massive anthropogenic changes at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, awareness of the function of intact watercourses as retreats and recreational areas is increasing and heavily anthropogenically modified watercourses are being renaturalised.
These measures have repeatedly shown that it is often only possible to reconstruct the original structural and, in particular, biocenotic state to a limited extent due to a lack of data. This makes it difficult to implement targeted renaturalisation measures and evaluate their success.
The extensive regional faunistic collections of the Hamburg Zoological Museum represent a scientific resource to compensate for these deficits. The Eppendorf Moor has already been recognised as a unique and species-rich inner-city fen.
Impressions
