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Researchers from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP) at the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Görlitz have studied the role of the desert grass Stipagrostis sabulicola in the African Namib Desert. In their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports , they show that the plant is able to absorb moisture from fog events and thus forms an essential basis of an - altogether unexpectedly complex - food web in the drought-stricken landscape.

Led by the University of Bremen, RWTH paleoclimate researcher Professor Thorsten Bauersachs and colleagues have now published their results on the glaciation of West Antarctica in the journal Science Advances. It has been more than 30 million years since West Antarctica was last largely ice-free. In the last 30 million years, however, it has been extensively glaciated.

Research team compares wild bee networks at a small scale and at landscape level   Traditionally, interactions between plants and their pollinators are analysed on the basis of visits to flowers. A research team led by the University of Göttingen studied wild bees on chalk grassland. The researchers analysed both the networks showing visits to flowers and the networks where pollen was transported.

A team of researchers at the Universities of Tübingen and Göttingen has found that certain minerals with characteristic shapes could indicate the activity of bacteria in hydrothermal vents - or black smokers - in the deep ocean several billion years ago. This represents a major step in our understanding of the origin of life.

Newly discovered symbiosis probably plays a major role in marine nitrogen fixation Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology have discovered a new partnership between a marine diatom and a bacterium that can account for a large share of nitrogen fixation in vast regions of the ocean.

Special features of the Arctic climate, such as the strong reflection of the sun's rays off the light snow or the low position of the sun, amplify global warming in the Arctic. However, researchers are often faced with the challenge of modelling the underlying climatic processes in order to be able to provide reliable weather forecasts.

Santorini is one of the best-studied volcanic archipelagos in the world. An international drilling expedition has now for the first time used a scientific drill ship to explore and investigate the seafloor around the Greek volcanic island. The researchers have uncovered evidence of an underwater eruption in 726 CE, previously known only from historical records.

Coastal seas form a complex transition zone between the two largest CO2 sinks in the global carbon cycle: land and ocean. Ocean researchers have now succeeded for the first time in investigating the role of the coastal ocean in a seamless model representation. The team led by Dr. Moritz Mathis from the Cluster of Excellence for Climate Research CLICCS at Universität Hamburg and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon was able to show: The intensity of CO2 uptake is higher in coastal seas than in the open ocean.

Research team analyses organic material from the early Earth tracing its origin and composition To learn about the first organisms on our planet, researchers have to analyse the rocks of the early Earth. These can only be found in a few places on the surface of the Earth. The Pilbara Craton in Western Australia is one of these rare sites: there are rocks there that are around 3.5 billion years old containing traces of the microorganisms that lived at that time.

Research team discovers complex microbial communities in ecosystems over 3 billion years ago Microorganisms were the first forms of life on our planet. The clues are written in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks by geochemical and morphological traces, such as chemical compounds or structures that these organisms left behind.

Research team studies interaction of dust with boulders and discovers potentially anomalous rocks Our Earth's Moon is almost completely covered in dust. Unlike on Earth, this dust is not smoothed by wind and weather, but is sharp-edged and also electrostatically charged. This dust has been studied since the Apollo era at the end of the 1960s.

Microplastic fibers are settling substantially slower than spherical particles in the atmosphere How far microplastics travel in the atmosphere depends crucially on particle shape, according to a recent study by scientists at the University of Vienna and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation in Göttingen: While spherical particles settle quickly, microplastic fibers stay in th eatmosphere much longer.

International research team measures isotopic composition of lunar rocks Their high Ti contents are ultimately believed to be derived from a distinct mineralogical layer formed as part of the unstable crystal pile that constituted the lunar interior following solidification of a magma ocean, shortly after Moon formation.

Geophysicists from Freie Universität Berlin among the researchers investigating human-induced earthquakes. It is common knowledge that humans have a big effect on the world and their natural environment. However, what may be less well-known is that humans can also induce earthquakes. Industrial activities such as geothermal energy production, fracking for oil and natural gas, and wastewater disposal can all lead to increased seismic activity that commonly takes the form of earthquakes.

Geologists from Heidelberg and Frankfurt simulate thermo-mechanical behaviour of a white schist from the Alps Movements of rocks from deep in the Earth to the surface could occur under different circumstances than previously thought, challenging our current understanding of plate tectonics and mountain-building.

Plants emit odours for a variety of reasons, such as to communicate with each other, to deter herbivores or to respond to changing environmental conditions. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Leipzig University, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) carried out a study to investigate how biodiversity influences the emission of these substances.

Researchers led by Göttingen University determine factors for chemical development in crater lakes on Earth In southern Germany just north of the Danube, there lies a large circular depression between the hilly surroundings: the Nördlinger Ries. Almost 15 million years ago, an asteroid struck this spot.

In a study published in the journal "Scientific Reports," researchers from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP) at the University of Tübingen show that early humans of the Middle Paleolithic had a more varied diet than previously assumed. The analysis of a site in the Zagros Mountains in Iran reveals that around 81,000 to 45,000 years ago, the local hominins hunted ungulates as well as tortoises and carnivores.

In a study recently published in "Nature Water", the Analysis of Hydrological Systems group at the University of Potsdam, together with an international team, investigates the extent to which global water models agree with each other and with measured data. Using a new evaluation approach, the researchers can show in which climate regions the models agree and where they differ.

News from The Collaborative Research Centre "Arctic Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and Surface Processes and Feedback Mechanism (AC)³", which is headed by meteorologist Professor Manfred Wendisch from Leipzig University, is to enter its third funding phase. This was announced today (24 November 2023) by the German Research Foundation (DFG).