Florian Altermatt

What a gem! the Death's Head #Hawkmoth. 💀🦋Excited each time I find one!

In massive #collaborative #effort, we assembled published & unpublished #fish 🐟 #eDNA 🧬 metabarcoding datasets, covering ~2000 sampling sites/>100 river systems globally. 🐟 🐠 🐡 🌐 🌍

Now results out in 2 #parallel #preprints @biorxiv-ecology.bsky.social

#aquatic #biodiversity #meta-analysis
1/6🧵

6/6 Thanks to #YanZhang for leading analysis, & @leeselab.bsky.social, @loicpellissier.bsky.social, @wenyuanzhang.com, @tschenekar.bsky.social, @robinschuetz.bsky.social, @kamilhupalo.bsky.social, @mattleray.bsky.social and many more for contributing @eawag.bsky.social @bes-aquaticgroup.bsky.social

5/6 Species richness, functional, and genetic sequence diversity exhibited stronger negative responses to human activities in larger catchments. In contrast, phylogenetic diversity showed the strongest negative effects in smaller catchments.
Full story: 🗞️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

4/6 ➡️ 2nd #paper quantified #species #richness, functional #redundancy, #phylogenetic #diversity, and genetic sequence diversity, and related them to drainage characteristics and human activities📉 .

3/6 Contrastingly, congruence of species identity varied more extensively. Restricting taxonomic assignment to basin-specific species pools improved accuracy, as did year of sampling 📈 , reflecting improved reference database coverage over time.

Full story: 🗞️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

2/6 ➡️ 1st #paper evaluated robustness of eDNA-derived biodiversity patterns, using original results & re-analysis w/ common bioinformatic workflow.

Species richness estimates were overall consistent with original analyses, despite high variability in bioinformatic approaches in original studies.

In massive #collaborative #effort, we assembled published & unpublished #fish 🐟 #eDNA 🧬 metabarcoding datasets, covering ~2000 sampling sites/>100 river systems globally. 🐟 🐠 🐡 🌐 🌍

Now results out in 2 #parallel #preprints @biorxiv-ecology.bsky.social

#aquatic #biodiversity #meta-analysis
1/6🧵

thanks for your interest, but credits should go especially to @merinrejichacko.bsky.social

Auch im Spätsommer/Frühherbst lohnt sich das Tössstockgebiet für botanische Wanderungen (das Gute liegt so nah...): Gefranster Enzian, Frühlingsenzian, Deutscher Enzian, Scheuchzers Glockenblume, Stängellose Kratzdistel, Wiesen-Augentrost u.v.m. #Schnebelhorn #TopOfZurich

Plant-based foods for a healthy future Patrick Rühs reveals why processed foods are crucial to global nutrition – and why blue corn tortillas are his favourite dish.

"What makes food healthy?" Assistant Professor Patrick Rühs talks in an interview with ETH Zurich’s #Globe magazine about plant-based diets, food processing – and why blue corn tortillas are his favourite dish.

Read more:

it's Saga pedo, one of the #largest and #rarest #insects of #Europe. tip to toe its close to 15 cm. almost exclusively females that reproduce parthenogenetically.

yes indeed, but not just any grasshopper!

My Sunday #riddle! (instead of crossword puzzle)

Can you spot it? 🐛 🪲 🐜 🪳

Last week, I defended my PhD thesis! 🎉

4 years diving into blue-green infrastructure, biodiversity, food webs, eDNA, and above all, amazing collaboration between engineers and ecologists 🏣🌱🐞🧬

Big thanks to @laurenmcook.bsky.social, Marco Moretti, and @florianaltermatt.bsky.social!

Big congratulations congrats to @kperrelet.bsky.social for an excellent thesis and defense! Very well done.

happy to be speaking about "Utilising aquatic environmental DNA to address local to global biodiversity targets"

@eawag.bsky.social

Upcoming at #UN #ScienceSummit in NY/online (24.9.2025):
Harnessing Environmental DNA: Advancing #SDGs and the Global #Biodiversity Framework. 🧬🛰️🐟🌍🌐
sciencesummitnyc.org/science-summ...
#eDNA #Biomonitoring #Biodiversity #GBF

REGISTER HERE: event.sciencesummitnyc.org/list-of-sess...

What a joy to find 4 🐛🐛🐛🐛 of the spurge hawk-moth in our garden! We just have a few m2, yet keep it diverse, with native plants and extensive maintenance (and no pesticides nor short cut lawn). Starts to pay off😊 #BiodiversityRocks

@eawag.bsky.social @rosiecblackman.bsky.social @berndhae.bsky.social #ReinhardFurrer #MaslinOsathanunkul #JeanineBranthscnen #ChristinaDiMuri @lynseyrharper.bsky.social #PascalNiklaus @loicpellissier.bsky.social #MichaelSchaepman #ShuoZong @bes-aquaticgroup.bsky.social @sednasociety.bsky.social

4/4 Integrating spatial range & magnitude of LULC effects is needed to predict fish species richness, and allows to showcase future gains/losses across the river network as a scalable basis for biodiversity conservation, needed for highly diverse yet data-deficient (sub-)tropical riverine habitats.

3/4 We estimated a spatial range of #LULC effects extending up to about 20 km upstream ↗️ from sampling sites, and explained nearly 60% of the variance in the observed species richness, associated with cropland🌾, forest🌳, and urban 🏙️ area LULC categories.

2/4 In a truly interdisciplinary effort led by #HengZhang , we compiled fish #biodiversity 🐠 🐟 🐡 data using 🧬 #eDNA across 160,000-km2 river catchment in Thailand 🇹🇭 characterized by high biodiversity yet intense anthropogenic alterations & attributed fish diversity to terrestrial LULC 🏭 🌾 🌳 🏙️.

Happy to see this published:
#Terrestrial #land #cover shapes #fish 🐠 🐟 🐡 #diversity in a major subtropical #river catchment.

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#eDNA 🧬 #RS 🛰️ 🌐 🌍 @commsbio.nature.com

1/4🧵

On my way to #gfoe2025 @gfoesoc.bsky.social annual ecology conference in Würzburg www.gfoe-conference.de 🌳 🐟 🔬 🧪 🦀 🦋 🐝

Very much looking forward to catch up with my German & International #Ecology colleagues, please DM for a meeting/chat!

@eawag.bsky.social @romanalther.bsky.social

5/5 This identifies karstic ecosystems as targets for conservation programmes & indicates they could have been possible refugia of #Pleistocene persistence. Being epicentres of genetic diversity, their protection is eminent in context of contemporary climatic changes.

4/5 We found a significantly higher diversity in karstic aquifers and a correlation between the genetic diversity of a species and the proportion of its distribution in the karst.

3/5 Led by #MarjorieCouton, we use a unique and spatially highly resolved data set containing a representative collection of thousands of #Niphargus amphipod individuals across Switzerland and analysed the genetic structure of ~1300 individuals of five species within their contemporary distribution.

2/5 #Genetic #diversity 🧬 is key to the long-term maintenance and adaptability of species to changing environments, yet has been only insufficiently studied for groundwater organisms.