Group Members
I am a stream and river ecosystem ecologist who doesn't stop when the channel falls dry or the water stops flowing. To understand how rivers shape the global carbon cycle, one has to understand their linkages to the terrestrial landscape and appreciate the full diversity of habitats along the aquatic continuum. Riding their waves helps, too. My research is dedicated to fluvial organic matter dynamics and how it may be linked to aquatic biodiversity. I have a bit of an obsession with dissolved organic matter, but ecology is too interesting to not look outside the box at every chance. My fascination for fluvial ecology is married with a concern about what we may lose if we keep treating rivers as we do now.
Rubén del Campo (postdoc)
I’m a freshwater ecologist interested in biogeochemistry and ecosystem functioning. During my PhD, I analysed how terrestrial-aquatic interactions control carbon cycling in intermittent rivers and arid streams. Currently, I study how biodiversity shapes organic matter processing across river networks.
Martin Dalvai Ragnoli (Ph.D. Student)
The focus of my current research is on Greenhouse-Gas Emissions from fluvial water bodies. I am focusing on the importance of various emission pathways and how flow alterations (e.g. by dams) influence the amount and type of GHG’s emissions. I joined the research group of Fluvial Ecosystem Ecology coming from an engineering background. I did my Masters in Chemical and Process Engineering at Graz University of Technology focusing on environmental technologies. In my master thesis I investigated the influence of biogas trace compounds on hydrogen production via Chemical Looping. Before joining the FLEE group in Innsbruck, I was member of a research group at TU Graz working on PEM Fuel Cells.
Elias Dechent (Lab Technician)
With my background in chemistry I work mainly in the water chemistry lab running analytical systems like the ion chromatography, photo spectroscopy, continuous flow analyzer and more. Currently I learn how to run a quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometer. Further tasks are taking care of our lab and safety requirements, supporting our group members with orders and other needs, training our apprentice and working out in the field.
Antonia Dill (M.Sc. Student)
My master thesis focuses on confluences as potential hotspots for resource diversity. The idea is that junctions of streams coming from highly different catchments have a high diversity. For this, I am trying to develop a model that can identify high-diversity confluences based on widely available spatial data (e.g. land cover). This model could then be used to identify points of special interest for further research on confluences.
Edurne Estévez Caño (postdoc)
I’m interested in fluvial ecosystem ecology, especially in understanding how food webs and ecosystem functioning are altered by climate change and human pressures such as land use change or hydrological alteration. During my phD at the University of Cantabria, I addressed the effects of land cover change on mountain stream energy flow pathways, food web size structure and composition and ecosystem multifunctionality. Currently, I investigate how land cover shapes (bio)diversity of both particulate organic matter (POM) and its consumers to understand ensuing implications for carbon cycling at the regional scale of river networks. I combine novel molecular methodologies to characterize (bio)diversity, field experimentation to measure POM degradation and river network-scale spatial modelling.
Thomas Fuß (postdoc)
I am interested in ecosystem functions and how they are affected by human activities such as land use and habitat degradation through flow regulation and dams. My main research focus is on periphyton metacommunities in entire stream networks and how the interaction of the community with environmental conditions translates into the important ecosystem function primary production.
Sonja Hoxha (Ph.D. Student)
The aim of my PhD project is to qualitatively and quantitatively study the biogeochemical processes responsible for water purification at different scales and in different sections of the Vjosa River catchment. Here, the connectivity of the river channels with its hyporheic sediments and the alluvial aquifer in the vertical dimension is in focus.
Barbara Jechsmayr (Ph.D. Student)
For my master thesis I am taking a look into the seasonal change of methane production in the hyporheic zone of the Vjosa (Albania) and the influence of sedimentation.
Selin Kubilay (Ph.D. Student)
I'm studying the effect of flow alterations (natural or anthropogenic) on the match/mismatch scenarios of available DOM resources and microbial consumers. With this in mind, I focus on the compositional variability of DOM under different flow regimes and its effect on benthic microbial communities. See my project page for more information on what I do.
Jan Martini (Ph.D. Student)
I'm studying aquatic invertebrates in the near natural and hydromorphologically intact river ecosystem Vjosa, combining morphological and molecular methods. This river network is an ideal study site to study meta community patterns and keystone species like Prosopistoma pennigerum with regard to conservational issues.
Elodie Schmidt (M.Sc. Student)
I am working on my master's thesis with the FLEE group. The focus of my research is to study the turbidity fluctuations in a tributary of the Vjosa River. My aim is to model the turbidity in the river and demonstrate that the processes involved in the transportation of suspended load have a significant impact on the fluctuation of turbidity over time. I intend to prove that turbidity does not only reflect the erosion within the catchment.
Hannah is joining us for an internship.
Tania Sosa Jirón (Ph.D. Student)
I am a Limnologist, with a background in environmental engineering. I am interested in biogeochemistry and the role of microbes in fluvial ecosystems, particularly in the carbon cycle. The aim of my research is to investigate the effects of fragmentation on patterns of biodiversity (microbial diversity), resource diversity (DOM quality diversity) and resource use, through laboratory-based fluvial models.
Lauren Talluto (postdoc)
I'm a quantitative macroecologist. I develop statistical and mechanistic models operating at large spatial scales (from meta-ecosystems to global) that aim to better understand the links between biodiversity and the environment. More information is available on my personal page.
Lukas Thuile Bistarelli (Ph.D. Student)
I work on the link between bacterial community, the resources they consume and the functioning that results from the metabolization of those resources. And all of this at the scale of an entire river network. As the river network is the physical basis for all of the "entities" that I study, I also focus on their relationship to different spatial scales.
Alumni
Position in the group: Ph.D. Student
I completed my PhD on "Human impacts on freshwaters: insights from dissolved organic matter signatures and greenhouse gas emissions" at TU Berlin in April 2024. Embarking on a new journey in the private sector, I now serve as a Product Owner at Food Experts where I am involved in a project aimed at enhancing transparency and sustainability within the food supply chain.
Position in the group: Postdoctoral Fellow and cultural diversifier for 2 years
Current position: Senior Lecturer and Head, Department of Fisheries & Aquatic Science, University of Eldoret, Kenya
I am a community/ecosystem ecologist studying responses of aquatic ecosystems to terrestrial subsidies mediated by large mammalian herbivores. I seek to understand how landscape variables shape aquatic ecosystem structure and functioning, including community composition and energy flow in riverine food webs.
Jessica Droujko (Ph.D. Student)
I am currently developing a low-cost, open-hardware turbidity sensor in order to obtain high spatial and temporal suspended sediment data in watersheds. I aim to measure the (dis)connectivity of sediment sources and sinks to the landscape and to different temporal events at the short- and long-term scale. My background is in mechanical engineering and previously, I was investigating thermoacoustic instabilities in gas turbines in both academia and industry. I am doing my PhD at ETH Zurich in partnership with UIBK.
Position in the group: Lab Technician
Current position: Ph.D. student, University of Innsbruck, Department of Ecology
I supported the group in field campaigns, sample analysis, general lab maintenance and organisation, including developing a method for POM analysis using Fourier-Transformation Infrared Spectroscopy, which I used beforehand for my Master thesis to investigate Microplastics in Arctic- and European snow.
Thea Schwingshackl (M.Sc. Student)
The tiny mayfly Prosopistoma pennigerum caught my attention while working as a student assistant in the group. I immediately fell in love, not only with this special mayfly, but also with the unique rivers where they live, like the Vjosa, in Albania and Greece. Currently, I'm working on my Master thesis to find out more about the distribution, and habitat characteristics of P. pennigerum in northern Greece and Southern Albania.
Betty Noriega Ortega (postdoc)
I was a postdoc working on characterising the diversity of dissolved organic matter in river networks. I'm interested on microbial diversity and it's role on the aquatic carbon cycle. I'm also a passionate science communicator and advocate for diversity and inclusion in academia.
Franziska Walther
Position in the group: Bachelor's thesis, research technician, everything-fixer
Current position: Ph.D. student, ETH Zürich
As a student collaborator, I worked on the Greek-Albanian Vjosa River. Therefore, I analyzed the linkage between the river's hydrochemistry and its surrounding geology and land cover at catchment scale. Currently I am studying Global Change Geography (M.Sc.) at Humboldt-University Berlin focussing on human-environmental interactions.
Pietro Steffano
Position in the group: M.Sc. Student
I studied Macroplastic pollution in the Valbona river watershed (Tropoje, Albania) for my master thesis.
Mara Senatore
Position in the group: M.Sc. Student
I did my thesis in the group on the structure and species composition of riparian vegetation along a whole river network in northern Albania, the Fan I Madh.
Stephanie Shousha
Position in the group: Visiting scientist
Current position: Postdoc, Université de Montréal
Position in the group: Postdoc
I am a biogeochemist focusing on understanding the key sources, sinks and feedbacks of organic matter along the land-river-atmosphere continuum in modern environments.