Biodiversity: an early warning system for the health of Bavarian lakes

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The biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems is increasingly under pressure from climate change, pollution, and invasive species. A collaborative project called ecoBay (AI-driven robotics and genetic monitoring for early detection of biodiversity change in Bavarian lakes) has been established to develop new approaches for assessing the condition of Bavarian lakes with greater speed, precision, and comprehensiveness. To this end, it is using a combination of robotic sampling, genetic monitoring, and artificial intelligence. The joint project has been awarded around 1,370,000 euros in funding for a period of five years through the Bavarian Climate Research Network (bayklif-2).

The goal of ecoBay is to analyze the biodiversity and ecological health of lakes at high resolution using so-called environmental DNA (eDNA) and environmental RNA (eRNA). To do this, the researchers are developing an autonomous monitoring system that floats on the water. The platform visits measurement and sampling sites, continuously records environmental parameters like temperature and oxygen, and collects water samples for genetic analyses. This allows the researchers to build predictive models for evaluating waterbody health.

Development of a new automated sampling system at Lake Ammer and the Ostersee lakes

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ecoBay is a joint project between LMU Munich and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), which brings together expertise from the domains of limnology, robotics, bioinformatics, and environmental genomics.

In the course of the project, novel surface robots will be deployed on Lake Ammer and Great Ostersee. The Ostersee group of lakes will serve as a near-natural reference system and real-life laboratory for the development and testing of methods. Lake Ammer, meanwhile, is used by humans to a much greater extent and is therefore in a less natural condition.

Ann-Marie Waldvogel, Professor of Global Change Limnology at TUM and spokesperson for the Limnological Research Station in Iffeldorf, is leading the investigations at Great Ostersee. This part of the project is based at the Limnology Unit of the TUM School of Life Sciences in Iffeldorf. Robotics are the responsibility of Dr. Stefan Sosnowski and Dr. Daniel-André Dücker, who are contributing their expertise in autonomous systems and environmental robotics via the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI).

“The investigations at the Ostersee lakes allow us to measure biodiversity at high resolution under near-natural conditions and directly link them to environmental changes,” says Waldvogel. “By comparing the data to more heavily used systems like Lake Ammer, we can better isolate and understand key influencing factors – a crucial basis for detecting ecological changes at an early stage and devising informed measures for waterbody management.”

Gert Wörheide, Professor of Paleontology and Geobiology at LMU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, is coordinating the investigations at Lake Ammer together with his team. The LMU field research station in Wartaweil is acting as a central site for data collection and the development of methods.

An integrated concept for sustainable measures

“With ecoBay, we’re creating a technological basis for detecting changes in biodiversity much earlier than before,” says Wörheide. “For climate change in particular, we need monitoring approaches that are high in resolution, scalable, and practical to implement.”

Science communication is another important aspect for LMU. On conclusion of the project, the Museum Mensch und Natur in Munich will host a special exhibition that will make the results accessible to the general public. In the long term, the system is to function as a scalable platform that can be employed in other waterbodies. The acquired data and developed methods should also help public authorities and policymakers devise more targeted measures in waterbody management and better evaluate their effectiveness.

“This integrated perspective is crucial for understanding ecological changes, deriving well-founded policies, and communicating with the relevant authorities and the general public,” says Wörheide.