Individual publications from 2025
Bean there, eaten that...
The concept of 'entomoponics,' which integrates plant and insect farming, offers a promising approach to sustainable resource management. The Urban Plant Ecophysiology Group (Christian Ulrichs) investigated the feasibility of utilizing vegetative waste from strawberry and common bean plants as a substrate supplement for rearing yellow mealworms (MW), a valuable source of protein. They incorporated these plant wastes, both treated and untreated, into a wheat bran-based feed and assessed the impact on mealworm yield and nutritional composition. They found that certain plant waste incorporations, particularly autoclaved bean waste and strawberry waste regardless of treatment, can maintain or even compensate for yield while influencing the mineral content of the mealworms. If you want to lean more about their valuable insights into the potential of entomoponics to convert plant waste into a nutrient-rich insect biomass which contributes to a more circular and sustainable food production system, check out their Scientific Reports Article!
Predators vs. Paychecks
Human-wildlife conflicts represent a complex and persistent challenge for conservation efforts worldwide. In response, conservation performance payments have emerged as a prominent tool for mitigating these conflicts, aiming to incentivize coexistence by compensating for wildlife-related losses. In Sweden, this approach is exemplified by a payment scheme designed to address the impact of lynx and wolverine predation on reindeer husbandry, a vital practice for Sámi communities. However, the effectiveness of such schemes is often contested, and understanding the challenges and conflicts they generate is crucial for their successful implementation. The Landscape Ecology Group (Dagmar Haase) examined the intricacies of Sweden's performance payment program, employing semi-structured interviews and a systematic literature review to uncover the underlying issues. They determined a 'wicked conflict' setting, characterized by a complex interplay of direct and indirect conflicts, ranging from disputes over predator population estimates and payment adequacy to broader concerns about cumulative environmental impacts and socio-cultural recognition. If you want to gain insights into improving the efficacy of conservation performance payments and fostering more harmonious human-wildlife relationships, check out their People and Nature Article!
Heartstrings attached!
Human interaction is a complex dance of signals, both verbal and non-verbal, that shape our attitudes and behaviors.At the heart of this dance lies emotion, a powerful force that can subtly or overtly sway our decisions and responses. In their Research Handbook on Social Influence Chapter Ursula Hess and Shlomo Hareli explore the intricate role of emotions in social influence, moving beyond simplistic notions of persuasion to delve into the nuanced ways in which feelings impact attitude change and compliance, providing a comprehensive understanding of the profound and often overlooked ways in which emotions shape and guide the social landscape. Definitely worth reading!
Moo-ving forward!
Genetic improvement in livestock offers significant potential for enhancing traits like milk production, meat quality, disease resistance and generally better health, contributing to more sustainable and profitable farming practices. The Breeding Biology and Molecular Genetics Group (Gudrun Brockmann) investigated single-step genomic prediction in the German Black Pied cattle breed, focusing on key traits like protein percentage, fat-to-protein ratio, and stature. They compared the performance of a breed-specific SNP chip with a commercially available one, and explored the impact of these predictions on ongoing optimum genetic contribution selection, aiming to maximize genetic gain while maintaining genetic diversity. They also examined the influence of inbreeding and optimized selection strategies to improve overall breeding index. If you want to learn more about their finding, check out their Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics Article!
Face it - You only copy what you care about!
Emotional mimicry - the mirroring of another person's facial expressions - is a key component of empathy and social interaction.While it's generally understood that we mimic the emotions of those we're engaging with, it's less clear how our brains handle emotional information that's present but not directly relevant to the task at hand. The Social and Organizational Psychology Group (Ursula Hess) investigated whether we mimic emotions from faces we are instructed to ignore, even though those faces are still visually processed. If you are interested whether task-irrelevant faces are simply not processed or if their presence has a more nuanced effect on our empathic responses, check out their Frontiers in Psychology Article!
From grain to gain!
Understanding how crop varieties perform across different environments and management practices is essential for improving agricultural productivity and resilience. Multi-environmental trials (METs) provide valuable data for dissecting these complex genotype-environment-management (GxExM) interactions. The Intensive Food Plant Systems Group (Tsu-Wei Chen) generated a comprehensive MET dataset for winter wheat in Germany, spanning six years, six locations, and nine different management scenarios. This rich dataset, encompassing over half a million data points and 24 traits – including yield, agronomic characteristics, baking quality, and disease indices – offers a powerful resource for addressing key agronomic questions, informing breeding strategies, and developing decision support tools for sustainable agriculture. Find out more about their discoveries in their Scientific Data Article!
24 genes walk into a working memory study…
Working memory (WM) is a fundamental cognitive function, and while genetic studies have identified numerous associated variations, the role of gene expression in WM remains largely unexplored. The Molecular Psychology Group (Sebastian Markett) developed a novel approach to investigate the genetic basis of WM by integrating connectome, transcriptome, and genome data. Using a high-quality dataset of 481 Chinese adults, they identified WM-related brain regions, then determined differentially expressed genes within those regions using the Allen Human Brain Atlas. These findings could subsequently be validated in two independent, large-scale datasets. If you want to know more about this powerful method check out their Human Brain MappingArticle!
Mind the Gap!
Visual working memory is the cognitive system that allows us to temporarily hold and manipulate visual information in mind. Verbal storage is the component of working memory that holds and manipulates information in a phonological (sound-based) form, such as words or numbers. Typically the two elements are studied as separate cognitive functions. However, the act of naming visual stimuli may influence performance on visual working memory tasks, with some research suggesting benefits and other research indicating potential biases.The Distributed Cognition and Memory Group (Thomas Christophel) investigated the verbal labels people naturally associate with simple visual-spatial stimuli and how these labels relate to recall accuracy in a subsequent working memory task. Focusing on orientation and location stimuli, their research investigates the diversity of labels used and their impact on known biases in visual working memory, such as the cardinal direction bias, the phenomenon where people tend to remember orientations or locations closer to cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) more accurately than those in between. If you want to know more about the potential shared cognitive resources underlying both visual-spatial and verbal memory, check out their Journal of CognitionArticle!
Forget your keys, remember your words!
The link between intelligence and longevity has been a subject of ongoing scientific inquiry. While general intelligence is known to predict survival, the specific contributions of different cognitive abilities in old age remain poorly understood. The Developmental and Educational Psychology Group (Denis Gerstorf) addressed this gap by analyzing longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study, focusing on a range of cognitive tasks including perceptual speed, episodic memory, verbal fluency, and verbal knowledge. Using a sophisticated joint multivariate longitudinal survival model, they investigated the unique predictive power of each cognitive ability on mortality risk, while controlling for various demographic and health-related factors. They revealed that, among the diverse cognitive measures, only verbal fluency demonstrated a significant and unique association with survival, suggesting a more salient role for this specific ability in predicting mortality in older adults. Find out more in their Psychological Science Article!
The tomato whisperers...
Tomatoes are a significant source of health-promoting secondary metabolites, including carotenoids and phenolic compounds, which contribute to human well-being. Optimizing the production of these valuable compounds in greenhouse-grown tomatoes is of paramount importance. Traditionally, research has focused on the isolated effects of single environmental factors on metabolite accumulation. However, the Biosystems Engineering Group (Uwe Schmidt) developed a novel approach, leveraging multivariate time series classification of greenhouse sensor data, encompassing climatic conditions, photosynthesis, and transpiration rates, to predict secondary metabolite content. This method is able to accurately predict optimal environmental conditions for maximizing the accumulation of specific metabolites and provides the first comprehensive evidence that a holistic, time-series-based approach, considering the interplay of multiple environmental factors over a growth period, is essential for accurately predicting and optimizing secondary metabolite content in tomatoes, thus offering a powerful tool for growers to enhance the nutritional value of their crops. Find our more in their Frontiers in Plant Science Article!
Boron to be wild…
The ability to efficiently deliver cargo into living cells is a cornerstone of advancements across chemistry, biology, and medicine. From gene therapy to drug delivery, the potential applications are vast. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) have emerged as promising tools for this purpose, offering a relatively non-invasive method for transporting molecules across cellular membranes. However, optimizing CPPs for specific applications often requires enhancing their delivery efficiency and targeting capabilities. One strategy involves the conjugation of additional functional units, such as boronic acid modules, which can interact with cell surface glycans to facilitate internalization. The Bioorganic Synthesis Group (Oliver Seitz) investigated the potential of boronic acid conjugation to transform non-CPP peptides into functional delivery vehicles. If you want to know more about boronic acid-mediated CPPs and their potential for targeted cellular delivery, check out their Chembiochem: a European journal of chemical biology Article!
Two senses are better than one!
Our working memory, which is our ability to hold information in mind for short periods, is known to be limited. While previous research has demonstrated that recalling similar items becomes less precise as the number of items increases, it remains unclear how the diversity of information, particularly across different senses and features, affects recall. The Distributed Cognition and Memory Group (Thomas Christophel) investigated how varying the types of items held in working memory—specifically focusing on modality (e.g., visual vs. auditory) and feature (e.g., orientation, pitch, color)—impacts recall precision. Examining these effects in two different experiments, they observed a surprising advantage for cross-modal and certain cross-feature combinations, suggesting that working memory organization is more nuanced than previously thought and dependent on modality, feature, and even the strategies used to encode information. If you want to learn more about this fascinating results, check out their Journal of Vision Article!
Arresting Malaria!
Malaria remains a significant global health challenge, necessitating the development of effective vaccines. A promising approach involves the use of genetically attenuated (GA) Plasmodium falciparum parasites. These modified parasites are designed to be metabolically active but unable to progress fully through the parasite's life cycle, thus stimulating an immune response without causing disease. Together with Julius Hafalla and Steffen Borrmann, Kai Matuschewski has summarized recent advances made by Lamers et al. and Roozen et al. which you can read in their Trends in Parasitology Spotlight Article!
Can we have our cake and eat it too?
Rapid urbanization often comes at the cost of diminished green spaces and weakened ecosystem services, creating a potential conflict between ecological health and socio-economic development. Finding a balance between these competing priorities is crucial for sustainable urban growth. The Landscape Ecology Group (Dagmar Haase) established a novel framework for quantifying this urban-ecological trade-off, using a return-on-investment perspective that links degraded ecological conditions with urban land use efficiency.Focusing on the rapidly expanding city of Zhengzhou, China, they assess four key ecological conditions – urban heat island effect, flood regulation, habitat quality, and carbon sequestration – alongside land use efficiency at a fine spatial scale. By analyzing these factors over two decades, they explored the dynamics of the urban-ecological trade-off to the key drivers influencing it and ultimately proposing adaptive management strategies to guide sustainable urban planning. Check out their Remote Sensing Article!
Your trash is my treasure...
Hemp waste is a byproduct of hemp cultivation, but presents a potential resource for insect-based bioconversion, offering a sustainable approach to waste management and protein production. However, the nutritional profile of hemp waste may not be optimal for insect growth, and the presence of bioactive compounds like cannabinoids can pose challenges. Solid-state fermentation (SSF), utilizing fungi, offers a promising strategy to enhance the nutritional value of such substrates. The Urban Plant Ecophysiology Group (Christian Ulrichs) investigated the impact of SSF with various fungal species on hemp waste, examining its effects on black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) growth and the fate of hemp cannabinoids, flavonoids, and terpenes. If you want to know more about how different fungal species can tailor the properties of hemp waste, improving its suitability as a BSFL feed and potentially modulating the levels of valuable or undesirable compounds, check out their Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology Article!