Florian Leese
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leeselab.bsky.social
Florian Leese
@leeselab.bsky.social

Professor at University of Duisburg-Essen 🇪🇺🇩🇪 tweeting mostly about the work we do in our Aquatic Ecosystem Research Group. A lot of DNA / eDNA & popgen stuff on streams & automated biodiversity monitoring approaches.

Environmental science 53%
Biology 25%
In massive #collaborative #effort, we assembled published & unpublished #fish 🐟 #eDNA 🧬 metabarcoding datasets, covering ~2000 sampling sites/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🧵

Every year a highlight & intense period: Our molecular ecology module! We train advanced Master students on how to apply DNA & #eDNA #metabarcoding to assess riverine #biodiversity.
Long #Day1 today as we sampled until 19:30. Motivation: 10/10. Tomorrow: to the lab! @unidue.bsky.social @sgn.one
New database on thermal tolerance on freshwater invertebrates and fish - major effort by Helena Bayat and many collaborators. Freely available here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reposted by Florian Leese

There is funding for early career scientists to attend!
15th Water Research Horizon Conference of the #WaterScienceAlliance will take place @ruhr-uni-bochum.de 29/30 September. Focus: #urban water bodies / #watercycle
Time for inter- & transdisciplinary discussions. Also: Award ceremony of new junior #research group
water-research-horizon.de/wrhc.html RT

Reposted by Doerthe Tetzlaff

15th Water Research Horizon Conference of the #WaterScienceAlliance will take place @ruhr-uni-bochum.de 29/30 September. Focus: #urban water bodies / #watercycle
Time for inter- & transdisciplinary discussions. Also: Award ceremony of new junior #research group
water-research-horizon.de/wrhc.html RT
By comparing three strategies for local bioassessments in streams using environmental DNA and RNA metabarcoding, researchers find the most effective strategy is to briefly incubate collected organisms in water then analyse the enriched eDNA.

🔗 doi.org/10.3897/mbmg...

Reposted by Florian Leese

Check out this new article on null model selection for multiple stressor research. Fantastic work by Iris Pimentel from @leeselab.bsky.social within the @crc-resist.bsky.social.
Freely available at: dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Reposted by Florian Leese

📣 #Forschungsnews: Senckenberg-Forschende zeigen mit deutschlandweitem Insekten-Langzeitmonitoring: Besonders artenreiche, unbewaldete Gebiete sind aktuell zu wenig geschützt. 🦋 Der entscheidende Treiber für den Rückgang der Insektenvielfalt ist die Landnutzung. 🐝

👇 sgn.one/8x2
Schutz an falscher Stelle: Verlust der Insektenvielfalt | Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung
Prof. Dr. Peter Haase Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt Tel. 06051 61954 3114 peter.haase@senckenberg.de
sgn.one

Reposted by Florian Leese

📢Registrations are now open for the next edition of the Eukaryotic Metabarcoding Workshop with @leeselab.bsky.social @dominikbuchner.bsky.social @tillmacher.bsky.social & @shump.bsky.social

📅Save the dates: 14-18 July

🔗For more information: www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

Reposted by Florian Leese

Take a deep dive into this article by @leeselab.bsky.social focusing on new primers for #eDNA metabarcoding, proving that they significantly boost detection of benthic invertebrates in freshwater.
Targeting the right sequences can overcome nontarget amplification
👉 bit.ly/4dC2rlT

#science #water
Improved freshwater macroinvertebrate detection from environmental DNA through minimized nontarget amplification
Capturing benthic invertebrate biodiversity from environmental DNA (eDNA) isolated from water is difficult because of abundant nontarget taxa PCR amplification. A new primer combination maximizes tar...
bit.ly

Reposted by Florian Leese

🚀 A big thank you to all participants and instructors of our eDNA Metabarcoding course! 🙌

We explored amazing user-friendly tools like BolDigger, Aspcale, and TaxonTable, had a great intro to @nanoporetech.com data, and wrapped up with an inspiring open discussion full of ideas and projects.

It’s happening again! Our @crc-resist.bsky.social team from @unidue.bsky.social is in Hesse to prepare the next large #ExStream experiment. Stay tuned.
#freshwater #biodiversity #multiplestressors
Wahl zum Wissensbuch des Jahres 2025

Ich freue mich sehr, dass unser Buch „Von Angesicht zu Angesicht“ dabei ist!

Ihr könnt uns sowie unsere Arbeit, mit der wir für biologische Vielfalt begeistern, mit eurer Stimme in der Kategorie „Ästhetik“ unterstützen: www.konradin-service.de/umfrage/inde...

And it’s a wrap! Thx to all participants - and the instructor colleagues, and the fantastic @physaliacourses.bsky.social team. How good you bring people together through organizing these courses. ☀️🙏
🚀 A big thank you to all participants and instructors of our eDNA Metabarcoding course! 🙌

We explored amazing user-friendly tools like BolDigger, Aspcale, and TaxonTable, had a great intro to @nanoporetech.com data, and wrapped up with an inspiring open discussion full of ideas and projects.

Reposted by Florian Leese

Reposted by Florian Leese

We’re happy to announce Dr. Lennard Stach!! 🥳🥳 Well done Lennard for a brilliant defense and thesis!! We will miss you!
Finally, thank you @leeselab.bsky.social for sitting in the thesis committee! 🫶

Reposted by Florian Leese

🎉 We’re thrilled to kick off the Eukaryotic "eDNA" Metabarcoding workshop with @leeselab.bsky.social @dominikbuchner.bsky.social , @tillmacher.bsky.social , @shump.bsky.social & an amazing group of participants joining us from across the globe—from Australia to Peru, from USA & Canada to Europe! 🌍🧬💻

Reposted by Daniel Hering

Our team @unidue.bsky.social turned 🔟 today & I found myself in a spontaneous celebration event.
Really happy & grateful to work here with such a great bunch of talented & nice people - connected to our collaborators around the 🌎. Life could be worse. Weiter geht‘s. ☀️Maybe more lab work next 🔟 ?

Very good to see our @pensoft.net journal @mbmg.pensoft.net continues to receive good CiteScores and also now the first #ImpactFactor with a good value of 3.1 ☀️
While I personally don’t care much about these metrics I know they are really relevant for many institutions. Thus: very happy about this!

🙏 And just as an addition: don‘t use these primers for bulk sample metabarcoding. There others are ways better (we recommend fwhF2/fwhR2n as a good solution; further solutions like BF2/BR3 or mlCOI with dgHCO exist)

Immer ein Highlight: die #DGL Jahrestagung. 2025 laden wir zu einer Special Session ein: „Genetischen Verfahren im biologischen Gewässermonitoring“ 🧬 👉 auf 🇩🇪&🇬🇧
Kommt vorbei, meldet euch an: www.dgl-jahrestagungen.de/phone/index....

#Vortrag #Poster #Tagung #Limnologie #omics #eDNA #Monitoring

Reposted by Florian Leese

Join us for the Eukaryotic Metabarcoding course w/ @leeselab.bsky.social @dominikbuchner.bsky.social
shorturl.at/wRW4T Till & @shump.bsky.social
Get hands-on experience analysing Illumina & @nanoporetech.com data & learn how to run metabarcoding pipelines from raw sequences to ecological insights
Eukaryotic metabarcoding
14-18 July 2025 To foster international participation, this course will be held online
www.physalia-courses.org

Reposted by Florian Leese

Reposted by Florian Leese

In our May issue: Perspective led by Florian Altermatt discussing how to bring aquatic eDNA collection and data management in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global #Biodiversity Framework. 🧪🌎
Web link: go.nature.com/4mv2h4W
Readcube: rdcu.be/eh0uC
Utilizing aquatic environmental DNA to address global biodiversity targets - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Aquatic eDNA-based technologies offer the potential for universal and standardized biodiversity monitoring. In this Perspective, Altermatt et al. discuss how these technologies can help to achiev...
go.nature.com

Reposted by Florian Leese

It has been a collective effort with a great contributions by Isabel Blasco-Costa, Alejandro Trujillo González & @leeselab.bsky.social. It is also related to our activities within the IMPACT project! Make sure to follow @impact-parasites.bsky.social and check out all other fascinating chapters! 🤩
Great News: Our book Aquatic Parasitology: Ecological and Environmental Concepts and Implications of Marine and Freshwater Parasites has been published online open access! link.springer.com/book/10.1007... @nicojsmit.bsky.social @unidue.bsky.social
Aquatic Parasitology: Ecological and Environmental Concepts and Implications of Marine and Freshwater Parasites
A unique open access collection on ecological and environmental parasitology in marine and freshwater. Covers climate change and parasite conservation.
link.springer.com

👍🏼 and regarding international collaboration: we‘d love to have your feedback on a European society for environmental omics (or environmental DNA? Semantics) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
European Society for Environmental Omics (ESEO)
Dear Environmental Omics enthusiasts! At the AquaEcOmics meeting in Evian (March, 2025), an international group of 35 experts discussed the future of regular European meetings and collaborative effor...
docs.google.com

Reposted by Florian Leese

FAIR #eDNA data and transparent workflows are essential. Harmonisation should come after standardisation. International collaboration and partnership will drive progress #UKDNAWG25

Reposted by Florian Leese

Different labs can produce vastly different results which leads to ‘eDNA doesn’t work’ - ring and proficiency testing is key. Establishing minimum standards (e.g. sequencing depth) and metadata reporting is crucial. Stringency of standards will vary by taxonomic group #UKDNAWG25