Accelerated by urbanization, as well as by agricultural intensification and climate change, increasing nutrient fluxes towards surface waters and increasing water temperatures are increasing the probability for cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms. Significant deterioration of water quality occurs with such events when microcystins (MCs) are released as the most prominent algal toxins. Despite the typical assumption that MCs ar...

As urbanization and transport demands rise, railway systems face higher risks from operational disruptions due to system failures and climate-related impacts, especially in urban areas. Understanding water flow and distribution beneath railway embankments is crucial not only for assessing potential contaminant transport in soil and groundwater but also for identifying possible structural weaknesses. This study implements numer...

Mixotrophic protists are important members of aquatic microbial food webs where they can dominate bacterivory and strongly impact energy and nutrient flow. While light and nutrient availability are known to impact grazing rates by mixotrophs in laboratory studies, little is known about how changes in resource availability affect mixotrophic organisms in natural communities. Here, we performed a short‐term grazing assay using f...

Leaky urban drainage networks (UDNs) exfiltrating wastewater can contaminate aquifers. Detailed knowledge on spatiotemporal distributions of water-dissolved, sewer-borne contaminants in groundwater is essential to protect urban aquifers and to optimize monitoring systems. We evaluated the effect of UDN layouts on the spreading of sewer-borne contaminants in groundwater using a parsimonious approach. Due to the UDN’s long-term...

Forest canopies are complex and highly diverse environments. Their diversity is affected by pronounced gradients in abiotic and biotic conditions, including variation in leaf chemistry. We hypothesised that branch‐localised defence induction and vertical stratification in mature oaks constitute sources of chemical variation that extend across trophic levels. To test this, we combined manipulation of plant defences, predation m...

Droughts increasingly threaten the world's forests and their potential to mitigate climate change. In 2018–2019, Central European forests were hit by two consecutive hotter drought years, an unprecedented phenomenon that is likely to occur more frequently with climate change. Here, we examine tree growth and physiological stress responses (increase in carbon isotope composition; Δδ 13 C) to this consecutive drought based on tr...