eLTER PLUS Steering Committee Member Peter Haase Recognised as “International Champion”

Aquatic ecologist Prof. Dr. Peter Haase was honored in June 2024 as an “International Champion” with the Frontiers Planet Prize. At one million Swiss francs – the equivalent of around 1.05 million euros – the Frontiers Planet Prize from the Frontiers Research Foundation is one of the world’s most highly endowed awards for pioneering nature research. 

As the press office at the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research reports, the prize recognizes a study by Haase and his team on the biodiversity of streams and rivers throughout Europe. Intensive land use due to development and agriculture, river regulation, invasive animal and plant species, global climate change, and pollution: humans have a tremendous impact on river ecosystems. 

Winning article: The recovery of European freshwater biodiversity has come to a halt (Nature, 2023)

“In order to track the development of biotic communities in rivers, an international team headed by me has compiled and evaluated time series on the biodiversity of streams and rivers throughout Europe,” explains Prof. Dr. Peter Haase from the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt and the University of Duisburg-Essen, and he continues, “Our analyses revealed that, on average, the diversity of species and ecological functions in rivers has increased over the last 50 years, beginning at a very low level as a result of the intense pressures in the past. However, this positive trend has leveled off since 2010.” 

According to Haase, the researchers’ results demonstrate both sides of the coin—negative ramifications for freshwater biodiversity when planetary boundaries are exceeded—but also an encouraging example of how appropriate action can ameliorate degraded ecosystems.

Prof. Dr. Peter Haase is a member of the Steering Committee and Biodiversity Theme Lead of the Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research infrastructure Advanced Community project eLTER PLUS. For many years he has been involved in long-term ecosystem research working with the conviction that “...to gain a deeper understanding of the processes that drive our ecosystems and to disentangle anthropogenic and natural changes as well as short-term fluctuations and long-term trends, long-term ecosystem research and observation is indispensable” (Haase et al., 2016).

The Frontiers Research Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Switzerland that supports programs that advance scientific solutions for a healthy life on a healthy planet. The aim of the Frontiers Planet Prize, which recognises scientific breakthroughs that contribute to the stabilisation of the planet’s ecosystem, is to stimulate international competition and promote scientific collaboration to accelerate solution-oriented research for the benefit of ecosystems around the world and to respond to the global crisis with sustainable solutions.