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Johannes Merz

@mosssoup2.bsky.social
310 followers 850 following 83 posts

Master BiodivEcoEvo student at iDIV, interested in fun things with Data; (plant) Ecology, Conservation/Restoration; and evo approaches to eco questions ;)

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Reposted by Johannes Merz
People and Nature @peopleandnature.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🌱🔬27,000 students uncovered “dark biodiversity” hiding in plain sight (bryophytes, lichens & tardigrades), discovering 41 species new to Denmark and even some new to science. Citizen science advances research while inspiring the next generation 🌍 #Science #Biodiversity 📖 buff.ly/KgVP9Ab
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Finally published 🌿🌿 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Restoration of temperate forestry‐drained fens brings back key species and ecosystem function
Our results highlight that rewetting forestry-drained temperate fens can lead to partial vegetation recovery and jump-start peat formation.
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Are you diploid, are you tetraploid, are you hexaploid? 🌿
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Biodiversity reduces productivity losses most strongly under extreme drought – especially in drier grasslands. 🌱🌲 A new paper led by Takehiro Sasaki is out in @natecoevo.nature.com with many contributors from @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social at @idiv-research.bsky.social. www.idiv.de/biodiversity...
idiv.de
Biodiversity does not enhance productivity equally across all ecosystems under climate extremes
Biodiversity reduces productivity losses most effectively under extreme drought in drier grasslands.
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Cytotyping expedition through western Germany to close some data gaps of diploid Euphorbia cyparissias 🌿
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
Experimental Interaction Ecology @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
New collaborative paper led by Takehiro Sasaki out @natecoevo.nature.com with plenty of contributors from our group & others @idiv-research.bsky.social Biodiversity enhances productivity under drought in more arid grasslands but has limited effects in more arid forests 🌱🌲 doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
Biodiversity effects under climate extremes intensify with aridity in grasslands but not forests - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning under climate extremes may depend on ecosystem type and baseline aridity. Here the authors show that the effects of plant diversity on productivity are st...
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 14/07/2026
Citizen science platforms must mitigate against the threat of generative AI rdcu.be/ftL0T Lees et al. highlight the growing problem of AI-manipulated media contaminating citizen science platforms
rdcu.be
Citizen science platforms must mitigate against the threat of generative AI
Nature Ecology & Evolution - Citizen science platforms must mitigate against the threat of generative AI
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Invasive fern Azolla filiculoides is spreading across the pond cultural landscape of northern bavaria 🌿 you can even see it on aerial pictures 🥲
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Cuscuta spp. (dodder) is a fancy parasitic plant that twines around other plants. After germination, the seedling has only a brief window to find a host. Once attached, it forms haustoria that penetrate host tissues and connect to the vascular system, while its own root degenerates 🌿
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Botanical mapping in northern Bavaria today for future red lists :) This mapping quadrant reached almost 700 vascular plant species. Esp. the extensively used carp ponds are great 🌿🌻 images: Utricularia x neglecta, and Cuscuta europaea, Butomus umbellatus
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Scolia hirta, quite strange wasp that can smell burrowed larvae of certain beetle which the female diggs up to lay their eggs in it🥚 threatened with extinction in Germany, but apparently rather common in Leipzig 🐝
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Ophrys apifera is flowering in Leipzigs restored open pit coal mining sites where the coal excavators dug up some ancient shorelines with calcareous sands 🌊 which are nowadays quite nice nutrient-poor and base-rhich pioneer meadows 🌿
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Sphagnum angustifolium together with Aulacomnium palustre at the edge of Pomponrahka ombotrophic bog in SW Finland :)
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
bbsbryology.bsky.social @bbsbryology.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
After several years in gestation, the long awaited paper on Aneura pinguis agg is now out. Lots of hard work from the team @thebotanics.bsky.social has resulted in the description of 12 species based on molecular and morphological criteria. Free to download at link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Under the invisibility cape: the secret world of Aneura pinguis in Europe and Greenland - Plant Systematics and Evolution
Multiple accessions of the simple thalloid liverwort Aneura from around the world, but with particular focus on western Europe, have been sequenced for a range of standard plastid DNA barcoding marker...
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
currently the forest patches around Leipzig are full of Amata phegea, a nice butterfly that quite rare in Germany but very common locally 🦋
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Canopy Shenanigans in the Leipzig Riparian Forest Canopy Crane 🌿🏗️
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
The Jena experiment flowering atm :)
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
Milan Chytrý @milanchytry.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
The first comprehensive analysis of vegetation changes across Europe, based on the ReSurveyEurope dataset, is out! In an article led by Stephan Kambach, we analyzed 57,390 time series of vegetation plots. doi.org/10.1038/s414...
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Sphaerocarpos cf europaeus, a strange looking liverwort growing on bare disturbed soil in extensively managed arable fields, endangered across Europe 🌿
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
spring in Leipzigs riparian forest 🌷
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
Andrew Barnes @barnesecodiv.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Pesticide residues found to be the second strongest driver of soil biodiversity (after soil properties) across European ecosystems! 🌐🌏🪱🦠🍄 rdcu.be/e1cOL
rdcu.be
Pesticide residues alter taxonomic and functional biodiversity in soils
Nature - A wide survey of pesticide effects on soil biodiversity across 373 sites in Europe reveals that pesticide residues occur in 70% of sites and have major effects on soil biodiversity and...
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Cladonia stellaris in the snow ❄️
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Nature Reviews Biodiversity @natrevbiodiv.nature.com · 02/12/2025
New online! The biodiversity, genomics, ecology and evolution of mushroom-forming fungi
bit.ly
The biodiversity, genomics, ecology and evolution of mushroom-forming fungi
Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Published online: 02 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44358-025-00107-zMushroom-forming fungi have along evolutionary history and a suite of important ecological roles. This Review highlights advances in understanding of Agaricomycetes evolution and ecology driven by genomic research.
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Preprint available :) Small-scale fen restoration brings back key species and ecosystem functions 🌿
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bioRxiv Ecology @biorxiv-ecology.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Small-scale fen restoration brings back key species and ecosystem functions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Did you know there are freshwater sponges in Germany? Spongilla lancustris is a demosponge growing in shallow, clear and clean ponds, lakes etc. it becomes dormant in winter and can survive dry periods! seen today in a dry pond in northern bavaria :)
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Anna Bucharova @annabucharova.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
How to measure seed longevity in storage when comparing accessions or species? We looked in detail at the most widely used measure (p50) and found out that it is... suboptimal at best. We highlight alternatives. @gfoesoc.bsky.social @unimarburg.bsky.social
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Restored open pit coal mining site near Leipzig, quite interesting pioneer habitat :)
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Some white beams endemic to franconia, northern bavaria :) Karpatiosorbus franconica and Hedlundia pulchra
Hedlundia pulchraKarpatiosorbus franconicaKarpatiosorbus franconica
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
❄️
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Lotte Korell @lottekorell.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Happy to finally share this important article on barriers in ecology led by @canobarbacil.bsky.social in the journal Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment. The idea for this paper originated at the nice #ANdiNA workshop in Spain a couple of years ago.
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iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
New study led by @lsachsenmaier.bsky.social @agwirthweigelt.bsky.social shows: forest stands made up of tree species with different water-use strategies (not just many species) grow better in drought years. #iDivResearch #Biodiversity www.idiv.de/diverse-fore...
idiv.de
Diverse forests are more resistant to climate change
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ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success @coeplantsuccess.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
📢 New publication ' #Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants' by Shanshan Dong et al. in @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🧪 doi.org/10.1038/s415... #evolution #pangenome
doi.org
Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants - Nature Genetics
A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
🍁🍂
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
some fancy Ascophyllum🌿
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Dr. Mariana García Criado @nanitundra.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
🌲 Boreal-tundra species drive Arctic plant borealization 🌲 Our new study in #EcologyLetters quantifies tundra plant borealization, assesses its main drivers and identifies the species & traits contributing to borealization. doi.org/10.1111/ele.... 🧵 (1/6) 🌐🧪🌱🌍
Illustration of a branch of Betula glandulosa (Resin birch). Illustration by Alberto S. Ballesteros (@asbillustration.bsky.social).
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Sphagnum fallax in a mesotrophic sloping fen in central Germany 🌿
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Sphagnum girgensohnii in an alder carr in southern finland :)
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
A collapsing Palsa in northern Finland; seen this week. Palsas are peat-covered hills, often a few meters high, that contains a core of permafrost. They are only found in areas of discontinuous permafrost 🧊, They will be likely gone soon due to climate change 🌿 nordia.journal.fi/article/view...
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Botrychium boreale in coastal dune vegetation, subarctic norway 🌿🌊
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Tundra office 🌿🍁
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Have a nice weekend! Sphagnum cuspidatum 🌿
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Sphagnum divinum at its best autom colors starting to sneak in 🍁🍂
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Gymnomitrion species from the arctic tundra :) G. concinnatum, G. corallioides (with sporophyte), G. brevissimum
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Have a nice weekend! Sphagnum tumidulum :)
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
small actions for local biodiversity :) our family´s garden got the award "bird friendly" by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment & the association for bird protection 🐦🌿@‪lbv-bayern.bsky.social‬ we implemented artificial nesting sites, many unmanaged corners, various native plants, etc 🥬
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Lendemeriella tornoensis - a lichen parasting on mosses in subarctic snowbeds :) As far as I know those are the only pictures of this species existing on the internet. I took those during an excursion to Gistuskáidi late snow areas in subarctic Lapland, thx to Inka Kuusisto for showing :)
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Sleepin´ beeauty
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Reposted by Johannes Merz
Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD @ryankatzrosene.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Ouch. “If we plan restoration targets to match future climatic conditions and consider state transitions of currently natural ecosystems due to climate change, the potential for natural climate solutions related to ecosystem restoration is close to zero.”
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Johannes Merz @mosssoup2.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Qvidja Bioblitz, really nice and diverse cultural landscape around an old castle. Even Apollo butterflys there! #Qvidja
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