Research

Project Details:
As part of the project, phages are isolated and characterized from rabbits and guinea pigs. The aim is to test their in vitro and in vivo effectiveness.

Project Details:
Salmonella-specific phages are isolated and characterized from bearded dragons. Their spectrum of activity is determined, and their in vitro and in vivo effectiveness is examined.

Cooperation Partners:

Robert-Koch-Institut RKI Wernigerode

Funding: Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, 233.000 EUR

Project Details:
The project aims to develop a time- and location-based, digital, and mobile decision aid for citizens who have found a wild animal in nature. It enables the identification of the species and, based on the symptoms, provides a help recommendation through a decision tree. Specific contacts for further information are also provided.

Funding: MEKUN, 133.105 EUR

Project Details:
The aim of the study applied for here is to investigate the habitat use of harbor porpoises in the western part of the Baltic Sea in a follow-up project using "passive-acoustic monitoring". To this end, harbor porpoise click detectors (C-PODs, Ceatacean_Porpoise_Detectors) were deployed at a total of four locations in March 2021 to record the presence of harbor porpoises. In August 2023, another station funded by the German Wildlife Foundation was deployed in the Baltic Sea. The monitoring stations in operation (Holnis, Bredgrund, Schleisand, Damp and Waabs) are intended to close the existing gap in the monitoring network between Fehmarn and Denmark. The habitat of harbor porpoises in the Baltic Sea is heavily influenced by human activities and factors that can have a negative impact on harbor porpoise populations. These include commercial shipping, tourist leisure activities, seismic surveys, military activities, fishing, offshore construction, blasting of old munitions, chemical and pharmaceutical pollution and marine litter.
In the Baltic Sea in particular, the harbor porpoise continues to be threatened by fishing with gillnets, in which harbor porpoises can end up as unintentional bycatch. In order to warn harbor porpoises of gillnets, acoustic warning devices are increasingly being used in the German Baltic Sea to warn porpoises of nets. These warning devices (Porpoise Alert = PAL) simulate the communication sound of harbor porpoises. Whether these devices lead to a reduction in by-catches has not yet been conclusively investigated. There is also currently no accompanying research to investigate whether these devices lead to the displacement of harbor porpoises.
The anthropogenic interventions described are only the most serious for the harbor porpoise. All these activities have a simultaneous effect on the harbor porpoise population and cannot be considered separately. The absence of older animals among the harbor porpoises captured and stranded in all study areas could be an indication that harbor porpoises in the Baltic Sea are affected by cumulative anthropogenic activities.

This study addresses the following questions:

1. Where do harbor porpoises occur in the western Baltic Sea?
2. Are there seasonal trends in the occurrence of harbor porpoises?
3. Which areas are of high ecological importance for harbor porpoises (e.g. foraging hotspots)?
4. Can the C-POD data collected as part of this monitoring be used to investigate the effects of blasting on harbor porpoises?
5. Can recommendations be derived from the results for certain periods when blasting should be considered more critically than in others?
6. Does the presence of PAL signals have an influence on the dating of harbor porpoises?

Results:

In 2021, continuous acoustic monitoring of porpoises was launched for the first time in the Schleswig-Holstein section of the Baltic Sea, between the Flensburg Fjord and Eckernförde Bay. In 2023, a further monitoring station was added, extending the monitoring network southwards. A total of five monitoring stations (Holnis, Bredgrund, Schleisand, Damp and Waabs) are in operation, equipped with click detectors (C-PODs) to record the echolocation sounds (clicks) of porpoises. The monitoring has provided acoustic data on the occurrence and seasonal presence of porpoises.

In addition to genuine porpoise clicks, an increasing number of artificial porpoise clicks from acoustic warning devices were recorded. These warning devices are known as Porpoise Alerting Devices (PALs) and are used in gillnet fishing to warn porpoises of the presence of nets by emitting artificial, porpoise-like click signals, thereby reducing bycatch. The devices emit high-frequency click sequences with a centre frequency of around 130 kHz, which are acoustically almost indistinguishable from natural porpoise clicks.

As PALs emit artificial click signals that can be misclassified by C-PODs as genuine porpoise clicks, it was necessary to develop a specialised PAL detector. This was based on a standalone C-POD-PAL array experiment, which was carried out as a supplementary research project. The experiment was carried out at the Bredgrund station from July to October 2023 over a period of 93 days. A total of eleven C-PODs were deployed in a star-shaped pattern at varying distances around a central PAL. The PAL operated cyclically (24 hours on, 26 hours off), enabling direct comparisons between PAL-active and PAL-inactive phases. Using machine learning and a combination of various classification algorithms, the artificial porpoise clicks could be identified automatically.

After filtering the PAL signals, the data showed that porpoises were detected acoustically throughout the year at all monitoring stations in 2024 (Waabs 36.8%, Bredgrund 25.7%, Schleisand 13.9%, Holnis 11.1% and Damp 4.9% detection-positive 10-minute intervals (DP10M) as a median across the day). A comparison between the stations shows that both Waabs in Eckernförde Bay and Bredgrund in the Geltinger Birk area had the highest detection rates. Generalised additive models (GAMs) were used to analyse the annual and diurnal patterns of porpoise detections. The day of the year, the hour of the day and the year of the study were taken into account as explanatory variables. Harbout porpoise detections peaked in spring and autumn (bimodal distribution), with increased detections observed at the southern monitoring stations Damp and Waabs during the breeding season (August-September). Detections declined during the summer months, presumably due to low oxygen saturation in the shallow water or increased tourist activity. Diurnal effects were generally weak, but occurred more frequently at night at the Bredgrund and Waabs stations.

The results of porpoise monitoring in the western Baltic Sea show that PALs not only interfere with acoustic monitoring from a technical perspective, but also cause measurable changes in porpoise behaviour. Areas with a long-term presence of PALs must therefore be classified as habitats subject to significant anthropogenic influence.

The combination of continuous monitoring, PAL filtering, model-based analysis and the consideration of acute disturbance events such as blasting provides an important basis for management and conservation measures under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Continuation and further development of the monitoring programme are necessary to better assess long-term trends and cumulative effects.

Funding: Europäische Union, 142.547 EUR

Project Details:
The European Partnership on Animal Health and Welfare (EUPAHW) is a research and innovation initiative funded by the European Commission (EC) to control infectious diseases of animals, and to promote animal welfare. Due to the close link between animal health, animal welfare and human well-being, the One Health-One Welfare perspective takes a prominent position in the EUPAHW. Within the EUPAHW, the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research will work with other partners on wildlife-livestock-human interface. The overall objective is to integrate the health of wild mammals and birds into the overall health surveillance and monitoring of livestock. Wildlife health surveillance contributes to the assessment of environmental health because wild animals may serve as sentinels for both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Improving wildlife population monitoring and surveillance of wildlife pathogens/diseases aims to detect the emergence of pathogens and reduce the risk of transmission of infectious diseases between wildlife and livestock and even humans. The information is needed to design, apply and support sustainable livestock and wildlife management systems. In this context, the EUPAHW will assess the impact of climate change and human/anthropogenic activities such as hunting, trade, feeding, rewilding and translocation of wildlife on the spread of diseases and the establishment of invasive species.

Cooperation Partners:

56 Forschungsinstitutionen aus Europa (https://www.eupahw.eu)

Funding: DFG, 122.183 EUR

Project Details:
Enteroinvasive bacterial pathogens are serious health threats for humans and animals as they can overcome the physical and innate immune barrier by the intestinal epithelium. There is evidence that such pathogens exploit host transcytotic pathways of different intestinal epithelial cell types that are otherwise used for antigen and nutrient uptake. Intestinal transcytosis and transcytosis pathways may considerably contribute to the disease outcome of infection. However, these processes are not fully understood. For example, it is not clear whether different pathogens share pathways for translocation. This project describes a research collaboration to clarify transcytosis of the enteroinvasive intracellular bacterial pathogens Salmonella enterica and Mycobacterium avium. Both Salmonella serovars and M. avium subspecies are known to use different intestinal cell types for entry into the host. However, translocation through the cells is largely unknown. The aim of this project is to define the mechanisms of translocation and the promoting factors by infecting intestinal epithelial organoids.

Cooperation Partners:

Prof.Dr. Guntram Graßl

Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie und Krankenhaushygiene

Medizinische Hochschule Hannover

Funding: Stiftung zur Förderung der Erforschung von Ersatz- und Ergänzungsmethoden zur Einschränkung von Tierversuchen, 125.000 EUR

Project Details:
Chronic pain represents a significant health problem affecting approximately 20 to 50% of the world's population. Therapeutic methods are largely developed in behavioral tests with induced pain in rodents. This approach does not allow for pain treatment, leading to severe distress for the animals. Nevertheless, therapeutics developed in animals are not always effective in humans. Therefore, two in vitro models using human cells will be developed to quantify neuron-mediated chronic pain with the highest possible predictive power. For this purpose, stem cell-derived sensory neurons will be used (1.) to develop a luciferase-based exocytosis assay to easily quantify the increased release of neuropeptides (Substance P and Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide) involved in the chronic pain response. Additionally, (2.) an innervated skin model will be developed to quantify neurite outgrowth and the expression of regulated genes associated with chronic pain receptors and ion channels involved in signal transduction in vitro. The proof-of-concept for the use of these models in pharmacology and toxicology will be provided by inhibiting induced neuropeptide release, induced neurite outgrowth, and induced gene expression with therapeutically effective substances or by triggering them through the addition of exogenous substances. This approach allows for the modeling of molecular pathways of chronic pain development in vitro, directly in human cells, to avoid unnecessary animal experiments and to develop effective and safe therapeutics for humans. Following the project, the skin model will be adapted to model atopic dermatitis using induced pluripotent stem cells and primary cells from patients, aiming to bring specific in vitro disease models into application for the development of new therapies in cooperation with industrial partners. Furthermore, the project should serve as a foundation for further cross-disciplinary in vitro modeling, such as the simulation of chronic joint pain.

Cooperation Partners:

Prof. Dr. Annemarie Lang, Ph.D., University of Michigan

Project Details:
Overall statistics covering the last 20 breeding years to investigate influences and correlations between maternal, paternal, gender health, genetic and environmental factors and their impact on reproductive performance.

Cooperation Partners:

Deutscher Galopp e.V., Köln

Project Details:
GnRH agonists are frequently used in practice to treat diseases of the reproductive system in privately reared laying hens. After surgical removal of the oviduct, suppression of gonadal activity is essential. The aim of the planned studies is to examine the influence of such a resection of the laying intestine on the effect of the slow-release GnRH agonist deslorelin in clinical use. In order to assess the effect of the GnRH agonist, the activity of the ovary and oviduct will be evaluated by determining the sex hormones and by sonographic examination.

Project Details:
Infections with adenoviruses have been detected in hand-reared Common swifts in connection with stomatitis. As part of this project, the virus is to be investigated in more detail and its spread in the wild population of swifts and swallows, as possible carriers, is to be determined in the Hanover area.