Biodiversity Research

Flora and fauna are under constant scientific monitoring. Cycles between geosphere and biosphere, the interaction between the Earth and its inhabitants from unicellular organisms to humankind, the rainforests and their influence on our climate - all this must be studied in order to understand how complex but also how vulnerable the Earth system is. In the area of biodiversity research, the international Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) which was founded in 2001 and is supported by the BMBF, collects data on biodiversity which is available in research collections worldwide and makes it freely accessible via Internet.

In the 21st century, humankind is facing great socio-economic and technological challenges which are multiplied by the - unrestrained - growth of the world population and the resulting intensive use of our planet's natural resources. Today, about 70% of all people live in a concentrated form in the coastal zones of the earth. Approximately 300 million people live in so-called megacities which are located less than 200 kilometres from active earthquake zones.

In order to understand and answer humankind's problems of tomorrow, such as climate change, environmental protection and overpopulation, all systems must be seen globally: monitoring of vegetation under drought conditions, forest damage, storm tide warnings, furthermore wave action data, algae flowering, oil pollution and its negative impact on the environment as well as the recording of natural disasters such as earthquakes, threat by volcanic eruptions, avalanche forecasts and storm tide warnings. Understanding the Earth system is indispensable if we want to preserve the Earth habitat for future generations.