Dr. Sami Domisch
Research Group Leader
Interests
Freshwater biodiversity Macroecology Conservation planning Biodiversity informatics Geo-informatics
Education
- Doctoral studies (Dr. phil. nat) in Biology, 2009-2012
University Frankfurt, and Senckenberg / BiK-F, Germany - MSc in Biology (Diplom), Marine Biodiversity, 2005-2009
University Oldenburg, Germany and Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) Helgoland, Germany - BSc in Biology (Vordiplom), 2001-2005
University Kaiserlautern, Germany - Higher school certificate (Abitur), 2000
Deutsche Schule Helsinki, Finland
Sami Domisch is a Research Group Leader at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). Sami is interested in freshwater biodiversity with an emphasis on spatial biodiversity patterns, macroecology, and developing tools to assess freshwater biodiversity across large spatial scales.
The group uses a wide array of open-source tools for spatial biodiversity informatics such as R, GRASS, GDAL/OGR, pktools, OpenForis within the Linux environment.
Career
- since 2024 - Research Group Leader at Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB)
- 2019-2024 - Leibniz Junior Research Group Leader at IGB
- 2016-2019 - Postdoc at IGB
- 2013-2016 - Yale University, USA (Postdoctoral associate and DFG postdoctoral fellow)
- 2012-2013 - Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Frankfurt, Germany (Postdoc)
Funding and awards
- DFG: Assessing the role of the hydrographic network structure and connectivity on the South American freshwater fish diversity
- NFDI4Earth Pilot project (DFG): Connecting rivers and lakes FAIRly
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation: host for Dr. Emmanuel Akindele’s grant “Spatial freshwater biodiversity modelling as a tool to assess distribution patterns of freshwater macroinvertebrates in Nigeria’s biodiversity hotspots” (Ref 3.4-1199118-NGA-GF-E)
- Horizon Europe: AquaINFRA - Restoring our oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters, WP-lead (101094434)
- NFDI4Biodiversity Flexfunds: The hydrographr R-package
- Horizon Europe: Water Resources System Safe Operating Space in a Changing Climate and Society, Co-PI (101059264)
- NFDI4Earth Pilot project (DFG): Getting freshwater spatiotemporal data on track
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation: Co-host for Dr. Torres-Cambas’ grant “Protecting the future of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services across Cuba” (Ref 3.2-1212347-CUB-GF-P)
- Leibniz Association and IGB: Leibniz Junior Research Group “Global freshwater biodiversity, biogeography and conservation (GLOWABIO)” (J45/2018), started in 2019
- German Research Foundation (DFG): Co-PI for grant ‘Himalopsyche/QTP Region’ (DO 1880_3-2)
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Co-authored the proposal for grant ‘WANDEL’ (GROW-937-3583-018; Co-PIs: S. Jähnig, M. Pusch)
- German Research Foundation (DFG): 2-year Postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University, USA (DO 1880_1-1)
- EFFS-Award, subsidiary price for the best European PhD dissertation in freshwater science 2011-2012
Reviewer activities
- Member of Editorial Board of Scientific Data (2022-2025)
- Associate Editor of Journal of Biogeography (2022-2023)
- Member of Editorial Advisory Board of Limnologica (since 2014) and Global Change Biology (2014-2017)
- Contributing author in Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation, Vulnerability) of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Chapter 2 on “Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems and their Services”
- Funding agencies: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), GO-IN-Goethe International Post-Doc Programme (Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Germany), National Research Foundation of South Africa, Dutch Research Council, German Research Foundation (DFG)
- Journal referee: Aquatic Sciences, Biological Conservation, Biology Letters, Biological Invasions, Diversity & Distributions, Ecography, Ecohydrology, Ecological Applications, Ecological Engineering, Ecological Indicators, Ecological Modelling, Freshwater Biology, Freshwater Science, Fundamental and Applied Limnology (Guest Editor), Global Change Biology (Advisory Board member 2013-2017), Global Ecology and Conservation, Hydrobiologia, Integrative Zoology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Biogeography, Journal of Environmental Management, Knowledge and Management of Aquatic Ecosystems, Landscape Ecology, Limnetica, Limnologica, Marine Ecology Progress Series, Methods in Ecology & Evolution, Scientific Data, Scientific Reports, PLoS ONE, The Science of Nature, WIREs Climate Change
Scientific service
- Ombudsperson at IGB
- Steering committee member of the CTP “Research Data Management” at IGB
- Member of the IT-commission at IGB
- Co-Speaker of the Programme Area “Predictive Ecology” at IGB
Projects
- Western Balkans amphibian biodiversity facets
- Freshwater habitat regionalization
- Guineo-Congolian freshwater biodiversity
- Developing an online infrastructure
- Safe operating space for water resources
- EPTO database
- SSP projections of landcover and fish
- Conservation planning across Colombia
- Protected areas in Cuba
- Geomorpho90m
- Hydrography90m
Publications (84)
The hidden dimensions of biodiversity (2026) · in revision
Freshwater biodiversity is not adequately addressed by the current protected areas of the Caribbean biodiversity hotspot (2026) · bioRxiv
Comparative phylogeography of Himalopsyche (Trichoptera, Rhyacophilidae) in the Tibeto-Himalayan Region: An assessment of the mountain-geobiodiversity hypothesis (2026) · in revision
Reducing the global human footprint on lake water quality near river inlets (2026) · in revision
Review and reframing of the operationalisation of the water planetary boundary for river basin planning (2026) · Environmental Research Letters 21 (19), 193001
Network-aware environmental trait database for global freshwater crayfish (2026) · Scientific Data
The Danube Fish Database: documenting species distributions across a major European river basin (2026) · Scientific Data 13 (1), 786
Climate change reshapes freshwater fish distributions in a semi-arid basin of the middle East (2026) · Biodiversity and Conservation 35, 5, 143
High resolution projections of shifts in freshwater biodiversity habitats under global climate change (2026) · EGU26-19593
The Data-to-Knowledge Package-A Framework for publishing reproducible and reusable analysis workflows in Earth System Science (2026) · EGU26-9441
Incorporating Biotic Interactions and Dispersal Processes in Modelling Species Distributions of Freshwater Organisms: A Review (2026) · Diversity and Distributions 32 (3), e70163
Environment90m – globally standardized environmental variables for freshwater science at high spatial resolution (2026) · Earth System Science Data 2026, 1541–1559
The spatial discrepancy between Colombian freshwater fish suitable habitats and existing protected areas (2026) · Diversity and Distributions 32 (3), e70168
No ‘au doigt mouillé’: A Framework for Optimizing Barrier Prioritization Under Contrasting Governance and Cost Scenarios (2026) · Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 36 (3), e70353
Current protected areas provide limited benefits for European river biodiversity (2025) · Nature Communications 16 (1), 11146
‘specleanr’: an R package for automated flagging of environmental outliers in ecological data for modeling workflows (2025) · Ecography 2025 (12), e08221
Introducing fwtraits–an r package for obtaining freshwater biodiversity trait information (2025) · Basic and Applied Ecology 89, 81-91
Encouraging reusability of computational research through Data-to-Knowledge Packages - A hydrological use case (2025) · Open Research Europe 5, 123
Optimizing river restoration: A multi-scenario approach to barrier removal prioritization (2025) · Journal of Environmental Management, 389, 126176
Evaluating Environmental Predictors of Fish Community Composition in a Semi-Arid River System Using a Model-Based Approach (2025) · Ecology of Freshwater Fish, 34, e70013
Complex Life Cycles Shape the Functional Biogeography of European Dragonflies (2025) · Global Ecology and Biogeography, 34, e70056
The Scale-Dependency in Freshwater Habitat Regionalisation Analyses (2025) · Ecohydrology, 18, e70018
Environmental effects of the Kakhovka Dam destruction by warfare in Ukraine (2025) · Science, 387, 1181-1186
A spatial inventory of freshwater macroinvertebrate occurrences in the Guineo-Congolian biodiversity hotspot (2025) · Scientific Data, 12, 227
PDF DOI Dataset Project Map The Conversation Authors & details
Evaluating the readiness for river barrier removal: A scoping review under the EU nature restoration law (2025) · Science of The Total Environment, 959, 178180
GeoFRESH – an online platform for freshwater geospatial data processing (2024) · International Journal of Digital Earth, 2391033
Disentangling spatio-temporal impacts of multiple environmental factors on the global discharge regime (2024) · Earth’s Future, 12, e2023EF004267
A modelling approach to assess climate change impacts on taxonomic and functional diversity of European stream macroinvertebrates: Implications for water quality monitoring (2024) · Ecological Indicators, 166, 112404
Time series of freshwater macroinvertebrate abundances and site characteristics of European streams and rivers (2024) · Scientific Data, 11, 601
The relationships between biotic uniqueness and abiotic uniqueness are context dependent across drainage basins worldwide (2024) · Landscape Ecology, 39, 86
300 years of past and future changes for native fish species in the upper Danube River Basin– historical flow alterations versus future climate change (2024) · Diversity and Distributions, 30, e13808
Downscaling future land cover scenarios for freshwater fish distribution models under climate change (2024) · Limnologica, 126139
hydrographr: an R package for scalable hydrographic data processing (2023) · Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 14, 2953-2963
DOI Project R-package Installation SDM workflow Connectivity workflow Authors & details
The recovery of European freshwater biodiversity has come to a halt (2023) · Nature, 620, 582–588
Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems and Their Services (2023) · IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
A database of freshwater macroinvertebrate occurrence records across Cuba (2023) · Scientific Data, 10, 169
The Global EPTO Database: worldwide occurrences of aquatic insects (2023) · Global Ecology and Biogeography
Tracking a killer shrimp: Dikerogammarus villosus invasion dynamics across Europe (2023) · Diversity and Distributions, 29, 157-172
Long-term trends in crayfish invasions across European rivers (2023) · Science of the Total Environment, 867, 161537
Hydrography90m: A new high-resolution global hydrographic dataset (2022) · Earth System Science Data, 14, 4525–4550
Urbanization promotes specific bacteria in freshwater microbiomes including potential pathogens (2022) · Science of the Total Environment, 845, 157321
Invasion impacts and dynamics of a European-wide introduced species (2022) · Global Change Biology, 28, 15
A global agenda for advancing freshwater biodiversity research (2022) · Ecology Letters, 25, 2
Twenty-five essential research questions to inform the protection and restoration of freshwater biodiversity (2021) · Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 31, 9
Assessing whether artificial intelligence is an enabler or an inhibitor of sustainability (2021) · Transportation Engineering, 4, 100064
Improving the reliability of eDNA data interpretation (2021) · Molecular Ecology Resources, 21, 5
Safeguarding freshwater life beyond 2020: Recommendations for the new global biodiversity framework from the European experience (2021) · Conservation Letters, 14, 1
Integrative species delimitation: testing the efficacy of the multispecies coalescent model in the Greenthroat Darter complex (Percidae: Etheostomatinae) (2021) · Zoologica Scripta, 50, 707-733
Revisiting global trends in freshwater insect biodiversity (2021) · WIREs Waters, 2021;8:e1506
Geomorpho90m, empirical evaluation and accuracy assessment of global high-resolution geomorphometric layers (2020) · Scientific Data, 7, 162
Estimating nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in streams and rivers, within a machine learning framework (2020) · Scientific Data, 7, 161
Climate model variability leads to uncertain predictions of the future abundance of stream macroinvertebrates (2020) · Scientific Reports, 10, 2520
From topography to hydrology - the modifiable area unit problem impacts freshwater species distribution models (2020) · Ecology and Evolution, 10, 2956-2968
Art-Areal-Modellierung für Fischarten im Einzugsgebiet der oberen Donau: Aspekte zur Interpretation der Projektionen (2020) · Wasserwirtschaft, 2-3, 38-40
The role of artificial intelligence in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (2020) · Nature Communications, 11, 233
Elevation, aspect, and local environment jointly determine diatom and macroinvertebrate diversity in the Hengduan Mountains region (2020) · Ecological Indicators, 108, 105618
How to make ecological models useful for environmental management (2019) · Ecological Modelling, 411, 108784
Combining eight research areas to foster the uptake of ecosystem-based management in fresh waters (2019) · Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 29, 7
Cost-effective restoration and conservation planning in Green and Blue Infrastructure designs. A case study on the Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve of the Mediterranean: Andalusia (Spain) – Morocco (2019) · Science of The Total Environment, 652, 1463-1473
Spatially explicit species distribution models: A missed opportunity in conservation planning? (2019) · Diversity and Distributions, 25, 758–769
Local environment and space drive multiple facets of stream macroinvertebrate beta diversity (2018) · Journal of Biogeography, 45, 2744-2754
High-resolution stream network delineation using digital elevation models: assessing the spatial accuracy (2018) · PeerJ Preprints, 6, e27109v1
A suite of global, cross-scale topographic variables for environmental and biodiversity modeling (2018) · Scientific Data, 5, 180040
A high-resolution streamflow and hydrological metrics dataset for ecological modeling using a regression model (2018) · Scientific Data, 5, 180224
Projected effects of Climate-change-induced flow alterations on stream macroinvertebrate abundances (2018) · Ecology and Evolution, 8, 3393-3409
Social equity shapes zone-selection: Balancing aquatic biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery in the transboundary Danube River Basin (2018) · Science of the Total Environment, 656, 797-807
Cross-taxa generalities in the relationship between population abundance and ambient temperatures (2017) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284, 20170870
Using streamflow observations to estimate the impact of hydrological regimes and anthropogenic water use on European stream macroinvertebrate occurrences (2017) · Ecohydrology, 10, e1895
Cross-realm assessment of climate change impacts on species’ abundance trends (2017) · Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1, 0067
Severity Multipliers as a Methodology to Explore Potential Effects of Climate Change on Stream Bioassessment Programs (2017) · Water, 9, 188
Model-based integration of observed and expert-based information for assessing the geographic and environmental distribution of freshwater species (2016) · Ecography, 39, 1078-1088
Near-global freshwater-specific environmental variables for biodiversity analyses in 1 km resolution (2015) · Scientific Data, 2, 150073
Application of species distribution models in stream ecosystems: the challenges of spatial and temporal scale, environmental predictors and species occurrence data (2015) · Fundamental and Applied Limnology, 186, 45–61
Ecological models in freshwater ecosystems (2015) · Fundamental and Applied Limnology / Archiv für Hydrobiologie, 186, 1-3
Current and future latitudinal gradients in stream macroinvertebrates richness across North America (2014) · Freshwater Science, 33, 1136-1147
Choice of study area and predictors affect habitat suitability projections, but not the performance of species distribution models of stream biota (2013) · Ecological Modelling, 257, 1-10
Modelling distribution in European stream macroinvertebrates under future climates (2013) · Global Change Biology, 19, 3, 752-62
Continental-scale conservation prioritization of African dragonflies (2013) · Biological Conservation, 157, 245-254
Modelling of riverine ecosystems by integrating models: conceptual approach, a case study and research agenda (2012) · Journal of Biogeography, 39, 12, 2253-2263
Integrierte Modellierung von aquatischen Ökosystemen in China: Arealbestimmung von Makrozoobenthos auf Einzugsgebietsebene - Integrated modelling of aquatic ecosystems in China: Distribution of benthic macroinvertebrates at catchment scale (2012) · Hydrologie und Wasserbewirtschaftung, 56, 185-192
Range shifts of a relict Himalayan dragonfly in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region under climate change scenarios (2012) · International Journal of Odonatology, 15, 209-222
Low mountain ranges: summit traps for montane freshwater species under climate change (2011) · Biodiversity and Conservation, 20, 3133-3146
Cryptic biodiversity loss linked to global climate change (2011) · Nature Climate Change, 1, 313-318
Climate-change winners and losers: stream macroinvertebrates of a submontane region in Central Europe (2011) · Freshwater Biology, 56, 2009-2020