Dr. Florian Leese discusses the work of the Aquatic Ecosystem Research Group at the Universität Duisburg-Essen, in Germany and how his team examines multiple stressors on freshwater biodiversity through DNA metabarcoding.
Florian studied biology at the Universities of Marburg and Bochum (Germany). After his master’s thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Freshwater Biology and a PhD thesis at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, he built his research group at Ruhr University Bochum, focusing on molecular methods to assess biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. In 2015, Florian became a full professor and head of the Aquatic Ecosystems Department at the Faculty of Biology, University of Duisburg-Essen. He coordinated the pan-European DNAqua-Net consortium (EU COST Action) that focused on developing and implementing environmental DNA-based tools as part of regulatory biomonitoring.