The Start of Nature

Nature in Fast Motion

Life is forming at Hühnerwasser: The webcam images show how the vegetation spreads (early 2008 through mid 2009).

Life in an open-pit mine: from a lunar landscape to an ecosystem

"Watch the good Lord create nature"—that's how one could describe the research project in Cottbus (Brandenburg) in which researchers from BTU Cottbus, TU Munich and ETH Zürich study how an ecosystem develops from time zero. Like in a massive open-air laboratory, it is possible to do just that at the "Hühnerwasser" artificial water catchment basin.

An ecosystem is a system that encompasses all of the living organisms and their animate and non-animate environment and their interdependencies between one another in a specific area. Measuring six hectares, the research grounds in which this development is being studied are larger than six football pitches, making it largest man-made water catchment basin in the world used for scientific purposes. The "Hühnerwasser" catchment basin, named after a creek that once flowed through the area, is located in the part of the Welzow South brown-coal strip mine that was restored, or recultivated, after being used for mining.

The catchment basin was created with giant mining excavators and transporters. Initially, it was an expansive, barren wasteland with very little life. But that changed quickly, because nature takes every opportunity to recolonise empty spaces. How such a space is revitalised is anything but random. Nature, too, follows strict laws. This sequence of animal and plant species is called "natural succession". The goal of the research at Hühnerwasser is to study and understand this, as well as many other processes.

Aside from being the largest study area of this type in the world, what also makes Hühnerwasser unique is that, for the first time, an artificial section of landscape that is clearly isolated from its surrounding environment as a water catchment basin could be created for research. The initial conditions of the natural development are observed and documented in detail. Each change and, thus, each development step of the ecosystem, is made visible and can be evaluated. The research is focussed on understanding what triggers and controls the development processes. What is the trigger that causes certain plants and animals not previously present to suddenly appear? What interactions exist between the groundwater, the soil and living organisms? What interactions take place between the individual structures, some of which form quickly? And there are many structures: plants, erosion gullies, crusts on the soil surface, water in and on the soil etc.

The research team's most important hypothesis is that the initial phase, i.e. the starting phase of an ecosystem, is a decisive influencing factor on its subsequent development. The knowledge gained here at Hühnerwasser could, thus, also be of value for working with landscapes that have been returned to an "original state" in ecosystem development by natural events or human use.





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