About the Authors

Sebastian Steffens

Contributed equally to this work with: Sebastian Steffens, Leonie Nüßer

‡ These authors share first authorship on this work.

Affiliation Department of Ecosystem Analysis, Institute of Environmental Research, ABBt – Aachen Biology and Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Leonie Nüßer

Contributed equally to this work with: Sebastian Steffens, Leonie Nüßer

‡ These authors share first authorship on this work.

Affiliation Department of Ecosystem Analysis, Institute of Environmental Research, ABBt – Aachen Biology and Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Thomas-Benjamin Seiler

Affiliation Department of Ecosystem Analysis, Institute of Environmental Research, ABBt – Aachen Biology and Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Nadine Ruchter

Affiliation Aquatic Ecology and Centre of Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

Mark Schumann

Affiliation Aquatic Ecology and Centre of Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

Ricarda Döring

Affiliation Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Catrina Cofalla

Affiliation Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Avi Ostfeld

Affiliation Environmental, Water and Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

Elad Salomons

Affiliation OptiWater, Haifa, Israel

Holger Schüttrumpf

Affiliation Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Henner Hollert

Affiliations Department of Ecosystem Analysis, Institute of Environmental Research, ABBt – Aachen Biology and Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, College of Resources and Environmental Science, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, Key Laboratory of Yangtze Water Environment, Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Markus Brinkmann

markus.brinkmann@usask.ca

Current address: School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

Affiliation Department of Ecosystem Analysis, Institute of Environmental Research, ABBt – Aachen Biology and Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Competing Interests

We have the following interests: Elad Salomons is employed by OptiWater. Support was received from Nikon Instruments Germany and Tecan Deutschland GmbH for their contribution to this study as a partner of the Students Lab "Fascinating Environment" at Aachen Biology and Biotechnology (ABBt). There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: TBS HH HS AO MB. Formal analysis: SS LN NR MB. Funding acquisition: AO HS HH. Investigation: SS LN NR MS MB. Methodology: TBS HH MB. Project administration: CC HS RD TBS HH AO ES. Resources: HH. Software: SS MB. Supervision: LN TBS HH MB. Visualization: SS LN MB. Writing – original draft: SS LN MB. Writing – review & editing: SS LN TBS NR MS RD CC AO ES HS HH MB.