In recent years, the Institute of Environmental Sciences at RPTU has grown into one of the largest environmental science institutes in Germany. It includes 13 research groups with more than 100 employees from the natural sciences and environmental economics. With their closely interlinked basic and application-oriented research, the staff of the Institute of Environmental Sciences Landau focus primarily on the interactions between the environment and society. The sustainable protection of nature and the environment in harmony with economic growth is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. The Molecular Ecology group focuses on the development and application of molecular genetic methods for species identification, population genetics and the description of adaptation processes and the effects of climate change on natural populations. The focus is on aquatic habitats, especially lakes and groundwater ecosystems.

In various cooperation projects with the Institute of Groundwater Ecology (IGÖ), it was possible to decisively improve the recording of groundwater biodiversity, detect the distribution of organisms in natural and anthropogenic systems (e.g. pipeline networks) (SygoTracing) and estimate the effects of the environment (e.g. global warming) on groundwater fauna. In addition, other projects to determine the biodiversity of all groundwater organisms (protists, bacteria and all multicellular organisms) have been initiated (e.g. gwBIODIV) or are in preparation (e.g. DFG research group).