News
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Evolutionary change in protective plant odours 23 June 2021
Plants can’t run away from enemies. Still, it would like to keep life-threatening herbivores at a distance. This can be done with odours. Klaas Vrieli...
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Producing new plants without sowing 10 May 2021
Producing offspring of a crop without sowing and that is even bigger than the parent plant. According to Leiden researchers this can be achieved by ov...
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An artistic view on the hidden fungi in the soil 03 May 2021
Music from a compostable cello, photographs and scents of fungi and a woven tapestry. With her upcoming multimedia project Super Organism, visual arti...
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Which DNA is floating in the ditch? 08 April 2021
You pour a scoop of ditch water in the DNA scanner, and voilà: you know exactly which plants and animals the ditch accommodates. Well, it is not that ...
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Frederic Lens: building bridges in biodiversity research 18 February 2021
Four green research institutes in Leiden are joining forces to integrate evolution and biodiversity research, at local and at the national level. Pivo...
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Hybrid zones: a quick guide by Ben Wielstra 11 February 2021
Ben Wielstra studies hybrid zones, regions in which distinct populations of organisms meet, mate and produce genetically admixed offspring. In the jou...
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Noise pollution affects marine life worldwide 05 February 2021
Man-made sounds in and around the oceans stress marine life and have an impact on marine species and ecosystems by changing the underwater acoustic cl...
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IBL coordinates project to search for new medicines in marine biodiversity 17 December 2020
Gilles van Wezel of the Institute of Biology Leiden will lead a European consortium to search for new medicines and disease-suppressive microbes while...
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MIGRADROME: new study on the impact of vessel sound pollution on fish behaviour 30 October 2020
Fishes rely heavily on sound to find their way during migration or dispersal. Many species are affected by noise pollution. Hans Slabbekoorn from the ...
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Difference in microbiota between organic and conventional dairy farms 18 September 2020
Bacteria and fungi on organic dairy farms are significantly different from those on conventional farms. That was discovered by postdoc researcher Sofi...
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Women researchers shook up the world of bird song 15 September 2020
For a long time, bird song was considered as a typical male trait. But over the last twenty years, research has shown that a lot of female songbirds s...
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Briegel winner in global competition by the Moore Foundation 28 July 2020
Ariane Briegel, Professor of Ultrastructural biology in Leiden, has received a prestigious incentive from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. With ...
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Balanced lethal systems: a quick guide by Ben Wielstra 07 July 2020
Ben Wielstra studies balanced lethal systems, in which half of the offspring die before birth. In the journal Current Biology, he explains in an acces...
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Hans Slabbekoorn receives NWA grant to study fish around wind farms in the North Sea 04 June 2020
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) awarded behavioural biologist Hans Slabbekoorn (Institute of Biology Leiden) a grant of 750,000 euros to study fish a...
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‘Unimportant’ plant gene turns out to be essential 12 May 2020
Leiden biologists have shown that a gene present in plants, animals and yeasts does play an important role in plants, although for years the gene was ...