Scientists, including our faculty colleague Dr. Mike Field, studying an exceptionally well-preserved woolly rhinoceros have revealed details of what Britain's environment was like 42,000 years ago. The beast's remains were discovered in Staffordshire in 2002, buried alongside other preserved organisms…

Leiden archaeologists have identified a number of bone fragments that were excavated in Germany two years ago. The fragments are from a sabre-toothed cat and appear to be parts of the skull of a prehistoric feline that is over 300,000 years old.

In order to compare languages, it is important to have a thorough knowledge of the specific languages you are studying. Gijsbert Rutten and his team are investigating the origin of Standard Dutch and the repression of ‘non-standard’ variants between 1750 and 1850.

Promotores: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. L.B.F.M. Waters (UvA), Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)

Why do plants produces always produced so many slightly differing metabolites within a particular chemical class?

Insights in diet, climate and ecology

The soil-dwelling, filamentous bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are renowned for their production of useful secondary metabolites including antibiotics. The work described in this thesis provides new insights on the role and regulation of antibiotic production and resistance in these bacteria.

Promotores: Prof.dr. M. Franx & Prof.dr. P.G. van Dokkum (Yale University)

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Schilthuizen

Sustainable energy from wind and solar is most readily available near the sea.

Female and male songbirds sing equally elaborate songs in some species, but in others, females do not sing like males or not at all. How did such pronounced differences in male and female communication evolve?

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme include evo-devo research, the evolution of cognitive and behavioural traits, and the evolutionary mechanisms of stress adaptation. This research involves both indoor and outdoor studies.

How did toxin genes evolve from harmless physiological genes?

In Slaving Zones: Cultural Identities, Ideologies, and Institutions in the Evolution of Global Slavery, fourteen authors—including both world-leading and emerging historians of slavery—engage with the ‘Slaving Zones’ theory.

Plants produce an astonishing variety of secondary metabolites (SMs) which are thought to play vital roles in the fitness of plants through ecological interactions.

Evolution & Biodiversity is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

Birds sing to be heard, but how do they cope with increasing noise levels? Which species persist in cities and why? And do they thrive or suffer in the urban soundscape?

Pulsars were first discovered in 1967 and since then the population has grown and expanded over several wavelengths.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: Dr. V.S.F.T. Merckx

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme focuses on understanding how bacteria sense and respond to their environment, and how bacterial diversity and evolution is influenced by cooperative and antagonistic interactions taking place between microbes.

Balsaminaceae is a diverse plant family characterized by a huge floral morphological diversity.

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme is to understand what are the key drivers of plant biodiversity during evolution with a focus on plant life history and resilience traits and develop tools to restore and maintain plant biodiversity.

The emissions of the Chinese industrial sector alone comprise 24.1% of global emissions (7.8 GtCyr−1 in 2015). This makes Chinese industrial emissions of unique national and international relevance in climate policy. This study reports a literature survey that quantitatively describes the evolution…

Negotiation can only really be an alternative to warfare, if the parties agree on a framework of rules and procedures. And if the confidence of the partners may increase in another. But negotiations continue to wage war by peaceful means.

An international team with researchers from Leiden revealed how a bacterium repurposed an internal system to control its movements. Movement control is very important in host invasion, which can lead to disease. Publication on 27 April in Nature Communications.

Studies in Human Evolution is a series of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: O. van Gaans

How has early development in R. ocellatus been modified as a result of its parasitic embryonic lifestyle?

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.J.A. Rottgering, Co-promotor: David Sobral

Ben Wielstra strives to unravel the evolution of balanced lethal systems. On 1 February he started his own lab at the Institute of Biology Leiden. Wielstra is one of five researchers at Leiden University who has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2018 by the European Research Council. ERC Starting…

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

Where did species survive the cold cycles of the current Ice Age?

The logic seems inescapable indeed. The bigger the population, the higher the probability it contains an Einstein. Hence, bigger populations are more likely to develop complex culture.

Promotor: H.J.A. Rottgering, Co-Promotor: R.J. van Weeren

The Dutch organisation for scientific research NWO has announced that it will award an ENW-Klein grant to Marcellus Ubbink (LIC) for his research into the role of temperature in the evolution of enzymes. Sixteen grants have been awarded in total.

How do common marmosets combine their calls into sequences and how are their vocalisations influenced by reproductive state?

This summer, the International Union For Quaternary Research (INQUA) 2019 Congress took place in Dublin (Ireland), with 2305 delegates from 75 countries the largest INQUA Congress so far. During the Congress, the International Council elected for the coming 4 years a new Executive Committee and Emeritus…

The growing demand of energy indicates that global energy resources in the form of fossil fuels will not be sufficient in the future. In order to solve potential future energy problems development of a sustainable hydrogen economy is highly desirable.

What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves, Menno Schilthuizen reports from the front lines of evolutionary biology, on a quest to make sense of the origins, workings and evolution of our and other species’ reproductive selves.

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: O.W. van Gaans

Promotor: Prof.dr. P.G.L Klinkhamer

Venomous animals serve as models for a variety of mimicry types. Michael Richardson (IBL) and his international colleagues find that a group of fishes (called fangblennies) evolved venom after the origin of their venom-delivering fangs.

To gain more insight into the evolutionary development of orchid flowers and fruits, the orchid species Erycina pusilla was studied. The evolutionary origin of the median petaloid sepal, the callus on the labellum, and the stelidia was studied.

Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars.

On Thursday 11 November, Women in International Security Netherlands (WIIS-NL) held its inaugural webinar event on 11 November with four speakers in conjunction with the International Centre for Terrorism (ICCT) and the Chair UN Studies in Peace and Justice at Leiden University.

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

This thesis investigates the structural evolution and assembly of galaxies since the first few billions years after the big bang.