The widely used pesticide thiacloprid can cause a large-scale decline in freshwater insects. This was discovered by researchers from the Living Lab in Leiden. For three months they counted the flying insects in the 36 ditches of the lab. Their research appeared in PNAS.

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

The 18th edition of SIP will be organised by Caroline Mueller at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. The 17th Symposium on Insect-Plant relationships in Leiden has been held online from the 25th to the 30th of July 2021.

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.P. Spaink, Co-promotor: Dr. M. van der Zee

What is the function of the insect serosa?

On average, Dutch breeding birds have become more numerous in the period 1980-2010. The common species have even done better than birds in other European countries. Farmland birds are an exception: they declined sharply both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

This thesis describes the role of pollution, specifically neonicotinoid insecticides, as an actor of the ongoing biodiversity decline.

Lecture

We examine how soil-derived legacy effects of plants structure natural ecosystems, determine aboveground plant insect interactions, and how we can use soil legacy effects to restore degraded ecosystems.

The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie is one of the first long-term studies in English of an Iberian town during the late medieval crisis. Focusing on the Catalonian city of Manresa, Jeff Fynn-Paul expertly integrates Iberian historiography with European narratives to place the city's social,…

IBL-researchers revealed in a new study that insects are successful on land because their eggs became protected against desiccation. An extraembryonic membrane in the egg, the serosa, helped insects to make the transition from water to land.

The research at the Living lab attracts a great deal of press attention. Please find below a small selection of the many news reports that have been published. Also take a look at the Zembla programme about the Living Lab.

Violence during war often involves upswings and downturns that have, to date, been insufficiently explained. Why does violence at a particular point in time increase in intensity and why do actors in war decrease the level of violence at other points? Duyvesteyn discusses the potential explanatory variables…

This project aims to identify which aspects of exploring a novel environment produce beneficial effects on memory. The effects of novelty will be investigated across the lifespan, including children, adolescents and older adults.

Two scientific papers in Science deliver new pieces of the puzzle for the reasons of bee decline. Professor Koos Biesmeijer comment on this research in articles in the Dutch newspapers Volkskrant and NRC.

The number of insect species is plummeting, which is why the University is creating a more biodiverse environment around its buildings. Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, planted the first bee-friendly plants in the front garden of Oude UB on 20 September.

Promotors: Prof.dr. P.G.L. Klinkhamer, Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield

Leiden has one of the most petrified inner-cities of The Netherlands. This is not beneficial for the biodiversity crisis and Leiden University, with a significant number of buildings within the Singels. The priority should be to make a positive impact on the matter.

The Netherlands in September 2021 could be characterised as a low-trust society. Trust in the government has declined significantly in the past one-and-a-half years: from almost 70 percent in April 2020 to less than 30 percent in September 2021. There has also been a slight decrease in trust between…

Marieke Liem, Associate Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and crime reporter Gerlof Leistra made an analysis of the Murder List 2019. They discussed their findings on Dutch NPO Radio 1 and in an article for Dutch news magazine 'Elsevier Weekblad'.

At the winter conference of the Dutch Christian student union CSFR, Mark Dechesne, Associate Professor, spoke about the decline in terrorist violence in the Netherlands.

For the first time in the Netherlands, an exotic insect species is released into the wild to combat a harmful plant species. The Japanese knotweed psyllid should offer relief against the rampant Asian knotweed. Suzanne Lommen of the Institute of Biology Leiden coordinates the field trials.

Breeding for resistance becomes more and more important because we want to reduce the use of pesticides. A fast and cheap alternative can be to make use of morphological or chemical markers.

In the Western world, kimchi is on an unstoppable rise, but in South Korea the dish is actually losing popularity. Professor Katarzyna Cwiertka explains how this is possible in the video series 'The World of the Korean Wave'.

What is the effect of light at night on plant phenology and physiology, and how does this affect plant interactions with other species?

What we buy and consume in Europe often has an impact on biodiversity somewhere else in the world. With a Horizon Europe Funding of 600.000 euros, assistant professor Laura Scherer and her team will develop models to look at the impact of global trade in non-food biomass. ‘After developing the models,…

On this page the programme and sessions can be found. The programme will be updated regularly.

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

The applications of studying the early development of insects range from agriculture to material science.

The latest research from the Leiden outdoor laboratory ‘Living Lab’ shows that the insecticide thiacloprid strongly influences even the most common and robust dragonfly species in the Netherlands. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

As a contribution to the changing legislation and evolving societal attitudes concerning environmental issues, this project aims to enhance and manipulate the plants’ own natural defense mechanisms against western flower thrips (WFT).

Abstracts can be submitted only if you are registered for the conference, including the required payment.

This book systematically evaluates the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and promises new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy.

Chris Jacobs, former PhD-student of the IBL, received the national “Dissertation Award” for best PhD thesis of the year on insects. The award was handed out last Friday, the 18th of December, by Professor Matty Berg, president of the Dutch Entomological Society.

What are the implications for life on Earth of the declining numbers of insects? How does the ever increasing stream of of energy and material flowing through our cities impact the global environmental ? Find out the answers to these and more questions on sustainability in the new monthly lecture series…

This ecological community has long been known to affect host biology, and their diverse roles have been further clarified in recent years following numerous studies of animal:microbiota interactions in diverse systems.

Host-Microbe Interactions is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to dissect how microorganisms and microbiomes interact with the plant host and the insects on those plants, and how these insights may be harnessed to improve plant growth and health, by steering microbiome composition and…

We examine how soil inoculation influences aboveground organisms (i) directly, and indirectly via (ii) its effects on plant chemistry or volatile emission, or via (iii) mediating the effects of belowground pathogens on aboveground organisms via the shared plant.

Kohei Suzuki, Assistant Professor at Institute of Public Administration, and two other authors researched the topic of innovation by governments in response to expected population decline.