What are trait-trait relationships in wetlands? To what extent the so-called leaf economics traits deviate from terrestrial ecosystems? How traits specific to wetland plant relate to plant strategies? What’s the relationship between wetland plant traits to the ecosystem functioning (e.g. productivity,…

Wetland plants are distinguished from plants of other terrestrial ecosystems by their adaptations to specific habitat stresses, including waterlogged and flooding and the subsequent abundance of phytotoxic compounds.

This thesis compiled and analysed the currently largest global wetland plant trait database containing more than 1200 species from over 200 studies.

What are the behaviours of plant traits throughout various points in the growing season in a radiative transfer model framework and how well can this knowledge be integrated through data assimilation to provide priors for robust local and global vegetation products and analysis?

Which traits did change due to the invasion process of plants and how do these traits contribute to the invasiveness of such species. What is the role of carbohydrate accumulation? What is the function of carbohydrate accumulation in plants? Is genetic variation depleted in invasive species under se…

The mission of the Plant Sciences cluster is to contribute to the sustainable production of high-quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products, and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in natural ecosystems. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge…

Plant-microbe interaction resulted in different physio/chemical responses by host plant and interacting rhizobacteria.

The mission of the Plant Science research programme is to contribute to the sustainable production of high quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge of basic biological processes related to development of plants and their interaction…

Plant exudates appeared long time ago in the history line of life in the early Devonian. They are typical saps produced by specialized cells.

Together with a large international team of scientists, researchers Peter van Bodegom and Nadia Soudzilovskaia of the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) have created maps of variability in plant trait distribution across the globe. The new maps have been published in Proceedings of the…

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.

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought stress resistance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these QTLs overlap?

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.

What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

Which microorganisms live near and inside plant roots? How do they contribute to plant health? Can microorganisms be employed in plant protection?

Which traits and/or trade-offs determine benefits of being deciduous or evergreen?

Promotor: P.J.J. Hooykaas, Co-Promotor: E.J. van der Zaal

How is Pol θ responsible for T-DNA integration, and how do other DNA double-strand break repair pathways interact with Pol θ? How may we manipulate T-DNA integration to stimulate error-free integration at a predetermined genomic site?

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

A three-volume standard work on galls in Europe. Author Johannes C. (Hans) Roskam is associate professor emeritus in Evolutionary Biology and currently guest at Leiden University.

Basketry, cordage and textiles made of plant fibers or bark are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. By means of experimental archaeology and microwear analysis, we obtain indirect evidence about this important craft.

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 Plant BioDynamics Lab (PBDL) is a laboratory dedicated to experiments designed to develop and validate quantitative mathematical models of dynamical processes in biology. The principal objective of developing these models is to make quantitative predictions about these processes.

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

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Bioactive Molecules research theme is to identify new plant bioactive molecules, and unravel their mechanisms of action in plant development or health, and the regulatory networks and (bio)synthetic pathways required for their production.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Development & Disease research theme is to unravel the processes that allow plants to adapt to changing abiotic and biotic environmental conditions or stresses, with the aim to contribute to the sustainable production of food, flowers and bio-based products using…

How can we manipulate the biotic and abiotic environment to increase thrips resistance in tomato and chrysanthemum? More specifically we ask: How can plant secondary metabolites that are not soluble in water be delivered to plants in seed coating or root dipping treatment? Can bacteria be used to…

The Hortus botanicus Leiden has one of Europe’s largest collections of living plants from the Asian region. This rich resource is no longer the sole domain of botanists. Extraordinary professor Paul Kessler studies what the Hortus botanicus Leiden can offer research, higher education and the public…

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

Plants are colonized by an astounding number of microorganisms that can provide different life-support functions, including nutrient acquisition and protection against (a)biotic stresses like drought or pathogen attack.

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

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…

The overall objectives of my thesis are to investigate the dynamics of the sorghum root microbiome and to explore the beneficial effects of the root microbiome on sorghum growth and stress tolerance.

This part of the research programme is carried out by Prof. Dr. René Cappers. It focusses on the continuities and changes in the use of plants at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, as well as on their implications as proxy evidence for the climate change c. 6200 BC. Parallel to the design of the other…

Utilization of plant-originated products as new antibiotics

There is much wrong with the taxonomy of the plant genus Phyllanthus. Roderick Bouman of the Hortus botanicus Leiden has developed a new phylogeny for Phyllanthus and exposes the evolution of the plant genus. Publication in TAXON.

An international team including Peter van Bodegom shows how trait variability can be incorporated in Essential Biodiversity Variables to allow monitoring how organisms respond to global change. They published their results in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The 17th Symposium on Insect-Plant relationships in Leiden has been postponed due to the pandemic of the corona-virus. It will be held now from the 25th to the 29th of July 2021. We will contact those who did register and pay already in short. We intend to maintain the conference programme…

- How to deconvolute metabolic mixture of precursors and products by biontransformation? - How to optimize the reaction conditions to produce bioactive compounds in biotransformation? - What is the effect of co-treating fungi or bacteria for biotransformations?

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

How and why latex bearing plants select specific chemical compounds for eco-chemical interactions with its biotic factors?

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

Education in (Chinese) Medicinal Plants associated to the Hortus botanicus in Leiden - Which Traditional Chinese Medicinal plants can be grown in the Hortus? - Establishing of a database which Chinese medical plants are available in Dutch Botanical Gardens - Data validation (correct identification,…

Plants and soils from natural ecosystems harbor great diversity of soil microorganisms, which could potentially contribute to the sustainability of horticulture. The knowledge about using wild plant species and soil from natural ecosystem to improve the crop health will advance the application of ecological…

Mission: The Environmental Biology department aims to increase the scientific understanding of how current and emerging anthropogenic threats affect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Through this understanding they facilitate strategic management of natural resources by addressing urgent challenges…