Promotores: H.A. Udo de Haes, H.H.T. Prins, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Promotor: P.G.L. Klinkhamer, Co-Promotores: K. Vrieling, P.P.J. Mulder

Can metabolomic profiling be used to predict resistance against insect herbivores in plants?

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

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

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

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Memelink

Undoubtedly, climate change and increasing human populations will affect Africa’s wildlife – but how exactly? And what can be done to conserve nature? Michiel Veldhuis formulated five testable hypotheses of what might happen and now investigates how the UN Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved.…

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…

Lezing, This Week's Discoveries

This is a joint PhD of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Leiden University and the Evolutionary Ecology Group at Antwerp University.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

Does roadside management in the mid-west USA increase invertebrate diversity similar to practices in Europe?

Associate professor at the Natural Products Laboratory, Institute of Biology, Leiden University - the Netherlands

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

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

This thesis presents the systematics, epidermal defense, and bioprospecting of wild orchids.

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

Band 69 | 2014

Can thrips resistance in strawberry be explained based on secondary metabolite profiles and plant morphological traits?

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.

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…

Lions limit their prey, such as zebra and gnu, in their options for adapting to global warming. This is what Leiden researcher Michiel Veldhuis, from the Institute of Environmental Sciences, and a group of international colleagues have discovered. The research was published today in Nature Ecology &…

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 Vrieling of the Institute of Biology Leiden found out with his team how plants change odour production to keep the munchers at a distance.

This project, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hans van der Plicht, comprises several studies aimed at the use of isotopes occurring naturally in organic material as tracers for both the climate change and its cultural impact at about 6200 BC. The research will be carried out by the co-applicant at…

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…

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

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

Close contact between women and dogs in prehistoric times Women and dogs were in close contact in the neolithic age of hunters-fishers-gatherers. This has been suggested by Leiden osteoarchaeologist Dr Andrea Waters-Rist and fellow researchers who have studied a tiny biological fossil. The fossil was…

The aim of the research project is to get insight in the biostratigraphical age and the palaeoecological setting of the Schöningen sites and hominin behavior and subsistence during the late Lower Palaeolithic.

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

Researchers from the Plant Ecology and Phytochemistry group at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) received an STW (Stichting Technologische Wetenschappen) grant for applied studies in plant herbivore resistance with potential for a novel resistance test.

An international team of researchers including Leiden archaeologists has produced convincing evidence that 300,000 years ago pre-Neanderthal people had a high level of cognitive complexity. New insights into early human capabilities and behaviour.

A global biological study has provided the most direct evidence to date that humans, and specifically cities, are the drivers of evolutionary change on Earth. Leiden University, Naturalis and the Municipality of Leiden worked on and helped fund the study.

A fragment of a human skull discovered in sediments extracted from the bottom of the North Sea, 15 km off the coast off the Netherlands, has been identified as belonging to the extinct Neandertal group.

Martijn Bezemer has been appointed as professor in “Ecology of plant-microbe-insect interactions” within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology from the 1st of September 2016. His main research focus is on aboveground-belowground interactions.

On Monday the 8th of December, the annual symposium of the IBL will be organized at the main building of the LUMC Leiden. This year’s theme is “Integrative Biology towards Healthy Communities”.

Plant communities consisting of many different species are less vulnerable to attacks of plant eating animals or diseases than less diverse communities. It also helps if plant species in one community are not closely related to each other. That is the outcome of an international study published in Nature…

Nitrogen deposition does not only affect plant biodiversity, but also strongly affects the composition of the remainder of the food web, through the changes in plant composition. In an unprecedented analysis of population changes of butterfly and moth species, an international research team including…

On this page, you will find the recordings of the online This Week's Discoveries from May 12, 2020, as well as a list of speakers since October 2015.

The Faculties of Leiden University have developed several themes for research cooperation between Leiden University and its Indonesian partners.

Leaf-eating caterpillars greatly enrich their intestinal flora by eating soil. Even effects of plants that previously grew in that soil can be found back in bacteria and fungi in caterpillars. Researchers from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) and Leiden University write about this discovery…

Curiosity is the driving force behind the research of ecologist Michiel Veldhuis. The associate professor investigates ecosystems in relation to climate change in the savannahs of Africa. More and more, he is also looking at social factors such as the influence of population growth. The KNAW rewards…

Giant prehistoric 'unicorns' once wandered over the prairies of Central Asia. New research has shown that these so-called Siberian unicorns lived much longer than was believed, and probably did not become extinct until 'just' 39,000 years ago. Publication in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.