Biodiversity on the NIOO terrain
Biodiversity on the NIOO terrain
At NIOO we strive to stimulate the biodiversity on the green roofs and the terrain. On the occasion of NIOO’s 68th birthday, colleagues launched a BioBlitz: a period of biological surveying to record the living species within a designated area. The goal is to record 1500 species before the 70th birthday of NIOO in June 2024. The NIOO terrain management, in combination with the increased surveying efforts of our employees, has resulted in a steep increase of the number of unique species found at the terrain since the arrival of NIOO in 2011.
Between 2018 and 2023, a total of 1116 species were recorded on the NIOO terrain in 4179 observations by 259 observers (see figure). Most prominent were the number of plant species (302), of which 19 are considered rare species in the Netherlands. In total 39 rare species have been observed and one very rare leafhopper (Neoaliturus fenestratus). An interesting example is a species of hover fly (Oxycera rara) that was observed in 2020 near the pond on the North side of the NIOO terrain. Another remarkable observation was from a bee orchid (Ophrys apifera), a plant species more often linked to coastal habitats.
Not only the NIOO grounds host many species, also NIOO’s experimental green roofs are a true biodiversity hotspot. In 2012, we started with planting 20 species, and nowadays they host about 50 different plant species. In 2019, the national Green Deal Green Roofs guidelines for establishing ‘natural roofs’ were presented to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality on NIOO’s roof. In 2021 there was even a tiny new Hymenoptera species discovered for the Netherlands on the green roof: the Necremnus cosconius. In 2023, our scientific publication in Ecological Engineering appeared on the effects of substrate composition on long-term vegetation development on blue-green roofs (Van der Kolk et al., 2023).
