The Netherlands Insititute of Biology (NIBI) has compiled a list of highlights from 100 years of biology. From this Biology Hall of Fame, voters can choose their top ten inventions, discoveries, publications and/or pioneers. Included in the list are a number of familiar NIOO themes and faces. Voting ends on 30 September.

To mark the centenary of its publication Bionieuws - previously Vakblad voor Biologen - NIBI asked its members to nominate 100 of the most "high-profile, funny, authoritative and impressive" inventions, discoveries, publications or people in the field of biology between 1919 and now.

Entries in this Biology Hall of Fame range from the obvious, such as the discovery of penicillin in 1928, to ones that may be less familiar to most people, such as Rachel Carson's 1962 book about the negative environmental effects of using pesticides, Silent Spring.

NIOO research & researchers

Also featured are a number of themes, articles and researchers with strong links to NIOO. These notably include Marcel Visser's 2005 article in Science on climate change and the breeding success of great tits, and the follow-up research done in its wake.

Another NIOO-stamped breakthrough is the linking of aboveground and belowground aspects of plant life. The study of plants was "incomplete", according to the description on the Hall of Fame website, until 2001. In that year NIOO's current head of Terrestrial Ecology, Wim van der Putten, published an article linking the two worlds: "Van der Putten completed the picture."

A 1998 entry hails a NIOO-led team of researchers for "putting animal personality - the term as well as the study - on the map". And going back much further in time, the Hall's sole entry for 1923 is Albert Christiaan Perdeck. A well-known Dutch bird researcher, Perdeck also headed the Centre for Avian Migration and Demography from 1950 until 1988 and oversaw its integration into NIOO's predecessor, the IOO.

The most recent NIOO-linked Hall of Fame entry is for the institute's iconic 'Poop = Gold' project (2014), which uses "nature as a business partner" to extract valuable substances from human feces and purify the water to the point where it can safely be put back into the soil.

Vote for the top ten

If you would like to vote for any of these entries, you can do so on a special survey website, De Grote Biologieverkiezing. Voting ends on 30 September. Ten randomly chosen voters will win a copy of the biology board game, BioBrein.

The top ten is to be unveiled on 3 October during the nationwide Biology Week, which NIBI organises for the third time this year.