Koen Verhoeven named professor by special appointment in Plant Ecology and Evolution

Koen Verhoeven has been named professor by special appointment in Plant Ecology and Evolution at the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), part of the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). His research focuses on micro-evolution and how plants adapt to rapidly changing environments. Verhoeven will combine the professorship with his work as a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). He started at the beginning of the year.

While climate change is one of the major environmental disruptors to plant species, Verhoeven’s work also looks at human impact through land use changes, invasive species and urbanisation. “Urban evolution is an extreme example of how humans have changed the environment, and I'm interested in how plants deal with it,” he says.

Adaptation on multiple levels

He uses ecological observations, greenhouse experiments, genetic analysis and bioinformatics to understand how plants cope with such environmental changes. These changes are not just reflected in the genes themselves: his work with duckweed and other plant species has demonstrated that DNA methylation and epigenetics also play a role in how plants respond.

Verhoeven is also interested in how various traits in wild plants can contribute to more sustainable and climate-resilient crops. “We go back to the wild species because those are typically much more resilient and robust, and have all these stress resilience traits,” he explains. At NIOO, he is involved in projects on how the model species Arabidopsis genetically adapts to changes in soil environments. Such insights could help make agriculture less intensive and more sustainable.

As a professor at IBED, he will collaborate with the institute’s evolutionary and population biology department. Currently, he is pursuing projects on urban evolution and how plants adapt to the city environment.  It’s a topic that Verhoeven is also well versed in. His research, based on dandelion seed collections around Amsterdam, has shown that urban plant populations have adapted to the city’s higher temperatures. However, Verhoeven sees multiple avenues to apply his expertise in ecology, genetics, and plant adaptations in collaboration with IBED researchers. This collaboration will also strengthen NIOO’s evolutionary research. 

While the position is not a teaching appointment, he is hoping to contribute to classes at the UvA in the future. “I would like to teach, and this is an opportunity for me to explore that,” Verhoeven says. 

About Verhoeven

Verhoeven obtained his PhD in 2003 from Utrecht University, in collaboration with NIOO and the University of Haifa. After graduating, he pursued a postdoctorate in computational genomics at Purdue University in Indiana, USA. In 2005, he moved back to the Netherlands for a position at NIOO, where he has worked for the past two decades. He has been a senior researcher since 2015 and Verhoeven received a VIDI grant in 2011-2016. 

Verhoeven currently serves as a senior editor of the journal Genes, Genomes, Genetics, and is a member of the Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM).