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Restoring and rewilding ecosystems
It is a topical issue and has long been a research interest of NIOO: how do you restore nature? For example, former farmland can be made more suitable for nature again, and areas connected to each other. This approach could also help to mitigate the consequences of climate change. Furthermore, a growing amount of knowledge about rewilding has become available in recent years. It has become clear that, in the long run, rewilding yields strong ecosystems with more biodiversity. -
Adaptation of species
In a changing environment, species change as well. During the last decades, human influence has intensified environmental changes, making adaptation even more crucial. Ecologists at NIOO are interested in rapid adaptation of species, both through (micro)evolution and via behavioural plasticity. For this has implications for the success of species, and for biodiversity. -
PhD thesis defence Natalie van Dis: rapid adaptation to climate change in winter moth
On 6 June 2023, Natalie van Dis will defend her PhD thesis titled "Evolution in action: drivers of rapid adaptation to climate change in the winter moth". The ceremony will start at 12:45 h., in the academy building of the University of Groningen.
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Seasonal timing of growth and reproduction: ultimate functions and proximate mechanisms
For many species, there is only a short period in the annual cycle in which conditions are suitable for reproduction or growth. -
Awakening sleeping antibiotics with ERC Advanced grant
Facilitating the search for new antibiotics: that's what Gilles van Wezel aims to do by looking at similarities in the DNA of antibiotic-producing bacteria. -
Nature research and society
NIOO has a vigorous and long-standing commitment to societal impact. Not only is NIOO housed in a sustainable building designed to translate our ecological principles in terms of architecture and construction, we also have a number of units that are tailor-made for disseminating our ecological knowledge to specific target groups, we have a very active outreach policy, and we actively involve citizens in our research through large-scale citizen-science projects. -
Marker Wadden
The Marker Wadden is a newly constructed archipelago in lake Markermeer, which aims to improve the lake’s degrading food web by stimulating primary productivity. The archipelago consists of five islands that add a currently missing habitat type to the lake: shallow, sheltered waters with high nutrient availability and gradual land-water transitions. -
Invasive Species
Large-scale changes in climate and land use create opportunities for species from other parts of the world. What is the impact of these species on the local ecology, and when do they become ‘invasive’? -
Evolution in your back garden – great tits may be adapting their beaks to birdfeeders
British enthusiasm for feeding birds may have caused UK great tits to have evolved longer beaks than their European counterparts, according to new research. The findings, published in Science, identify for the first time the genetic differences between UK and Dutch great tits which researchers were then able to link to longer beaks. -
Identifying plant and animal DNA switches much faster and cheaper
Epigenetics is a fast-growing field of research all over the world. Ecological epigenetics has now been further advanced thanks to the development of a new research technique. ‘This technique is cheaper and faster and enables research that was previously impossible to conduct.’ The time has come to look at how important epigenetic changes really are for dealing with climate change, plagues and other stress-factors. The research team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) is publishing its technique in the scientific journal Nature Methods.