Fields and meadows provide a range of key services, as long as the soil is healthy. A group of researchers and companies will study how farmlands can be returned to multifunctionality.

Micro-organisms living inside plant roots team up to boost the plant’s growth and tolerance to stress. This research is featured this week in the scientific journal Science.

As a new year begins, NIOO looks back not just on the past twelve months but on 150 years of ecology. We've come a long way since German biologist Ernst Haeckel first coined the term in 1866...

Songbirds change their behaviour and timing when nestboxes are exposed to artificial light at night. "They become light sleepers, literally and metaphorically", says Maaike de Jong (NIOO-KNAW). She successfully defended her thesis on the effects of different colours of light at Wageningen University on Friday. The most surprising effect she's found? Some birds are forced to become more monogamous...

The impact of biological clocks on nature and our lives is enormous. Jet lag, mating, bird migration: so much depends on the keeping of time in our bodies and those of other organisms. The latest issue of the world's oldest scientific journal is dedicated entirely to the topic. Featuring researchers from the Netherlands.

The latest UN Environment Frontiers Report has been launched in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

The conversion of Amazon rainforest for agriculture has led to deforestation and soil degradation. Agroforestry has been suggested as a sustainable alternative, but NIOO's Eiko Kuramae says its impact on the soil needs to be more fully considered.