Working at NIOO

One of the challenges in ecology is to understand and predict how ecosystems are impacted by changes in environmental conditions and external pressures. This challenge is urgent given the unprecedented rate of global change in climate, land use, and urbanisation. To do so, we need to transform the way we do ecological research.

In this internship project, we will explore how newly developed software for image analysis based on state-of-the-art deeplearning methods may contribute to the analysis of zooplankton samples.

Toxic cyanobacterial blooms threaten freshwater quality, exacerbated by climate change and eutrophication. The toxicity of these blooms depends not only on cyanobacteria quantity but also on the presence of potentially toxin-producing species and genotypes, and the variation in their toxin production. While we understand the individual factors driving these changes, contrasting effects on different components of bloom toxicity make predicting toxicity levels challenging.

Vacancy for a citizen science internship, developing a bioassay methodology that can be used with citizen scientists.

This internship is offered together with Rewilding Europe. The work entails close contact with supervisors from Rewilding Europe, searching for information on wild forests in Europe and contacting individuals who hold information about these forests.

Light pollution is increasingly recognised as one of the strongest anthropogenic factors that can impact ecosystems. At the NIOO-KNAW, we investigate the impact of light on nocturnal species, such as bats, amphibians, mice and mustelids. We try to understand their response to the colour composition of light, and the ligth intensity

Are you excited about sustainable agriculture and soil and plant microbes? We are offering an internship focused on how recycled organic residues shape microbiome functions that promote plant growth. This project investigates the impact of microbial communities in nutrient cycling and plant development, aiming to enhance resource efficiency and sustainability in agriculture.

We are excited to offer a Master’s internship in ecology, centered on the study of phytoplankton traits, with a special focus on the impacts of global environmental change on harmful cyanobacteria. This internship is a fantastic opportunity to apply trait-based ecological approaches, delve into the dynamic world of phytoplankton, and explore their functional responses to contrasting environments.

A wide range of organisms live in soils, where they support carbon and nutrient cycling. Although a higher diversity of soil organisms is generally associated with better soil functioning, the direct role of soil fauna in regulating soil carbon cycling is still unclear. This is especially important considering that global changes are disproportionately affecting larger fauna and predators, which could destabilize soil food webs.

We hypothesize that the difficulties of long-term culturing of B. calyciflorus populations stems from the fact that food sources typically consist of just one single algal food source and we suspect that the biochemical content (e.g. sterols, amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins) of such food is too incomplete to ensure robust rotifer population growth. For this reason, we have selected a number of promising algal species that, when combined with each other, may provide a better food source. The idea is to test which algal combination is best in sustaining rotifer growth.

Rewilding is a form of nature restoration that gives room for natural processes so as to regenerate self-sustaining resilient ecosystems. As such, rewilding might buffer ecosystems processes and functions against the impact of Climate Change. Primary productivity is a key ecosystem process underpinning the dynamics of ecosystems, yet we lack knowledge on whether rewilding might protect primary productivity against the threat of Climate Change.

Rewilding is a form of nature restoration that gives room for natural processes so as to regenerate self-sustaining resilient ecosystems. Myriads of rewilding initiatives have emerged across the world over the last decades, yet many of the outcomes of rewilding have not been fully empirically ascertained. A particularly controversial outcome of rewilding concerns its potential impact on woody-plant regeneration, shrub encroachment and the maintenance of open-woodland mosaics with relatively high levels of structural heterogeneity.

The relentless pace of Climate Change has triggered a race to devise effective ways to mitigate Climate Change by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Rewilding, a form of nature restoration that aims to restore ecosystems by enhancing natural processes, has the potential to contribute to these mitigation efforts via aboveground and/or belowground carbon sequestration (e.g. in the vegetation and the soil). Yet, we still lack estimates on how much carbon can be captured through rewilding in different ecosystem types and how this changes as rewilding progresses.

Rewilding is a form of nature restoration that gives room for natural processes so as to regenerate self-sustaining resilient ecosystems. Most evaluations of rewilding success focus on common biodiversity metrics, paying less attention to species interactions and community assembly processes. On the other hand, the structure and intensity of species interactions determine the potential resilience of ecological communities against disturbances. Hence, understanding how rewilding affects and restores ecological interactions is a critical step towards evaluating rewiliding success.

The relentless pace of Climate Change has triggered a race to devise effective ways to mitigate Climate Change by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Rewilding, a form of nature restoration that aims to restore ecosystems by enhancing natural processes, has the potential to contribute to these mitigation efforts via aboveground and/or belowground carbon sequestration (e.g. in the vegetation and the soil). Yet, we still lack estimates on how much carbon can be captured through rewilding in different ecosystem types and how this changes as rewilding progresses.

Are you ready to dive into the world of microbial ecology applied to agricultural research? Join us in the "ClipsMicro" project at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) and play a crucial role in developing nature-based agricultural management strategies.

In this project, our primary focus will be on delving into the physiology of these less-researched yeast strains residing in the phyllosphere using computational tools, reconstruct a genome-scale metabolic model and predict carbon utilization.

In this project, we investigate the soil virosphere to assess phage interactions with soil materials, host bacteria, and soil fauna, with the aim of understanding their influence on carbon and nitrogen cycling.

Suitable for Master students for at least six months

Suitable for Master students for at least six months

Sperm are critical to successful fertilisation in sexually reproducing animals. The function of sperm – to find and fertilise ova – is universal throughout the animal kingdom, yet the sperm cell is the most morphologically diverse cell type known.

Evidence is accumulating that epigenetic mechanisms can affect heritable phenotypic traits and thus, may play a role in plant adaptation. However, little is known about the magnitude and relevance of functional epi-allelic variation in natural plant populations.

Parasitoid wasps are known to exhibit two strategies for exploiting host resources during development. The first is for the parasitoid larvae to consume the entire host (such as a caterpillar) before pupation. However, some parasitoids consume only a small fraction of the host during development. In this case, the mature parasitoid larvae emerge through the sides of the still-living host and pupate on, or next to it. In some instances, the caterpillar may remain alive for up to two weeks after parasitoid pupation and remain very close to the parasitoid cocoons.

Hyperparasitoids are insects that develop on, or in another parasitoid species. Secondary hyperparasitoids attack primary parasitoid hosts (usually their cocoons) that have already emerged from the secondary herbivore host. In spite of their potential importance in affecting the dynamics of plant-herbivore-parasitoid systems (over three trophic levels), little is still known about the biology and life-history of secondary hyperparasitoids (in the fourth trophic level).

Woodland expansion in arid environments occurs episodically during wet years. Recent research indicates that tree seedling growth rate and survival is crucial to explain the differences across ecosystems and that soil microorganisms likely play a crucial role.

Rapid evolutionary adaptation is increasingly considered as an important mechanism allowing animals to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Our research has shown that rotifers, a type of very common freshwater zooplankton, are able to adapt to poor food quality or enhanced salt concentrations in not more than a few months. At this moment, we investigate how rotifers cope with combinations of stressors. More specifically, we run evolution experiments in the laboratory exposing populations to the metal Cu and high temperatures, with the aim to study how adaptation to one stressor impedes or enhances the response to the other stressor.

Host-plant suitability and quality for herbivore (and possibly natural enemy) development is determined by the presence of sufficient levels of nutrients and concentrations of adverse metabolites such as specific secondary plant compounds and digestibility reducers. In nature, these characteristics are dynamic and can change within individual plants over the course of a growing season. Many species of multivoltine insects (insects have more than one generation per year) are known to attack short-lived annual plants i.e. plants that are present for only 1or 2 months in the field. These short-lived plants may germinate and grow at different times and/or locations during the growing season. In this situation, each herbivore generation is faced with the challenge of leaving the natal patch to find and lay eggs on a different plant species that may be growing some distance from where they themselves developed. At the same time, the quality of the different food plant species on which they feed and grow over the spring and summer seasons may also be highly variable.