Droevendaalsesteeg 10
6708 PB Wageningen
The Netherlands
Netwerk
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My aim is to contribute to science-based conservation of biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes
Biografie
Geert de Snoo was director of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Netherlands Society of Arts & Sciences (NIOO-KNAW) until October 2024. Currently, he works at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) as the Director of Research Policy. He is also full professor of Conservation Biology at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) of Leiden University.
His two main lines of research are:
- The effects of land use change on biodiversity and ecosystems. Here his focus is on nature conservation on farmland. How can we contribute to ecological recovery and transition to sustainable land use? Not only the impact of landscape elements, such as field margins, on biodiversity is examined, but also the socio-economic aspects are discussed.
- The impact of contaminants on biodiversity and ecosystems. More specifically, his focus is on the side effects of pesticides in both terrestrial and aquatic environments on invertebrates and vertebrates.
More recently, the conservation of large predators in human-dominated landscapes and the interaction between humans and wildlife have been added to his research portfolio.
Geert de Snoo studied biology at the Free University in Amsterdam and then became a researcher at the Centre of Environmental Sciences (CML) of Leiden University. During his PhD he investigated the potential of unsprayed field margins for enhancing environmental quality, promoting biodiversity and implications for agricultural practice. After his PhD, De Snoo acquired various grants from NWO, the EU, governments and the private sector. In 2003 De Snoo became a special professor in the field of nature conservation on farmland at Wageningen University. Since 2009 he is professor of Conservation Biology at Leiden University. So far, De Snoo has supervised about 35 PhD students.
Administrative positions:
De Snoo was member of the board of the Centre of Excellence for Netherlands Biodiversity Research. A combined research initiative of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute. He is member of the Dutch Council on Animal Affairs, the independent council for multidisciplinary issues in the field of animal welfare and health for the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. He is also member of the Dutch Biology Council.
From 2012-2019 De Snoo has been Dean of the Faculty of Science of Leiden University. Between 2009 and 2012, he was Director of the Centre of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University. From 2016-2022 he was member/chair of the the supervisory Board of the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH). For five years he was member of the Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides (Ctgb).
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Employment
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2024–PresentDirector of Research Policy, KNAW
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2019–2024Director Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW)
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2009–PresentProfessor Conservation Biology at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University
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2012–2019Dean of the Faculty of Science, Leiden University
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2009–2012Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, and head of the Department of Conservation Biology
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2003–2012Professor, special chair Nature Conservation on Farmland, Wageningen University, Department of Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology
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2000–2008Associate professor and head of the Department of Environmental Biology of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University
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1994–2000Assistant professor at of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, head of the Section Ecosystems and Environmental Quality
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1996–1997Postdoc NWO-STIMULANS-grant
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1990–1994Qualified researcher NWO, PhD project
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1986–1990Researcher at the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University
Education
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1990–1995PhD Environmental Science, Leiden University, Leiden
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1979–1986MSc Biology (Ecology / Ecotoxicology), Free University, Amsterdam
Nevenfuncties
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Publicaties
Peer-reviewed publicaties
A Century of Shifting Native Species-Accumulation Curves Reveals Long-Term Biodiversity Loss
https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70429The species-area relationship is a cornerstone of biodiversity theory and conservation. Yet, its temporal stability remains largely untested. Using nearly a century of disjunct vegetation-plot data from the Netherlands, we assess changes in the species-area relationship by constructing species-accumulation curves (SACs). We show that SACs have flattened significantly over time, indicating widespread biodiversity decline driven by habitat degradation and spatial homogenization, even within protected areas. Although grassland biodiversity has rebounded, forest biodiversity continues to decline, suggesting a greater extinction debt. These findings provide unprecedented evidence that biodiversity patterns captured by SACs shift over time. They also reveal a critical limitation of conservation strategies that rely solely on protected area expansion. As global biodiversity goals aim to halt biodiversity loss by 2030, our results emphasise the need for adaptive conservation strategies that integrate area-based protection with large-scale habitat restoration and improved ecosystem management.
Understanding the Utilization of Indigenous Institutions
https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041392Indigenous institutions may play a vital role in sustainable development at the local level by serving the people’s interests and supporting their livelihood. By distributing structured questionnaires to the households in our research area, this research aimed to find the determining factor of the utilization of community institutions, especially indigenous institutions. Per household, 26 features, including demographic, psycho-social, economic, and location variables, were collected to study the predictability of the utilization of community institutions. The results show that the location variables are the most crucial for explaining the utilization of community institutions in times of need.
Well known indicator groups do not predict the decline of insects
In decision making for insect conservation, one depends largely on knowledge of the relationship between changes in environmental factors and abundance of a very limited number of species. The species we have knowledge on cannot be regarded as a representative sample of all insects. How accurately do changes in the abundance of these species predict the changes in other species? To answer this question, we studied 373 insect species belonging to the Apidae (bees), Lepidoptera (butterflies), Orthoptera (grasshoppers), Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Trichoptera (caddisflies), Odonata (dragonflies), and Plecoptera (stoneflies), with known population trends and attributes in the Netherlands. The 78 attributes included morphological and demographic trait values, as well as habitat requirements of species. We trained Random Forests (RFs) with random samples and with taxonomic groups to predict the decline of the species based on their attributes. Then we used the trained RFs to predict the decline of the species outside the training groups and checked the accuracy of the predictions. The results showed that accuracy of the predictions of the RFs trained by the random samples increased from 0 to 0.20 (maximum 0.40, on a scale of 0 to 1) with sample size increasing from 10 to 90% of the insects. Moreover, we found that the accuracy of the predictions by the RFs trained with the taxonomic groups were zero in case of butterflies and grasshoppers, and low in other groups (maximum 0.37, in case of bees predicting terrestrial insects). Accuracy depended significantly on the size of the taxonomic group. Large over- or underestimation of number of declining species occurred in all cases. Further, we found that the taxonomic groups had few attributes important for predicting in common. The attribute ‘Active dispersion’ had the highest importance when all insects were used for training the RF. Using ‘indicator groups’ for predicting the decline of insects has a high risk of over- or underestimating the actual number of declining species and should therefore be advised against unless the indicator group is sure to be representative.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.111458The distributions of insect, wind and self pollination of plants in the Netherlands in relation to habitat types and 3D vegetation structure.
https://doi.org/10.26786/1920-7603(2022)684Plants can be pollinated in many ways, with insect, wind and selfing as the most common modes. While it seems likely that the occurrence of pollination modes is correlated with environmental conditions, e.g. vegetation structure, and this remains uncertain. Here, we mapped the composition of pollination modes of different plant groups (woody species, herbs, and grasses) across (semi-)natural habitats and their distributions in relation to 3D vegetation structure in the Netherlands. We found insect pollination is the most common mode across (semi-)natural habitats for woody species and herbs. Woody species pollinated by insects showed an even higher percentage in dune, river swamp and swamp peat than in other habitat types, whereas herbs showed a higher percentage of insect pollination in dune than in other habitat types. Grasses were always pollinated by wind or wind-self in all habitats. Woody plants pollinated by wind showed a positive relationship with canopy densities in three different strata from 2 to 20 m vegetation, while insect pollination showed a positive relationship with the canopy density of 0.5 to 2 m vegetation. All grass presented negative relationships with canopy density. Herbs showed different relationships with canopy densities of different strata dependent on pollination modes. Insect-pollinated species increased with canopy densities of low strata but decreased with canopy density of high strata, whereas wind-pollinated species decreased with canopy density of both low and high strata. We conclude that habitat and vegetation structure are important factors driving the distribution of pollination modes.
Distribution of ground-dwelling arthropods across landscapes with intensive agriculture in temperate areas
The idea that land use in the surroundings may affect the abundance of arthropods on a location plays an important role in the argument that agriculture is the prime cause of the recently discovered general decline of insects. We studied the abundance of ground-dwelling arthropods in agricultural fields along a gradient of increasing distance from (semi)natural areas and in relation to landscape complexity in both the North America (Illinois, USA) and Europe (The Netherlands) using pitfalls. Our results showed that the total abundance did not change with distance when we controlled for vegetation height and landscape complexity around the sample locations. Vegetation height affected abundance positively in crop land and negatively in grassland. Landscape complexity only affected abundance when it was measured in a 6000 m radius around sample location, not at lower levels of scale. We conclude that an effect of increasing landscape complexity may be expected when that is done on a large enough scale.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109042Importance of natural land cover for plant species’ conservation: A nationwide study in The Netherlands
While shifts to high-intensity land cover have caused overwhelming biodiversity loss, it remains unclear how important natural land cover is to the occurrence, and thus the conservation, of different species groups. We used over 4 million plant species’ observations to evaluate the conservation importance of natural land cover by its association with the occurrence probability of 1 122 native and 403 exotic plant species at 1 km resolution by species distribution models. We found that 74.9% of native species, 83.9% of the threatened species and 77.1% rare species preferred landscapes with over 50% natural land cover, while these landscapes only accounted for 15.6% of all grids. Most species preferred natural areas with a mixture of forest and open areas rather than areas with completely open or forested nature. Compared to native species, exotic species preferred areas with lower natural land cover and the cover of natural open area, but they both preferred extremely high and low cover of natural forest area. Threatened and rare species preferred higher natural land cover, either cover of natural forest area or cover of natural open area than not threatened and common species, but rare species were also more likely to occur in landscapes with 0–25% cover of natural open area. Although more natural land cover in a landscape will not automatically result in more native species, because there is often a non-linear increase in species occurrence probability when going from 0% to 100% natural land cover, for conserving purposes, over 80% natural land cover should be kept in landscapes for conserving threatened and very rare species, and 60% natural land cover is the best for conserving common native species. Our results stress the importance of natural areas for plant species’ conservation. It also informs improvements to species conservation by increasing habitat diversity.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259255Distribution of flying insects across landscapes with intensive agriculture in temperate areas
The abundance of insects has been strongly decreasing over the last decades, at least in the temperate zones of North America and Europe. This decrease has generally been attributed to increased human activity, especially increased agricultural production. Therefore, one would expect that insect abundance is spatially distributed according to human land use, more specifically that the abundance of insects in agricultural fields should be affected by the distance to (semi)natural areas. We tested this expectation on an extensive dataset of flying insects from Illinois, USA, and the Netherlands, Europe. Flying insects were collected with yellow sticky boards in agricultural fields at distances up to 566 m from (semi)natural areas. We did not find any effect of distance to (semi)natural area on the abundance of flying insects, after correcting for the confounding variables ‘landscape complexity’, ‘vegetation height’ and ‘plot locations’ (interior vs edge of the field). One might prematurely infer from this that (semi)natural areas do not affect flying insect abundance. We argue that knowing that flying insects are highly mobile, both active and passive, although sticky boards sample local insect abundance, abundance may be homogenized over a relatively large area in open landscapes. Therefore, the study of the effect of nature conservation management on flying insects should be done on spatially large scales, e.g., the landscape level.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107889
Populair-wetenschappelijke publicaties
Steek die 500 miljoen in écht verstandige landbouw
Agrarisch natuurbeheer lijkt dé manier om duurzaam boeren mogelijk te maken. Helaas is het weggegooid geld, schrijven Dick Melman en Geert de Snoo.Tijd om keuzes te maken die natuur en landbouw verder brengen
Het kabinet kiest ervoor om het agrarisch natuurbeheer een extra impuls te geven. Vanaf 2026 is en extra budget beschikbaar van 500 miljoen per jaar. In de huidige situatie ligt de bijdrage op circa 120 miljoen per jaar. De extra miljoenen zijn dus substantieel meer, zeker als je bedenkt dat het bedrag dat jaarlijks aan natuur en landschap wordt besteed ongeveer 1,4 miljard bedraagt.
Outreach
Categorieën
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Getagd in
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Vertrek directeur NIOO en benoeming interim-directeur
Per 1 oktober verlaat huidig directeur Geert de Snoo het Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO-KNAW). Wim van der Putten is door de KNAW als interim-directeur benoemd.
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Nieuwe directie KNAW benoemd
Het bestuur van de KNAW benoemt drie directieleden per 1 oktober 2024. De huidige directeur van het NIOO prof. dr. Geert de Snoo wordt directeur onderzoeksbeleid, dr. Adriana Esmeijer wordt directeur algemene zaken en dr. Iwan Holleman directeur bedrijfsvoering. Het nieuwe directieteam volgt de ad interim directie van de KNAW op.
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Het belang van de lange termijn
De gevolgen van veranderingen in de natuur komen soms pas na jaren aan het licht. Langetermijnonderzoek is daarom essentieel. Als er in een jaar veel minder koolmezen of wintervlinders zijn, is dat dan een uitzondering of een nieuwe trend door klimaatverandering? De lange adem die nodig is om dat jaar in jaar uit te meten, is een grote uitdaging. Het nationale instituut voor ecologisch onderzoek NIOO-KNAW dat deze maand zijn 70ste verjaardag viert, doet dit soort onderzoek. Wat kunnen we daarvan leren?
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70 jaar ecologie: activiteitenoverzicht
Op 26 juni 2024 was het precies 70 jaar geleden dat het IOO werd opgericht, de voorloper van het Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO-KNAW). Hieronder groeit een overzicht van de activiteiten in het lustrumjaar.
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70
Op 26 juni 2024 is het precies 70 jaar geleden dat het IOO werd opgericht, de voorloper van het Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO-KNAW). Hieronder groeit een overzicht van de activiteiten in het lustrumjaar.
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Steeds minder insect-bestoven planten in Nederland
Nederland verliest plantensoorten die afhankelijk zijn van bestuiving door insecten. Milieuwetenschapper Kaixuan Pan toont dat aan na analyse van 87 jaar aan metingen van meer dan 365.000 locaties. Het nieuws is verontrustend voor onze biodiversiteit en de voedselzekerheid. "75% procent van onze gewassen en 90% van de wilde planten zijn afhankelijk van insecten."
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Nationaal Groeifonds financiert landelijk Holomicrobioom Instituut
Het Nederlandse kabinet heeft €200 miljoen uit het Nationaal Groeifonds toegekend aan een publiek-privaat consortium dat onderzoek gaat doen naar ‘microbiomen’ en economisch interessante toepassingen daarvan. De subsidie uit het Groeifonds, bovenop €150 miljoen die de tientallen consortiumdeelnemers zelf bijdragen, ondersteunt de komende tien jaar de activiteiten van een op te richten landelijk ‘Holomicrobioom Instituut’.
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Hoe genetisch onderzoek bijdraagt aan effectieve bescherming van de leeuw
Menselijke maatregelen om leeuwen te beschermen hebben impact op de genetische gezondheid van de populaties. Dat ontdekten Nederlandse en Keniaanse wetenschappers door het DNA van 171 Keniaanse leeuwen te analyseren. "Door bijvoorbeeld reservaten te omheinen, neemt de kans op inteelt toe." Met de kennis en tools uit het onderzoek kunnen beheerinstanties in Kenia hun waardevolle wildlife in de toekomst nog beter beschermen.
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Maak kennis met het nieuwe Nationaal Centrum voor Bodemecologie
De ecologie van de bodem is een belangrijk onderzoeksveld. Om dit onderzoeksveld verder te brengen, is er sinds kort een nieuw Nationaal Centrum voor Bodemecologie. Alle in Nederland werkzame bodemecologen kunnen zich nu aansluiten bij dit initiatief, dat oorspronkelijk in Wageningen is gestart.
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Landbouw en natuur: een zaak voor overheid, keten en boeren
We moeten meer rekening houden met natuur binnen het Nederlandse landbouwsysteem. Hier pleiten wij ervoor dat overheden hun rol oppakken én dat de keten verantwoordelijkheid neemt.
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“Insecten hebben nú onze hulp nodig in opwarmende wereld”
“Als we nu geen actie ondernemen om de impact van klimaatverandering op insecten beter te begrijpen en te verminderen, dan beperken we onze kansen op een duurzame toekomst met gezonde ecosystemen drastisch.” Deze boodschap komt uit het heel actuele wetenschappelijke artikel in Ecological Monographs vandaag, van 70 onderzoekers uit 19 landen en geleid door het NIOO. Gelukkig geven ze ook oplossingen aan om insecten te helpen in een opwarmende wereld, compleet met managementstrategieën.
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“Stikstofdiscussie mist nog belangrijke groep”
Boeren en kabinet zijn niet de enige partijen in de stikstofdiscussie, zegt directeur Geert de Snoo van het NIOO. Hij wil breder kijken, mét het rapport van bemiddelaar Johan Remkes in de hand.
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KIMA (Knowledge and Innovation Programme Marker Wadden) final conference
Results of the Knowledge and Innovation Program Marker Wadden (KIMA) will be presented during a three-day conference in Amsterdam that includes a visit to the new man-made archipelago.
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Koning op werkbezoek bij het NIOO
Koning Willem-Alexander bracht vandaag een werkbezoek aan het Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO-KNAW) in Wageningen. Naast een rondleiding kreeg de Koning uitleg over de onderzoeksthema's van het NIOO én nam hij deel aan een aantal praktische metingen en experimenten.
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NIOO Thema Duurzaam gebruik van land en water
Onmisbaar voor het leven op aarde zijn gezonde bodem en gezond oppervlaktewater. Hoe maken we er gebruik van zonder er afbreuk aan te doen?
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NIOO Thema Klimaatverandering
Als we de opwarming van de aarde niet beperken zijn de gevolgen onomkeerbaar. Hoeveel veerkracht heeft de natuur? Hoe goed passen soorten zich aan? En hoe kan de natuur helpen om de klimaatproblemen te verminderen?
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Koning bezoekt NIOO op 6 juli
Zijne Majesteit Koning Willem-Alexander brengt op woensdagmiddag 6 juli een werkbezoek aan het Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO-KNAW) in Wageningen.
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'Hagenpreek' bij het NIOO
Kenneth Rijsdijk reikte maandag het eerste exemplaar van zijn boek Heg uit aan directeur Geert de Snoo van het NIOO en aan Louise Vet van het Deltaplan Biodiversiteit.
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Veelgebruikt bestrijdingsmiddel gelinkt aan extreme afname zoetwaterinsecten
Het bestrijdingsmiddel thiacloprid kan zorgen voor een grootschalige afname in zoetwaterinsecten. Dat ontdekten onderzoekers onder wie Geert de Snoo.
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Nationale aanpak biodiversiteit: samen kennis vergroten voor Nederland
Naturalis, het NIOO, het NIOZ, en het Westerdijk Instituut bundelen hun krachten voor een nationale aanpak van het wetenschappelijk onderzoek.
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Oude en nieuwe tradities op 66ste verjaardag NIOO
26/06/2020 De oprichting van het NIOO in 1954, met een andere naam en op een andere plek, vormde de aftrap voor het huidige ecologisch onderzoek in Nederland.
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