Research of the Vet-group deals with the ecology and evolution of multitrophic systems of plants, herbivore insects and their natural enemies.
Being attached to both the NIOO-KNAW and Wageningen University, my present research is conducted in two places: at NIOO-Wageningen in the Department of Terrestrial Ecology and at Wageningen University in the Laboratory of Entomology. In both places I collaborate with several excellent and enthusiastic scientists and supervise post-docs and PhD students. There is fruitful and easy interaction between the groups and close collaboration in several research projects.
Ecology is an interdisciplinary science and my group nicely reflects this. Using behavioural, chemical ecological, genomic and neurobiological approaches, I investigate the evolution of foraging and life history traits of insects that function in a diverse multitrophic world. Throughout my career I favoured a species-comparative approach to answer evolutionary questions and it still pays off. With the behavioural approach I compare the foraging behaviour of parasitic insects. How do they deal with spatial variation of their hosts and host-food plants? The chemical ecological approach is used to study the infochemical use by the foraging insect parasitoids. How, when and why do parasitoids use plant odours to locate their hosts? The neurobiological research line is closely linked to this and investigates information processing (learning and memory) of these plant odours by the parasitoids. With advanced ecogenomics techniques we study the genes that are involved in this odour learning and in collaboration with Hans Smid (WUR) we investigate in situ where these genes are expressed in the brains.
From fundamental to strategic research
The research of my group, in collaboration with (inter)national partners ranges from fundamental to strategic. The fundamental questions relate to understanding the evolution of species traits and species interactions within communities. Understanding the functioning of herbivores and their natural enemies in natural and agro-ecosystems is crucial for the strategic development of sustainable agro ecosystems that are primarily based on the prevention of pests and diseases (life-support function of biodiversity).
Inside the Department of Terrestrial Ecology I mainly collaborate with Jeff Harvey, Martijn Bezemer and Wim van der Putten. Within Entomology WUR with Hans Smid, Marcel Dicke, Erik Poelman and Rieta Gols. Within NIOO and WUR we share genomics and bioinformatics expertise and co-work with genomics companies (e.g. KeyGene). Outside the NIOO and WUR we collaborate with Jacintha Ellers group of the Department of Animal Ecology of the VU Amsterdam and companies like Koppert Biologicals. Present international collaborators are: M. Sokolowski, Univ. of Toronto, Canada; J. Steidle, Univ. of Hohenheim, Germany; E. Wajnberg, INRA, France; J. Werren, Univ. Rochester, USA; Qiu Bao-Li, South China Agricultural University, China; Th. Hoffmeister University of Bremen, Germany; Jean-Michel Drezen, Université Francois Rabelais, Tours, France.
Current group-members: Olga Kostenko, Jessica de Bruijn, Michel Grobbe, [Tania Fernandes: separate group I initiated as director of NIOO. On New Sanitation: wastewater treatment with algae and recycling of water and nutrients]
Some former group members
Qiu Bao-Li
Martine Kos
Marjolein Kruidhof
Vartika Mathur
Erik Poelman (WUR)
Roxina Soler
