Bird beaks are highly multifunctional structures, used for foraging, temperature regulation, singing and preening. This project will combine a comparison of existing bill images taken from house sparrows and a non-commensal subspecies with collection of new data from a captive house sparrow population to investigate the association between beak morphological variation and human commensalism.

In this study, we aim to have an overview of how existing models estimate CO2 and CH4 emission processes in inland waters and identify key modelling processes.

Where biodiversity loss has on average been halted in nature reserves, biodiversity of rural areas keeps declining. The larger aim of this project (Living Lab B7) is to enhance biodiversity in the rural part of The Flower Bulb Region.

Where biodiversity loss has on average been halted in nature reserves, biodiversity of rural areas keeps declining. The larger aim of this project (Living Lab B7) is to enhance biodiversity in the rural part of The Flower Bulb Region.

Where biodiversity loss has on average been halted in nature reserves, biodiversity of rural areas keeps declining. The larger aim of this project (project Living Lab B7) is to enhance biodiversity in the rural part of The Flower Bulb Region.

Suitable for Master students for at least six months

Suitable for Master students for at least six months

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.

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.

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).