Promotores: C. J. ten Cate; M. A. Ainslie. Co-promotor: W. Slabbekoorn

Ethiopian wolves are endangered diurnal Afroalpine rodent hunters. I investigated the interaction between wolves, rodents and human land use in Borena Sayint National Park (BSNP), Abune Yosef and Aboi Gara in Ethiopia.

The main research question of this thesis was: Can nitrogen cycling on dairy farms on peat soil in the Dutch Green Heart area be improved by adapting management to the nitrogen supply from soil and by using other grassland species and crops without affecting milk production?

Organisms often need to adapt more efficiently and devise new strategies for surviving difficult ecological circumstances.

CML rapport 192

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. H. Leirs (Univ. Antwerpen)

Promotor: C.J. ten Cate, Co-promotor: H.W. Slabbekoorn

Consequences for sediment stability and seston trapping

Novel entities may pose risks to humans and the environment. The small particle size and relatively large surface area of micro- and nanoparticles (MNPs) make them capable of adsorbing other novel entities, leading to the formation of aggregated contamination.

Mycoheterotrophy is a particular mode of life in which plants obtain carbohydrates from their associated fungal partners, instead of by using photosynthesis.

Promotor: G.J. Kramer Co-Promotor: E.G.M. Kleijn

The investigation into the bidirectional communication between the gut and its host is a rapidly growing area of research, attracting considerable attention for its potential to provide crucial insights into health and disease.

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo

Bacterial chemosensory arrays are protein assemblies that are the key structural and functional component for motile bacteria to sense their internal or environmental chemical signals.

In this thesis unconventional tools based on fluidic interfaces were developed to study the surface and interfacial chemistry of graphene, to characterize the intrinsic properties of graphene, to disentangle the effects of substrate and of the environmental factors, and to improve handling protocols…

The rapidly increasing commercial application of metallic nanoparticles within products will inevitably enhance the amount of NPs being released into soil.

Promotores: Prof.dr. W.J.G.M. Peijnenburg & Dr. M.G. Vijver

Large carnivore population is globally declining as a result of the fragmentation of habitat, large prey depletion and retaliatory killing by pastoralists.

During post-embryonic development into adults, animals face an environment that fluctuates constantly. For example, in nutrient availability, temperature, and osmolarity (e.g., salt concentration).

Enzymes are innately sensitive to changes in the amino acid sequence, which largely constrains their evolutionary potential, i.e., evolvability. This evolutionary burden can be alleviated in the presence of stabilizing mutations, which increase the buffering capacity of enzymes to tolerate mutations…

Every organisms in the tree of life faces the same challenge: the length of its DNA exceeds the volume of the cell it needs to fit in. Several strategies have evolved to solve this problem, one of them being the expression of proteins that bind and organize the DNA.

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo

Although nanoparticles are extensively used in various applications like consumer products and have most probably entered the environment, little is known about the effects of these particles on living organisms.

Assessing the risks of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) solely on the basis of experimental assays is time-consuming, resource intensive, and constrained by ethical considerations (such as the principles of the 3Rs of animal testing). The adoption of computational toxicology in this field is a high p…

The power of personalized nutrition lies in being able to conduct clinical research on healthy people while capturing metabolic markers sensitive to the impact of environmental and metabolic stressors (e.g. diet, changing sex hormones and the menstrual cycle).

Promotoren: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo en Dr. R. Heijungs

The soil-dwelling, filamentous bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are renowned for their production of useful secondary metabolites including antibiotics. The work described in this thesis provides new insights on the role and regulation of antibiotic production and resistance in these bacteria.

Food waste is a defining inefficiency of the modern food system, with profound implications for resource use, climate change, and circular economy transitions. This dissertation examines food waste through two complementary lenses: the prevention of avoidable food waste and the valorization of unavoidable…

Natural resources often stretch across borders that separate modern nation states. This can create conflict and limit opportunities for regulated consumption of their goods and services, but also provide opportunities for joint multinational efforts that exceed single country capabilities.

Material circularity and energy efficiency are highly relevant and intertwined issues for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and circular built environment. In the Netherlands, the building sector has been rendered a priority towards a circular and low-carbon society.

Animal diet studies are critical for understanding ecological processes such as trophic interactions, energy flow, and nutrient cycling. By examining what animals consume, ecologists gain insights into species specialization, predator-prey relationships, and ecosystem management.

Dissolution processes – next to aggregation processes - play an important role for fate prediction and environmental risk assessment of metal-based nanoparticles (MNPs). It is challenging to predict the kinetics of the dissolution process of MNPs in complex systems such as we can find in in vivo and…

Globally and regionally, biodiversity is declining and there are shifts in species’ occurrences and functional traits.

This thesis explores how bees and hoverflies are distributed across the Dutch landscape and how ecological and landscape factors shape their occurrence.

Plastics have become an integral part of modern society due to their versatility and durability.

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, W. Kustiawan, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Environmental challenges such as plastic pollution and biodiversity loss require extensive monitoring. Citizen science, in which members of the public participate in scientific research, has therefore become an important approach in environmental science.

In populations with a seed-bank, individuals can temporarily become dormant and refrain from reproduction until they can become active again. The repository of all dormant individuals in the population is called the seed-bank. Seed-banks are observed in many taxa, including plants, bacteria and other…

Promotores: H.A. Udo de Haes, H.H.T. Prins, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Anionic particles play an important role in biological systems where they fulfil many essential functions for cells.

Conventional food supplies procured from rural areas are increasingly vulnerable to disruptions caused by extreme weather, geopolitical instability, and logistical bottlenecks.

Promotie

In hoeverre hopen nanodeeltjes zich op in planten en dieren, en welke eigenschappen van de deeltjes spelen hierbij een rol? Willie Peijnenburg, hoogleraar Milieutoxicologie en biodiversiteit kreeg een Marie-Curie beurs toegekend om onderzoek te doen naar de milieueffecten van nanodeeltjes.

Promotores: Prof.dr. G.A. Persoon & Prof. dr. H.H. de Iongh

Wij bestuderen de dagelijkse praktijk van individuen, groepen en gemeenschappen - zowel in Nederland als wereldwijd - om ze te plaatsen binnen de complexe processen van sociale en globale ontwikkeling. In Leiden zijn we gespecialiseerd in de gevolgen van globalisering op het gebied van milieu, sociale…

Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food.