I'm very excited to have been appointed head of the Soil Biology Group (@sbl-wur.bsky.social) at Wageningen University! Looking forward to lead this excellent, inclusive and diverse group, which is as ambitious in research as it is in teaching! @soilclusterwur.bsky.social
www.wur.nl/en/news/jan-...
“The rain is now dilute fertiliser and that’s raining down on our plant communities and causing them to change,” Fox said. “Changes in the composition, structure and even chemical makeup of plants is bound to have knock-on effects on specialist herbivores like our butterfly caterpillars.”
It's #Natura2000Day!
Natura2000 imperatives helped prompt Kris Verheyen to create a user-friendly tool predicting key understorey plant performance indicators across diverse environmental contexts, plus overstorey tree management.
More from @fornalab.bsky.social 👉 cordis.europa.eu/project/id/8...
Europe's Ecological Debt: Mapping Freshwater Restoration Needs
🔗 buff.ly/0g67nxV
Line chart showing atmospheric CO₂ concentration at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1958 to 2024. A light blue sawtooth line shows raw monthly values, reflecting the seasonal cycle of plant growth. A dark blue smooth line shows the seasonally adjusted record, rising from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 426 ppm in 2024. A dashed red curve shows the super-exponential fit, with the instantaneous growth rate rising from 0.27%/yr in 1960 to 0.64%/yr in 2024, more than doubling over the period of the record.
1/ Why is atmospheric CO₂ accelerating faster than fossil fuel emissions are growing?
The answer is buried in the data, and it's more worrying than most people realise.
A thread. 🧵👇
Waar in Nederland zijn de graslanden het oudst?
MSc student Yuxi Feng bracht het in kaart met behulp van de basisregistratie gewaspercelen (BRP), samen met @pwbogaart.bsky.social (1/2)
veeteelt.nl/gras/een-der...
An important paper:
Grasslands and wetlands are being cleared at a much higher rate than forests:
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
"Ook zogenaamde “strategische procedures” zoals bijvoorbeeld de Klimaatzaak of Nitraatzaak zullen niet langer mogelijk zijn." 🤯
@apache.be dook diep in dit schandalig uitkleden van de milieuwetgeving: bsky.app/profile/stev...
vrtnws.be/p.XElXoVQmj want ja in een dichtbevolkte regio verdienen we geen propere lucht, helder water of biodiversiteit. Schaamteloos de lat naar beneden verplaatsen omdat het beter in het kraam past van 1 partij!
Becoming a parent is much more detrimental to women’s academic careers than it is to men’s, lowering their chances of getting university jobs, tenure and reducing their publication output, finds a large analysis of academics in Denmark. go.nature.com/4tcO2Em
After the extremly hot and dry summer of 2018 numbers of the Dark green fritillary (S aglaja, grote parelmoer) on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects crashed and has not recovered. I fear it could get extinct in NL soon, what is amazing for a species that can live in so many different habitats.
Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon - Europe’s landscapes for 23 Myr were mostly tree- & flower-rich mosaics shaped by large herbivores, not dense #forests, see our new synthesis www.eurekalert.org/news-release... #forests #woodlands #paleoecology #nature #trees #refiorestation
Dat Vlaanderen ooit één groot, dicht en donker bos was, is een misverstand. Het landschap was veel gevarieerder.
Interessante analyse van kaartmateriaal uit de periode 1774-2022. Vlaamse landschappen worden steeds meer eenheidsworst.
Promotionsstelle (75% für drei Jahre) im Bereich Stadtökologie
Die Gruppe Stadtökologie und Biodiversität sucht neue Mitarbeiter*innen im Bereich Konnektivität urbaner Lebensräume, urbane Biodiversität und Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen.
Weitere Informationen: jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/d...
Day 100 of receiving yet another, nearly identical, enshittified, chatGPT-generated proposals for some form of tech X restoration proposal for Restoration Ecology from a group of (real? fake?) professors who clearly have no restoration experience and no idea what restoration ecology even is.
Discovered far from home: a new Medicago species (Medicago peregrina sp. nov.) associated with historical wool imports in Belgium plecevo.eu/articles.php... => "the value of continued botanical surveys"+"need to consider historical human activity when interpreting the presence of non-native plants."
"Denk aan de Kalmthoutse Heide. Midden in dat beschermde gebied, tussen het kerngebied en de Steertse Heide, ligt er nog een maïsakker. Zo absurd is het soms."
—> en zo ken ik veel voorbeelden. Natuurbescherming in Vlaanderen is niet serieus, dweilen met de kraan open
vrtnws.be/p.M9BydOWEE “In vrijwel alle Natura 2000-gebieden wordt er bijvoorbeeld nog aan reguliere landbouw gedaan, met de bemesting en de pesticiden die daarbij komen kijken"… “Maar de illusie dat milieuregelgeving schrappen, je concurrentiepositie gaat verbeteren, is klinkklare onzin."
illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian of plants and insects associated with them + group listening to explanations by curator Tine Hens at Expo Found - Boekentoren Gent
Expo Found - Boekentoren #UGent - rondleiding door curator Tine Hens en Annelies Jacobs. => centraal: 17e eeuwse wetenschapper en kunstenares Maria Sibylla Merian, "one of the worlds first ecologists" een van de eerste die metamorfose van rups naar vlinder beschreef www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wiw...
And this article covered the scientific paper published by our colleague Pallieter De Smedt in @conbiology.bsky.social
"Terrestrial isopod pet trade is booming worldwide but they are barely protected by legislation. We urgently call for it."
Full 📃👇
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Yep, this joke was written in the context of this @nytimes.com article starring isopods and exposing the growing international trade of isopod species, many colourful and rare, some not even scientifically described. Isopods are barely protected by legislation!
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/c...
How come isopods end up in the late night show with @sethmeyerspencil.bsky.social ?
First, enjoy the joke 😀👇
See below to get the story behind it 🧵
youtu.be/T58hOrsaGoI?...
Afschaffing MOS, weg met natuureducatieve centra, … ik denk dat onze overheid niet snapt hoe slecht de algemene natuurkennis van onze jeugd is. Zulke onbezonnen besparingen => totale vervreemding van de lokale natuur. Vraag ze nu maar al eens hoe een vink klinkt 😢
vrtnws.be/p.M9G5y6Bpp
Can we use practically ecological complexity as a target for ecosystem restoration?
Yes, in this paper we consider pollination & herbivory networks
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
⚠️ New paper out in Nature Ecology & Evolution 🌱
#Grasslands #SoilCarbon @natecoevo.nature.com
@fornalab.bsky.social colleague Pallieter De Smedt made it to the @nytimes.com with his paper on isopods 🤓🥳🤩
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/c...
In our new article in Nature Cities, led by Susanne Tautenhahn, we used our recently published European datasets of plant indicator values, linked them to citizen science data, and mapped environmental conditions for Europe and, at a finer resolution, for 326 cities.
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s442...
