Welcome to the Department of Aquatic Ecology and Environmental Biology.
The principal focus of Aquatic Ecology and Environmental Biology is to unravel biogeochemical and ecological key processes explaining the functioning and services of wetland ecosystems - covering freshwater, brackish and marine systems - including the interactions between organisms, surface waters, sediments, groundwaters and the atmosphere. Particular attention is payed to plant-microorganism interactions (including mutualisms) that play an important role in carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur cycling. We apply our biogeochemical and ecological insights in the conservation and restoration of wetland ecosystems including lakes and rivers (conservation biology) and in sustainable solutions for water treatment and agriculture. For our research, the analysis of relevant processes in the field situation is combined with experiments in the field, and in greenhouse, mesocosms and microcosms.
News
In July, Annelies Veraart joined the Dutch Scientific Expedition to Svalbard (sees/2022), where she measured methane fluxes from lakes and permafrost ponds, and collected samples to study the lakes’ methane-cycling microbiomes.
Four years since the last edition of the “Field Research Course (Ireland)”. We revisited Connemara with 22 enthusiastic students.
On the 26th of November, Judith van der Knaap won the second price in the Master Thesis Award competition of the the Koninklijk Nederlands Waternetwerk (KNW) for her work on “Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from sludge depots: an experimental approach”.
On the 15th of November, the paperback “Stikstof. De sluipende effecten op natuur en gezondheid” (in Dutch) was published by Biowetenschap + Maatschappij.
Last Saturday, Trouw published a nice article that is based on the work of Bjorn Robroek and others on peatland fire – Propagule availability drives post-wildfire recovery of peatland plant community – published in Applied Vegetation Science (10.1111/avsc.12608).