Soil biodiversity is of great importance for the maintenance of multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems.

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

We examine how soil-derived legacy effects of plants structure natural ecosystems, determine aboveground plant insect interactions, and how we can use soil legacy effects to restore degraded ecosystems.

The soil ecosystem consists of the largest reservoir of biodiversity on Earth.

We examine how soil inoculation influences aboveground organisms (i) directly, and indirectly via (ii) its effects on plant chemistry or volatile emission, or via (iii) mediating the effects of belowground pathogens on aboveground organisms via the shared plant.

Plants and soils from natural ecosystems harbor great diversity of soil microorganisms, which could potentially contribute to the sustainability of horticulture. The knowledge about using wild plant species and soil from natural ecosystem to improve the crop health will advance the application of ecological…

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to dissect how microorganisms and microbiomes interact with the plant host and the insects on those plants, and how these insights may be harnessed to improve plant growth and health, by steering microbiome composition and…

Which compounds and microorganisms that live near and inside plant roots are beneficial? Can we use this knowledge to improve the health and growth of crop plants?

For a first time the atlas maps the soil biodiversity of the entire planet, and provide s comprehensive analysis of human-induced threats to soil organisms and soil functioning, facilitating development of new policies to protect soil and soil organisms.

By growing in a soil plants change the biotic and abiotic properties of the soil in which they grow.

How soil microbial composition impacts structure and composition of the aboveground plant and animal communities?

Which microorganisms live near and inside plant roots? How do they contribute to plant health? Can microorganisms be employed in plant protection?

The mission of the Plant Science research programme is to contribute to the sustainable production of high quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge of basic biological processes related to development of plants and their interaction…

Soil is a home for an unbelievable diversity and abundance of microbial life that is essential for supporting life on our planet.

We will study how inoculation of former arable land with soil (including the microbiome, soil fauna and seeds/rhizomes of ground flora) from old forests along with planting targeted tree species mixtures will improve productivity and more rapidly restore forest-adapted communities and ulttimately result…

The 18th edition of SIP will be organised by Caroline Mueller at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. More information can be found on the SIP 2024 Homepage. The 17th Symposium on Insect-Plant relationships in Leiden has been held online from 25 to the 30 July 2021.

Plants are colonized by an astounding number of microorganisms that can provide different life-support functions, including nutrient acquisition and protection against (a)biotic stresses like drought or pathogen attack.

Promotores: Prof.dr. H. van Veen & Prof.dr. W. de Boer (Wageningen University)

What is the effect of light at night on plant phenology and physiology, and how does this affect plant interactions with other species?

How presence, abundance and enzymatic activities of AM and EM fungi differently affect soil carbon sequestration processes?

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme is to understand what are the key drivers of plant biodiversity during evolution with a focus on plant life history and resilience traits and develop tools to restore and maintain plant biodiversity.

In our lives we often have little attention or appreciation for plants, let alone the ones we commonly call weeds. This inattention for plants has been described as plant blindness. The Stoepplantjes project aspires to decrease plant blindness by changing the image of weeds and using citizen science.…

How is Pol θ responsible for T-DNA integration, and how do other DNA double-strand break repair pathways interact with Pol θ? How may we manipulate T-DNA integration to stimulate error-free integration at a predetermined genomic site?

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

How can we manipulate the biotic and abiotic environment to increase thrips resistance in tomato and chrysanthemum? More specifically we ask: How can plant secondary metabolites that are not soluble in water be delivered to plants in seed coating or root dipping treatment? Can bacteria be used to…

The Netherlands is losing plant species that rely on pollination by insects. Leiden environmental scientist Kaixuan Pan demonstrates this after analysing 87 years of measurements from over 365,000 plots. The news is alarming for our biodiversity and food security. ‘75 per cent of our crops and 90% of…

Music from a compostable cello, photographs and scents of fungi and a woven tapestry. With her upcoming multimedia project Super Organism, visual artist Suzette Bousema enables people to experience the underground fungal network with all their senses. Environmental scientist Nadia Soudzilovskaia and…

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?

What are the global relationships between environmental conditions and abundance of distinct types of mycorrhizal fungi in soil and plant roots?

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: C.J.M. Musters

Promotor: J.A. van Veen, Co-promotor: E.E. Kuramae

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

The mission of the Plant Sciences cluster is to contribute to the sustainable production of high-quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products, and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in natural ecosystems. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge…

The overall objectives of my thesis are to investigate the dynamics of the sorghum root microbiome and to explore the beneficial effects of the root microbiome on sorghum growth and stress tolerance.

Plant exudates appeared long time ago in the history line of life in the early Devonian. They are typical saps produced by specialized cells.

Restoring a natural plant environment on exhausted agricultural lands and in nature areas is difficult. We can speed this up by steering the soils towards the desired situation. This is what Martijn Bezemer, newly appointed Professor of Ecology of Plant-Microbe-Insect interactions at Leiden University’s…

What plants grow along ditches in the Leiden region? What does this say about vegetation quality? Could it be better? Naturalis and Leiden University's Center for Environmental Sciences are looking for your help to answer these questions.

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

What are the genes and molecular mechanisms involved in bacteria-mediated plant drought tolerance?

How and why latex bearing plants select specific chemical compounds for eco-chemical interactions with its biotic factors?

Utilization of plant-originated products as new antibiotics

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

Microbiome composition of the spermosphere and the rhizosphere of wild and modern bean accessions grown in an agricultural and a native soil from Colombia was characterized by metagenomics and cultivation-dependent approaches.