Month: May 2018

Start of Biodiversity of the Netherlands course

In periode 6 (May-June) the Biodiversity of the Netherlands course started with 240 first-year Biology and Forest and Nature Conservation students. Assistant professor Sabrina Simon and me together with PhD student Thijmen Breeschoten and 7 student assistants teach the Fauna part on arthropod systematics and diversity. We visit 5 locations/habitats in the surroundings of Wageningen were students evaluate arthropod abundances. Many enthusiastic students with nets catching insects are all over the place!

 


4th Vidi user committee meeting

On Monday 23rd April 2018 we had our 4th meeting in Wageningen presenting updates to the users and researchers involved in the NWO/TTW Vidi project. Niccolo and Lotte gave presentations and all members of the team including the Aspasias Setareh and Eddie and MSc student Jeroen were present. A lot of experiments are currently ongoing and therefore we expect more conclusive results in the next meeting in November 2018.


International Symposium on Bridging Ecology & Molecular Biology in Berlin

The Second International CRC 973 Symposium “Bridging Ecology and Molecular Biology: Organismic Responses to Recurring Stress” was held in Berlin (Germany) from April 09-11, 2018. It was organised by the Collaborative Research Centre 973 #sfb973 “Priming and Memory of Organismic Responses to Stress” in the lecture hall of the Botanic Garden and Museum. The Vidi team (Niccolo, Lotte and me) and Cindy came all the way from Wageningen by train to present posters and/or listen to the inspiring talks. Invited speakers like Matthias Erb and Gary Felton gave nice presentations on recent developments in their labs on plant-insect interactions, Niccolo and a few other selected PhDs gave a pitch on their posters. Georgios and Luis gave a funny and informative #scicomm on the research on insect egg-induced defences conducted at the Monika Hilker lab. Both 'Pieris egg' teams from Berlin and Wageningen exchanged their research during the delicious coffee and lunch breaks. An  excursion with dinner organized on a boat driving on the river Spree through the city of Berlin was the highlight of the non-scientific part of the symposium. Thanks a lot to the organizers @sfb973 for three nice days!