By analysing the relative proportion of different plant parts consumed by primates, researchers suggest that primates may be intricately and subtly shaped by two key families of plants: Moraceae and Fabaceae. The ...

Researchers have found new evidence that prehistoric indigenous peoples did not significantly alter large swaths of forest ecosystems in the western Amazon, effectively preserving large areas of rainforests. The new ...

A scientific consortium has found that ancient El Niño-like weather patterns were the primary drivers of environmental change in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 620 thousand years – the critical timeframe for the ...

A new study shows that differences between juvenile and adult individuals are crucial for the stability of complex ecological communities. These findings, now published in the scientific journal Proceeding of the ...

Lecturer of Biology John van Boxel has been named Faculty of Science Lecturer of the Year. This was announced during 'UvA Hours of Education'. Van Boxel received the most votes within the Faculty of Science and was ...

Vegetation naturally changes over time but sometimes these changes occur more rapidly and for an extended period because of climate, humans, or both. A new study published in Science by researchers from the ...

Through the Accelerate Programme, the UvA Data Science Centre (DSC) has awarded funding for six proposals at the Faculty of Science. Within the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), this is to ...

The mysteries of sexual attraction just became a little less mysterious – at least for moths. Biologists have discovered the gene controlling the mating preference of male European corn borer moths for the female sex ...

An international expert group published a priority list of biodiversity metrics that can be observed from space. These measurements have high potential to improve the direct monitoring of biodiversity from ...

The window of opportunity to save the world’s coral reefs is still open but time is running out. A new study by an international group of scientists, including UvA marine biologists Dr Verena Schoepf and Niklas ...

Researchers of the UvA Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics have been able to quantify the 3D ecosystem structure of wetlands by using airborne laser scanning data and comparing these to actual field ...

While it was long thought that the largest population decrease in the Americas was caused by European colonialism, new research presented in the journal Science shows that a major population collapse of indigenous ...

Airborne laser scanning creates high-resolution 3D images of the landscape. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam and the Dutch Butterfly Conservation used these data to study the habitat preferences of ...

On 19 April professor Annemarie van Wezel, director of the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), signed a cooperation agreement with Staatsbosbeheer in the context of the ...

A group of international scientists, including UvA professor Judy Shamoun-Baranes, warns that changes to European meteorological data policies threaten biodiversity monitoring as they make vital data unavailable. In ...

A large set of observations of the travel paths of wild primates provides new opportunities for in-depth insights in the evolution of the mental abilities that primates, including ourselves, use to know where and ...

This week a book was published by Theunis Piersma, Willem Bouten, Carl Zuhorn and Petra de Goeij, in which the life story of a spoonbill called Sinagote is being told.

An international research team has investigated why dolphins and whales perform record-breaking dives to several kilometres deep. For the first time they were able to match hunting behaviour to the prey present in ...

Researchers of the University of Amsterdam have installed a BirdScan radar at the elephant enclosure in ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo to record bird migration. This BirdScan radar is part of the first site of the ...

By making use of country-wide airborne laser scanning, researchers of the UvA Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics were able to show that three closely related warbler species separate their breeding ...