Thirty-four million years ago, sudden climate change caused ecological breakdown in Central Asia. Deserts spread across the lowlands, and biological diversity was permanently affected. These are the findings by an ...

Dr Willem Renema (1972) has been appointed professor by special appointment of Marine Palaeobiodiversity at the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The chair was designated on behalf of the ...

The loss of large mammalian frugivores as seed dispersers in tropical ecosystems will have severe consequences for many rainforest plants. This is the conclusion from a study using empirical data and simulations of ...

Pteropods, abundant aragonitic calcifying plankton, are the equivalent of "canaries in the coal mine" for our acidifying oceans. Their sensitivity to high CO2 levels and limited fossil record has led to the widely ...

Globally, there is an imbalance between water availability and water demand. The main cause of this mismatch is agricultural irrigation, which accounts for about 70% of freshwater withdrawal. At the same time, ...

New research reveals that 2 million km2 of intact wildlife habitat has been lost since 2000. The international research team, including biologist James Allan from the University of Amsterdam, mapped areas across ...

Why do some animals easily adapt to humans and why do other animals suffer when humans invade their habitat? IBED professor Judy Shamoun-Baranes is immensely fascinated by birds and their behavior, especially bird ...

Hydropower is the world’s largest source of energy generation. It is commonly assumed that hydropower reservoirs retain nutrients, and this nutrient reduction significantly reduces primary productivity, fishery ...

Protected nature areas are essential for conserving the earth’s biodiversity. But having isolated protected areas isn’t enough; to really maintain biodiversity, it is essential that these areas are also connected. A ...

Dr Mark Vermeij (1973) has been appointed professor of Tropical Marine Ecology at the Faculty of Science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).

Mountains and islands both host a high number of unique species. When seen from above, mountains can look like archipelagos of islands in a low-elevation sea. This parallel has sparked the thought that the isolated ...

Dr Judy Shamoun-Baranes (1969) has been appointed Professor of Animal Movement Ecology at the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Science.

The offspring of older mothers don’t fare as well as those of younger mothers, in humans and many other species. They aren’t as healthy, or they don’t live as long, or they have fewer offspring themselves. A ...

Eight UvA researchers have had their proposals for out-of-the-box research ideas awarded funding from the Dutch Research Agenda’s Idea Generator programme. The researchers will each receive 50,000 euros to further ...

The organization has been set up, the research programme established and PhD students appointed: the new AI4Science Laboratory is ready for take-off. A virtual kick-off workshop on Wednesday 8 July celebrates the ...

The latest article of Jip de Vries (co-authors Michiel Kraak and Piet Verdonschot), entitled: ‘A conceptual model for simulating responses of freshwater macroinvertebrate assemblages to multiple stressors’, appeared ...

Nearly 13 kilometers per year: that is the rate at which the wintering area of Bewick's swans has shifted east over the past 50 years. It's a discovery with consequences for the conservation of this migratory ...

Though corals worldwide are threatened due to climate change and local stressors, the front lines of the battle are microscopic in scale. Under stress, many reefs that were formerly dominated by coral are shifting to ...

‘Cultural override’ is a phenomenon typical of humans in which we seek out resources based on cultural preference regardless of availability. Sometimes this can be a constraint on behavior, when readily-available ...

Islands contribute enormously to global biodiversity, but are threatened by human activities. To understand why some islands have been more impacted since first human settlement than others, a new study compared ...