___________

NEWS

Hans Matthijs & Pieter Slot on TV

Hans Matthijs & Pieter Slot were on the TV program "Nederland van boven" (On Tuesday 27 December). You can still see this program on "Uitzendinggemist

AMB Sinterklaas poem 2011

AMB celebrates Sinterklaas with this poem

Gerard Muyzer: Professor of Microbial Systems Ecology

Dr G. Muyzer has been named Professor of Microbial Systems Ecology at Faculty of Science. The chair has been set up within IBED and falls under the UvA’s Systems Biology research priority area. Gerard Muyzer will apply his expertise in systems biology to the study of microbial communities. Aided by the modern ‘-omics’ techniques (metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics), he will investigate the diversity and ecophysiology of microorganisms both within nature and in bioreactors. Using the results of these investigations, Muyzer will develop models of the bacterial metabolism and of their interaction (competition/coexistence) within the community. His research ties in with current work being conducted by AMB on the ecology of cyanobacteria and other phototropic microorganisms

Migratory whales track the phytoplankton spring bloom

It is commonly believed that the world’s largest animals, baleen whales, are fasting during their spring migration towards the summer feeding grounds in the Arctic Ocean. However, a new study by Fleur Visser and Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam and international colleagues overthrows this classic paradigm. They observed that baleen whales tune their spring migration to the timing of the phytoplankton spring bloom, and utilize mid-latitude areas as feeding stops en route.

Klimaatverandering lijkt ongunstig voor giftige blauwalgen

De aarde warmt op door stijgende kooldioxide-concentraties in de atmosfeer. Onderzoekers van AMB  en het Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO) ontdekten dat deze toename in kooldioxide de overlast kan verminderen van de giftige blauwalg, een bacterie die 's zomers veel voorkomt in Nederlands zwemwater. Bij hogere temperaturen groeit blauwalg beter, maar door stijgende kooldioxide-concentraties verdringt de niet-giftige variant van blauwalg zijn schadelijke broertje. Het onderzoek werd uitgevoerd door  AMB-onderzoekers Jef Huisman, Jolanda Verspagen en Dedmer van de Waal en NIOO-onderzoeker Ellen van Donk, en is gefinancieerd door NWO.

Putting plankton on the Map

Maayke Stomp, Jef Huisman and colleagues at Michigan State University have been the first to map phytoplankton biodiversity across the USA. Data from 540 lakes show a decrease of phytoplankton biodiversity with increasing latitude and altitude, thus confirming that aquatic microorganisms can show substantial geographical variation in biodiversity. The work is published in Ecology and highlighted as Editors’ Choice in Science

Climate Change Denial? Cyanobacteria Strike Back...

Senator Jim Inhofe had to cancel his keynote speech at a major climate denial conference, as he became ill after swimming in a bloom of harmful cyanobacteria. The toxic cyanobacterial bloom occurred in a lake in Oklahoma, USA, where a record-setting heat wave (the highest since the 1930s) has hit the region. Earlier, professors Hans Paerl and Jef Huisman already warned in Science that global warming will create ideal conditions for cyanobacterial blooms in eutrophic waters. Read more:http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/01/259859/algae-bloom-sick-inhofe/

'Slimme' leds voorzien algen efficiënter van energie dan zonlicht

Hans Matthijs van AMB heeft een subsidie gekregen voor een pilot study naar efficiëntieverhoging van de biologische fotosynthese. Met de beurs gaan hij onderzoek doen naar het gebruik van ‘slimme’ led-verlichting om algen, en mogelijk bij vervolgtoepassing ook planten, in de land- en tuinbouw efficiënter van energie te voorzien dan via zonlicht.

News from the oceanographic cruise of Michael Kehoe

Michael Kehoe, postdoc at Aquatic Microbiology, just wrote us from the Atlantic Ocean. He participates in an oceanographic cruise from the Canary Islands to Iceland, as part of the STRATIPHYT project, a joint project of IBED with the Royal NIOZ and the University of Utrecht. This project investigates impacts of changes in temperature stratification on phytoplankton growth in the North Atlantic Ocean. Michael wrote: "The cruise is going well. We are to the West of the Bay of Biscay now. The waters are more productive and I have collected some interesting absorption spectra especially in relation to red absorbing wavelengths. The phytoplankton community is now dominated by small diatoms and haptophytes (they make me wonder if we are perhaps too close to the coast). Lots of grazers, including ciliates, and the diatoms I saw had spines so I am concluding we are in a post bloom area. The forecast is for increasing chlorophyll concentrations north of us, so hopefully we get there soon. The attached photo is from yesterday, we had a 6-8 meter swell all day from a storm to the west, but the sky cleared and we were treated to this spectacular sunset! Bye for now, Michael"

Overlooked group of algae is stressing and killing Caribbean coral reefs

 In a recent joint study by the UvA’s Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) and the Curaçao based marine research station Carmabi showed that turf algae are stressing and killing nearby corals to an alarming extent. The research team was led by Dr. Mark Vermeij, who holds a shared position at UvA-IBED and Carmabi. Vermeij performed the study together with Dr. Petra Visser (Aquatic Microbiology), as well as several MSc students of UvA-IBED’s MSc program Limnology and Oceanography.

"Ontdekking arseenbacterie is flauwekul"

Het is maar zeer de vraag of de bacterie die onlangs werd ontdekt door de NASA arseen in zijn DNA heeft ingebouwd in plaats van fosfor. Het onderzoek beschreven in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift Science bevat gaten in de onderbouwing. Dat stelt Jef Huisman.

True Dutch nature does not exist

The targets of nature conservation should not be carved in stone, according to Jef Huisman (Aquatic Microbiology) and Menno Schilthuizen (NCB Naturalis). They wrote a provocative paper describing why there is no blueprint of the Dutch biodiversity. In their opinion paper, published in ‘De Volkskrant', Huisman and Schilthuizen argue that the biodiversity of The Netherlands is continuously changing. There is no benchmark of what constitutes ‘true Dutch nature'. For instance,  the characteristic fields of heather and sand dunes in the east of The Netherlands would not have existed without clear cutting of forests and removal of heath sods by humans. Likewise, the treasured variety of meadow birds in our country would not have been here without large-scale harvesting of peat by our ancestors.

AMB contributes to the 'Bosatlas van Nederland Waterland"

In November 2010 the 'Bosatlas van Nederland Waterland' was published. The eight chapters of the atlas compile a plethora of information about the development and application of knowledge about water and water systems.  The AMB's contribution to the atlas consisted amongst others of a description by Dr. Hans Matthijs of a successful new approach to combat algal blooms in swimming water.

Jef Huisman questions quality of 'Science' study on plankton diversity

In the latest issue of Science, published on 30 July 2010, Jef Huisman criticises a recent study on marine biodiversity which appeared in the same journal. In the disputed study, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)  in America introduced a computer model with which the diversity of plankton species in the world's oceans can be calculated. Jef Huisman shows how a minimal change in their model leads to completely different conclusions.

Baby corals dance their way home

Baby corals find their way home in their first days as free-swimming larvae by listening to the noise of animals on the reef and actively swimming towards it, an international team of researchers working in the Caribbean has discovered. The findings of the team led by Dr. Mark Vermeij of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics raise new concerns for the future of coral reefs as increasing human noise pollution in the world's oceans is masking reef sounds.

Jef Huisman receives TOP grant

Jef Huisman received a prestigious TOP grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). He will use the grant to study effects of rising CO2 concentrations on resource competition in plankton communities.

Elisa Benincà wins NERN Best Paper Award

Elisa Benincà and Jef Huisman studied the complex ups and downs of plankton species in an aquatic food web isolated from the Baltic Sea. In their study  published in Ecology Letters in December 2009 they presented the first experimental demonstration of coupled predator-prey oscillations in a chaotic food web. Their results shed new light on the intriguing complexity of species interactions in food webs. In recognition of the quality and significance of the article, in 2010 The Netherlands Ecological Research Network (NERN) awarded the annual Best Paper Award to Elisa Benincà

Coupled oscillations of predators and prey cause chaos in food webs

Predator and prey species may display oscillations in population abundances. When predators increase, their prey populations go down. However, what happens if two predator-prey systems interact? In a new study highlighted in Nature and Science, Elisa Benincà and Jef Huisman of IBED show how the interplay between two predator-prey cycles produces chaos in an experimental food web.

AMB onderzoekers maken eind aan blauwalgplaag in Veendam

Onderzoekers van AMB, Hans Matthijs en Petra Visser, hebben met een nieuwe methode blauwalgen in recreatieplas Borgerswold in de gemeente Veendam weten aan te pakken. Het onderzoek deden ze samen met Advies- en ingenieursorganisatie ARCADIS. Ongeveer 95 procent van het aantal blauwalgen is nu verdwenen (van 680.000 aantallen algen per ml naar 38.000 per ml). Hierdoor kan het zwemverbod voor de recreatieplas worden opgeheven

WIF Best Publication Prize voor Elisa Benincà

Elisa Benincà has been chosen as winner of the WiF Best Publication Prize 2008 for her paper in Nature, Feb 14, 2008: "Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community" (Elisa Benincà, Jef Huisman1, Reinhard Heerkloss, Klaus D. Jöhnk, Pedro Branco, Egbert H. Van Nes, Marten Scheffer & Stephen P. Ellner.)

As winner Elisa Benincà will be delivering the Prize Lecture on Tuesday 24th March 16.00-17.00 hours during the WiF Annual Meeting, which will commence at 13.30 hours in the Turingzaal, CWI, (Science Park 123 / Kruislaan 413, Amsterdam).

AMB scientists feature on national television

Prof. dr. Jef Huisman and Dr. Jolanda Verspagen featured on Dutch national television in a program discussing algal blooms in lake Volkerak. They gave their expert opinion on the causes and possible solution of recurring blooms of cyanobacteria in the Dutch lake Volkerak. Lake Volkerak is a former estuary in the southwest of the Netherlands, between the provinces of Brabant and Zeeland. As one of the last projects in the Dutch Deltaworks, it was closed off from the Eastern Scheldt by the Philipsdam in 1987. Thereby, this former estuary became the third largest freshwater system in the Netherlands. However, from the early 1990s onwards, only a few years after closure of the Philipsdam, the phytoplankton of the lake became completely dominated by the harmful cyanobacterium Microcystis, which forms dense surface blooms every summer. This has led to mass mortalities of birds, swimming is not allowed in the lake during summer, and water from the lake can no longer be used for agricultural purposes. The program called "Nederland onder Water" aired on Tuesday 28 October 2008 at 19:55 hours on Nederland 2.

Doubts about the Delta Committee report

On Wednesday September 3, the Delta Committee chaired by Prof. Veerman, our former minister of agriculture, presented its report on the long-term protection of the Netherlands against sea level rise.

In the Monday 8 September issue of the Dutch newspaper 'NRC Handelsblad", Prof. Huisman,  Chair of the Aquatic Microbiology research group of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), explained why he has serious doubts about some of the scientific conclusions of the committee.

Elisa Benincà Wins ASLO Presentation Award

In St. Johns, in Canada, Elisa Benincà has won the Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the annual summer meeting of the American Society for Limnology & Oceanography (ASLO). 

 ASLO is America's leading scientific society in aquatic ecology and oceanography, and usually attracts 2000-3000 participants to its annual meetings. The prize is awarded for Elisa's presentation 'Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community', and was praised by the international jury as one of the highlights of the ASLO congress.

Hans Matthijs  wins Science Park Amsterdam new ideas competition

Hans Matthijs (IBED-AMB) won the first prize with his idea for an intellingent lamp for continuous biological photosynthesis.

As he explained, photosynthesis is a very inefficient process with a fast adsorption of light alternated by a slow transformation phase during which the plant does not need light. Using LED lamps and an intelligent way of switching them on and off very rapidly one can provide light exclusively during the phase where the plant actually uses it. This way, he calculated that one can save up to 70% in energy, while still yielding the same plant growth.

Science publication: Harmful cyanobacteria benefit from global warming

‘Blooms like it hot', argue Jef Huisman (IBED, University of Amsterdam )  and Hans Paerl (University of North Carolina,  USA) in Science.

Global warming creates favorable conditions for harmful cyanobacteria, because they respond more strongly to rising temperatures than most other algal species. This is likely to affect the water quality of many aquatic ecosystems worldwide, especially during summer heatwaves.

Maayke Stomp wins first WiF Best Publication Prize

As one of several initiatives to promote women and increase their academic recognition, the Women in the FNWI (WiF) Network has inaugurated an annual prize for the best scientific publication. A jury of six external experts, covering all scientific fields of the FNWI, has awarded the first Best Publication Prize to Maayke Stomp.

Nature publication: Experimental proof of chaos in food webs

New research conducted by Elisa Benincà and Jef Huisman (IBED-AMB), together with colleagues from other universities in the Netherlands, Germany and the United States. 

The traditional idea of the balance of nature has taken quite a beating in a study that is published in the 14 February issue of Nature. Using a long-term laboratory experiment, the study demonstrated that species in a marine food web continued to fluctuate in a chaotic fashion even under constant conditions. This makes long-term prediction of species abundances impossible.

IBED Biologists reveal colourful coexistence of plankton in waters

Three years ago, Maayke Stomp and Jef Huisman of IBED published the results of intriguing laboratory experiments, demonstrating that red and green plankton species can coexist by partitioning of a white light spectrum. In the years thereafter, they traveled around the world to sample lakes and seas. Their samples now confirm the laboratory findings. The new findings were recently published in the leading journal Ecology Letters, and have been selected as Editor's Choice in Science