Research

EB Chart

Research: from community assembly to ecosystem management

The regulation and functioning of biodiversity are key issues in fundamental ecology, but they are also taking on an increasingly urgent societal dimension. Human impacts are currently resulting in extraordinarily high rates of ecosystem modification and species extinctions. These alterations of natural systems may have strong negative effects on basic ecosystem functions that are crucial for human wellbeing, such as climate change mitigation, nature conservation and food production. This leads to an urgent need to understand the fundamental processes that determine biodiversity, as well as the relation between community composition, species diversity and basic ecosystem functions.

The Ecology & Biodiversity Group investigates the ecological mechanisms that regulate biodiversity and the ecosystem services provided by living communities in interaction with the environment in which they live. We have developed a multidisciplinary research framework aimed at unraveling, identifying and quantifying the factors that determine community assembly, involving both the movement of organisms (dispersal) and subsequent environmental filtering. We then assess how community composition and biodiversity predict ecosystem services such as biomass production,  seed dispersal and nutrient cycling. We take an integrated approach considering above- and belowground species interactions toward identifying how, and to what extent, different components of biological diversity are regulated and how changes in any component impact ecosystem functions. We use a combination of laboratory, phytotron, greenhouse and field experiments, long-term field monitoring and modelling across a range of ecological, spatial and temporal scales. We pay special attention to the movement of organisms and above- and belowground species interactions, from the 'micro' to the landscape scale.

Our group’s mission is to understand and predict biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in a changing world, with special focus on impacts of changing climate and land use. We apply the results of our studies to assess impacts of global change and provide guidelines for ecosystem management and restoration and species conservation. As such, the group’s research spans the range from purely fundamental to strategically applied. Our research is embedded in Utrecht University’s strategic theme Sustainability, and focus area’s Future Food and Future Deltas. Also, our group is host of the Prince Bernhard Chair for International Nature Conservation.

Main research lines

Our research focusses on three main levels of ecological organization: (1) rules of community assembly, (2) drivers of ecosystem functioning, and (3) prediction of future ecosystem responses.

Key publications

  1. Mei Li, Thomas Pommier, Yue Yin, Jianing Wang, Shaohua Gu, Alexandre Jousset, Joost Keuskamp, Honggui Wang, Zhong Wei, Yangchun Xu, Qirong Shen, George A Kowalchuk, 2022. Indirect reduction of Ralstonia solanacearum via pathogen helper inhibition, The ISME Journal, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-021-01126-2
  2. Van Kuijk, M., De Jager, M., Van Oosterhout, M., De Leander, L., Parahoe, M., 2022. Local abundances of terrestrial mammal and bird species around indigenous villages in Suriname. Conservation Science and Practice 4(6). DOI: 10.1111/csp2.12699
  3. Hautier Y, Barry K, Hefting M, van Kuijk M, Pos E, Verduyn B, Johannes R, Kowalchuk G, Soons M, 2024. The Biodiversity and Climate Variability Experiment (BioCliVE): Quantifying the role of biodiversity in buffering ecosystems against climatic variability. Research Ideas and Outcomes 10. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.10.e133454
  4. Barry, K. E., L. Mommer, J. van Ruijven, C. Wirth, A. J. Wright, Y. Bai, J. Connolly, G. B. De Deyn, H. de Kroon, F. Isbell, A. Milcu, C. Roscher, M. Scherer-Lorenzen, B. Schmid, and A. Weigelt, 2019. The Future of Complementarity: Disentangling Causes from Consequences. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.10.013
  5. Zwerts, J.A., Sterck, E.H.M., Verweij, P.A., Maisels, F., van der Waarde, J., Geelen, E. A.,  Tchoumba, G. B., Donfouet Zebaze, H. F. & van Kuijk, M., 2024. FSC-certified forest management benefits large mammals compared to non-FSC. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07257-8
  6. Lembrechts, J. J., van den Hoogen, J., Aalto, J., Ashcroft, M. B., De Frenne, P., Kemppinen, J., ... & Lenoir J., 2022. Global maps of soil temperature. Global change biology, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16060
  7. Vincent EJ Jassey, Owen L Petchey, Philippe Binet, Alexandre Buttler, Geneviève Chiapusio, Frédéric Delarue, Fatima Laggoun-Défarge, Daniel Gilbert, Edward AD Mitchell, Janna M Barel, 2023. Food web structure and energy flux dynamics, but not taxonomic richness, influence microbial ecosystem functions in a Sphagnum-dominated peatland, European Journal of Soil Biology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2023.103532