The COMBINED project explores how climate, biodiversity, and human wellbeing interact in Dutch landscapes—grasslands, forests, and urban nature. These ecosystems offer potential for biodiversity recovery, climate resilience, and healthier environments but lack an integrated management approach. COMBINED will 1) analyze biodiversity-climate interactions, 2) assess the impact of existing strategies, and 3) identify and address barriers to implementation. The project aims to develop harmonized methods, critically examine policy inertia, and create widely supported visions for sustainable landscape management. By breaking policy deadlocks, COMBINED will enable adaptive, integrated solutions for resilient landscapes in the Netherlands. More here: https://www.combined-project.eu/

• E.C.L. (Emma) Windey MSc
• Tessel de Vries
• Noa Tabak
• prof. dr. Hens Runhaar
• prof. dr. Stefan Dekker
• prof. dr. Merel Soons

• Natuurmonumenten
• Staatsbosbeheer
• Urgenda
• LTO
• BoerenNatuur
• Twickel
• Provincie Gelderland en Utrecht
• BIJ12
• Friesland Campina
• LVVN
• Barenbrug
• Rabobank
• CRV/Veeteelt
• NAJK
• Transitie Coalitie Voedsel
• Floron
• Sovon
• VBN
• Louis Bolk Institute

MATREEX aims to explore interactions between spatial complexity, in the form of fragmented clustered active planting, and species diversity (alpha and beta) in relation to growth, mortality and recruitment and the microclimatic conditions within and between plots to optimize forest restoration strategies. Integrating advanced monitoring technologies, this experiment proposes to develop practical, scalable reforestation strategies that support long-term ecological sustainability grounded in ecological theory. The experiment is part of ‘The Tree Diversity Network’ (TreeDivNet), a unique platform for research on the relation between tree species diversity and ecosystem functioning in major forest types around the world. 

• dr. E.T. (Edwin) Pos

Follow this link for more information

The rapidly changing climate is resulting in longer periods of extreme drought, with successive heat records being broken and insufficient rainfall occurring throughout the year. This is a calamitous situation for nature, farmers, and our food supply. In response, six organizations from the province of Utrecht are coming together to take action against this pressing issue.

The Utrecht University Biodiversity and Climate Variability Experiment, UU BioCliVE, is an experiment manipulating plant diversity and future precipitation scenarios to examine how biological diversity can provide us with natural insurance against climate change.

• prof. dr. G.A. (George) Kowalchuk
• prof. dr. Merel Soons
• dr. ir. M.M. (Mariet) Hefting
• dr. E.T. (Edwin) Pos
• G.P. (Betty) Verduyn
• ir. P.T.M. Veenhuizen
• dr. K.E. (Kathryn) Barry

• Open for collaborations

The Drought Network is a series of globally distributed drought experiments with a standardized protocol which provides the capacity to understand drought sensitivity patterns across biomes and climate gradients.

Changes in precipitation patterns and nutrient enrichment are two major global change drivers with strong impacts on plant community dynamics and functioning. The Nutrient Network (NutNet) and Drought Network (DroughtNet) are invaluable initiatives for increasing our understanding of how these drivers act independently. However, in our increasingly human dominated planet, drought events and nutrient enrichment are co-occurring and likely interacting to affect the functioning of our ecosystems. In grasslands, drought events not only limit water availability to plants but also reduces their uptake of soil nutrients leading to reduced ecosystem productivity even under nutrient enrichment. Understanding the generalities and contingencies of how these two drivers act in concert on grassland and heathland functioning requires a globally replicated experiment manipulating the two drivers using standardized protocols. This will further allow the identification of which climatic conditions restrict or enhance joint effects. Most studies on water-nutrient limitations in natural grasslands have increased water alongside soil nutrients, repeatedly revealing co-limitation. Thus, we identify the lack of drought-nutrient addition studies as a critical gap, and propose this new initiative, NPKD-Net. Given the amount of existing infrastructure of the current NutNet and DroughtNet sites, we believe the opportunity to examine such a global gradient is within easy reach.

We established a new climate change experiment manipulating a major driver of change within grassland - drought. We exclude rainfall with rainout shelters such that precipitation is reduced by a constant percentage. This experiment contributes to the Drought-Net International Drought Experiment and to the NPKD Network.

• dr. ir. M.M. (Mariet) Hefting

Two of the most pervasive human impacts on ecosystems are alteration of global nutrient budgets and changes in the abundance and identity of consumers. Fossil fuel combustion and agricultural fertilization have doubled and quintupled, respectively, global pools of nitrogen and phosphorus relative to pre-industrial levels. Concurrently, habitat loss and degradation and selective hunting and fishing disproportionately remove consumers from food webs. At the same time, humans are adding consumers to food webs for endpoints such as conservation, recreation, and agriculture, as well as accidental introductions of invasive consumer species. In spite of the global impacts of these human activities, there have been no globally coordinated experiments to quantify the general impacts on ecological systems. The Nutrient Network (NutNet) is a grassroots research effort to address these questions within a coordinated research network comprised of more than 130 grassland sites worldwide.