I am an ecological researcher at Wageningen University & Research. Since 2012 onwards I am investigating the ecological effects of wind farms on bats and birds within the Offshore Wind Ecological Program (WOZEP) commisioned by Rijkswaterstaat, and the Nature inclusive Eneregy Transition Program commisioned by the ministry of LVVN .

There are less than 4000 wild tigers alive and their habitats are under pressure due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) and the Duars at the foot of the Nepalese, Indian and Bhutanese Himalayas are the most important conservation area of tigers. Here, tiger habitats are affected through changing hydrological conditions that lead to deteriorating grasslands upon which free roaming deer rely for grazing. However, the natural and anthropogenic influences on grassland dynamics in these landscapes are poorly understood. Therefore, the overarching objective of this project is to characterise the temporal dynamics of the grasslands in the 23 nature reserves present. Particularly, the hydrology and river morphodynamics as abiotic factors become addressed as well as the pressures behind these two. This is not only a scientific, ecohydrological novelty but also crucial in combining preservation of the tiger habitat with sustainable water resources management in the TAL, the Duars and upstream Himalayas. We study the historical grassland dynamics in the floodplain over centuries and quantify the influence of climate change and contemporary anthropogenic interventions in the water system. We also assess the interrelationships between river dynamics, groundwater, landcover and land-use, and grazing ungulates. We take a dual approach: fundamental, multi-disciplinary research will be performed at Bardia National Park and the associated Karnali River in Western Nepal as ideal study area; applied research will identify similarities and essential differences in the current hydrological and ecological conditions of the grasslands in the 23 nature reserves. Landscape stewardship approaches and strategies for sustainable water resources management and tiger habitat conservation are developed in co-creation with local communities and authorities. Concurrently, public awareness is raised at local to global scale to stimulate conservation of the tiger habitat and educational material is established for students, park rangers and others.

Intensified human interaction with its surrounding landscape since the 1900s lead to a decrease in landscape quality. Landscape quality (i.e. Habitat heterogeneity, diet quality and effects of indirect predation) negatively affects Brown hare population reproduction as an indicator for this quality.

Ecological intensification relies on ecosystem services to substitute external inputs in agriculture and has been proposed as a way to achieve high yielding, stable and sustainable crop production, while allowing us to reach other societal targets such as nature conservation or human health. Pollination and natural pest control are key ecosystem services that can lower pesticide use and increase crop yield quantity and quality. Organisms delivering these services depend to a large extent on non-crop habitats, or "green infrastructure" in the landscape, as cropland is not well suited as a habitat all year round. ECODEAL is a European research project assessing the impacts of green infrastructure on the delivery of ecosystem services and consequences for individual farmers and the whole society. How much green infrastructure do we need to maintain stable communities of ecosystem service providers, and a high flow and stability of the services to the crop? Since establishing non-crop habitat comes at a cost, which densities of green infrastructure will enhance crop yield and populations of conservation relevant species while providing net increases in crop productivity as well as net economic benefits to the farmer? ECODEAL will answer these questions. A sound scientific basis now links increased densities of different elements of green infrastructure in the landscape to increased local biodiversity. Further work is needed to understand how increases in green infrastructure at different scales can be translated to benefits in terms of enhanced crop production, in particular in a context in which variability in climate and agricultural prices will differentially affect crop growth, the populations of pests and beneficial organisms, and the costs of converting productive land to green infrastructure. ECODEAL will (1) disentangle the linkages between density of green infrastructure and the structure and stability of the interaction networks linking the crop and the non-crop habitats communities over multiple years, (2) quantify increases in crop productivity mediated by pollination and natural pest control under different densities of agricultural non-crop habitats at different scales, as an essential step towards assessing costs and benefits, and (3) assess costs and benefits for the farmer and the wider society of enhancing the density of green infrastructure, and quantify possible trade-offs between enhancing green infrastructure for ecological intensification of agriculture as opposed to supporting conservation-relevant species. ECODEAL synthesizes large existing databases to model the relationship between density of green infrastructure and the distributions of functional traits and the structure of the ecological interaction networks that underlie pollination and natural pest control. Cases studies from established study areas covering economically important field crops will be used to fill the gaps in the existing data, and will be used to validate and update the ecosystem service models derived from the synthesis work. Cooperation with land owners and managers, institutions and organisations designing and implementing agri-environment schemes, advising farmers, managing protected areas, and developing agricultural and environmental policy, ensures that the ECODEAL assessment of the question "how much green infrastructure do we need for enhanced, stable ecosystem services in crops?" finds ownership among key stakeholders.

Pollinators, especially bees, represent an interesting model system to study changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services in response to major drivers of ecosystem change. In Europe, bees are the most important group of pollinators for wild plant species and crops. At the same time, about half of the Dutch wild bee species are listed on the National Red Data Book. There is strong evidence that lack of floral resources contributes to wild pollinator declines. Mitigation measures providing floral resources on farmland have been successful in enhancing pollinators and pollination services. It is unclear, however, what relationship exists between the quantity of floral resources and the response of pollinators and whether this is caused by a population response, by a local concentration of individuals on resource-rich patches, or both. This project aims to get a mechanistic understanding of the landscape-level relationship between resource quantity on one hand and the diversity and population dynamics of pollinators on the other. It furthermore aims to examine how the quality of the pollination services is related to the diversity of the pollinators. It does so by manipulating the proportion of floral resources in 50 ha landscape plots by establishing on farmland a flower-rich vegetation representing 2-20% of the area (1-10 ha). In addition to traditional biodiversity indicators, population dynamical responses of bee species will be examined using zoometers (trap-nesting bees and bumblebee colonies). Seed set and quality of phytometers (selection of wild plant en crop species) will be used as indicators of pollination services.