Report 2009-2012 Naturalis Research and Education Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Duistermaat, L. & van Tol, J., editors), 2014. Report 2009-2012 Naturalis Research and Education Copyright and photocopying © 2014 Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden. All rights reserved. With the exception of fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from the copyright holder. Special requests should be addressed to the Publisher at the Museum. Disclaimer. The Publisher, the Museum and the Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of the publication; the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Publisher, Museum, or Editors. Contents Introduction — 1 Research contributions — 23 Departments, focus projects and Staff, projects and Naturalis programmes — 3 publications — 141 Botany — 5 Research staff — 143 Geology — 7 Awards 2009-2012 — 151 Marine Zoology — 9 Lipke Bijdeley Holthuis — 152 Terrestrial Zoology — 11 Education — 154 Bio-informatics — 13 Professor Lam Student Prize — 155 Nature of the Netherlands — 14 Extramural functions — 156 Character evolution — 16 Naturalis publications — 160 Dynamic biodiversity — 18 EDIT — 164 Evolution of species Economic structure interdependencies — 20 enhancement fund (FES) — 167 Publications 2009-2012 — 169 Introduction Not many natural history museums in the world have budget for research thus totally amounted to changed so much as Naturalis Biodiversity Center 15.3 million euro for the years 2010­2015, which we since 2009. In this report we present over 50 larger invested in new molecular and morpho logical labo­ and smaller projects of the last four years, providing ratories, and an EMP / Electron microprobe. Special an overview of the huge variation in the expertise attention was paid to appoint new researchers and and interest of the scientific staff of Naturalis. PhD candidates focusing on biodiversity research This report also provides an overview of the research not represented in Naturalis until then. During the staff per department, as well as the publications of second phase of this programme (2013­2015) the permanent, temporary and honorary staff of Naturalis will focus on opportunities for implement­ 2009 up to 2012. ing the knowledge of staff in application­oriented Naturalis is a merger of the Nationaal Natuurhisto­ studies, for instance in the topsectors Agri & Food or risch Museum (National Museum of Natural History), Human Health. the Zoölogisch Museum van de Universiteit van These developments have been instrumental in Amsterdam (Zoological Museum of the University the increasing scientific success of our institute. of Amsterdam), and the Nationaal Herbarium Neder­ We have been successful in obtaining grants from land (National Herbarium of the Netherlands), NWO and EU, and both the number and impact of our with branches in Leiden, Utrecht and Wageningen. publications have increased significantly during the These organizations will officially be placed under last five years. The organization of our research has one directorate in 2013, but the process of joining also changed. While systematic, taxon­oriented buildings and research infrastructures has already studies are the primary domain of the departments, been successfully implemented during the last the so­called focusprojects mainly deal with few years. problem­oriented studies. Three programmes have The significant steps we made in our national and been defined, viz., Evolution of species interdepen­ international visibility in biodiversity research was cies, Dynamic biodiversity and Character evolution. strongly facilitated by a grant of the Netherlands Two other programmes are intended to coordinate government of 30 million euro from the Fonds all activities on Nature of the Netherlands and Economische Structuurversterking (Economic Bioinformatics and biodiversity informatics. Structure Enhancement Fund), intended for the The programme Nature of the Netherlands even physical integration of the collections of the found­ oversees initiatives in other sectors of Naturalis, ing institutions of Naturalis, for digitization of the while special attention is paid to partnerships collections, and for establishing a new research with other professional and amateur organizations infrastructure, partly in collaboration with CBS­ in this field. KNAW (Netherlands Mycological Institute). Additional funding for the research infrastructure Koos Biesmeijer was allocated from a starting grant from the Ministry Erik Smets of Education, Culture and Science. The additional Jan van Tol Report 2009-2012 Naturalis Research and Education 1 Departments, focus projects and programmes L. Govelin, Germany. Photo: Jan van Tol. Jan van Photo: Germany. Govelin, L. Lilium bulbiferum Lilium 4 Report 2009-2012 Naturalis Research and Education Botany The past period for the department of Botany / NHN databases and the use of them. Next to morphology has been in the spirit of the transition to the new based diagnostics, molecular diagnostics (next organisation of Naturalis. This entailed extra efforts, generation sequencing) is increasingly being but of course brought also many positive effects, applied. Because of this, the last few years the including the wider financial opportunities. scope of Botany has been broadened considerably, e.g. towards cryptic and arctic biodiversity. Much attention has been paid to long term continu­ ity of taxonomic strongholds as expressed in the five Noteworthy is that by bringing together the NHN large, international flora projects that are coordi­ wood collections supplemented with those of the nated by the department of Botany, viz., Flora Male­ Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, we now preserve siana, Flore du Gabon, Flora of the Guianas, Flora the world’s largest scientific collection for the Agaricina Neerlandica and Heukels Flora van Ne­ purpose of wood research. derland. Coordination was intensified and an impor­ tant start was made towards renewal of a digital and This has all led to a significant increase in internal internet­based means of cooperation and publica­ cooperation within Naturalis, and strengthening of tion. The enormous amounts of biodiversity data the multidisciplinary character of our research and that are thus made available form the basis of of external networks of experts. This manifests itself Naturalis in international biodiversity initiatives. especially in the field of global change biogeography and the modelling of species distributions. Growing The expansion of our staff with research fellows opportunities can be identified for invasive species, and postdoctoral researchers was very fortunate, as ethnobotany and plant use, flower morphology and we were thus able to attract extra expertise and to pollination patterns, and the wide use of functional contribute more to the focus projects. This con­ traits. Concrete shifts of output towards high impact cerns e.g. modelling of collection data for the analy­ publication have taken place, while a certain conti­ sis of species distributions and spatial biodiversity nuity in Flora output remained. Also, a significant patterns, the economic botany, the evolution and increase is seen in both the number and the rate of morphogenesis of wood, and the evolution of the success of applications for externally financed symbiosis of fungi and plants. project and programs. The development and use of taxonomic e­tools, and the wide application of Clear successes were project proposals, and appli­ spatial analysis methods and models have been cation oriented activities. Highlights are the acqui­ put a significant steps forward. At the educational sition of the EU subsidy for pro­iBiosphere, as well level a number of new items have been designed in as a VENI and a VIDI scholarship, a NWO­post doc cooperation with Institute of Biology Leiden and project, and a Biodiversity Assessment project on Institute of Environmental Sciences. These concern Halmahera. The latter is strongly related to the on­ floristic education, the accreditation of a minor, and going progress of importing data in our collection MSc­tuition. Report 2009-2012 Naturalis Research and Education 5 Microscopic view (3 × 2 mm) of a metamorphosed sedimentary enclave (xenolith) transported from 10 km depth to the surface in a Neogene volcano, volcano, in a Neogene the surface to 10 km depth from transported (xenolith) sedimentary enclave a metamorphosed (3 × 2 mm) of view Microscopic Kriegsman. M. Leo Photo: Spain. Mar Menor, 6 Report 2009-2012 Naturalis Research and Education Geology The Department of Geology of Naturalis has six grant, a post­doc, two PhDs and a lab assistant full­time palaeontologists, two full­time mineralo­ can be employed. gists and one part­time palaeobotanist with a pro­ ­ Willem Renema attracted national research fessorship at Leiden University. Palaeontological funding (NWO) for a post­doc to work on biotic research has a focus on the Netherlands and adja­ and abiotic drivers of shifting marine tropical cent regions, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean biodiversity hotspots during the Eocene­ and Mediterranean. Thematic research builds on Oligocene. the taxonomic expertise of staff members, that ­ A covenant was signed late 2011 with Utrecht includes (fossil) foraminifers, molluscs, echinoids, University, on scientific collaboration,