In the Netherlands, we use pesticides on a large scale. In order to study the effects of these pesticides on our environment and public health, it is necessary to know to what extent pesticides occur in our immediate environment. The great tit can provide a solution in this regard. In the ‘Meet de Mees’ project, … Read More
Where do all these birds come from and where do they go? Of course people wanted to know that for a long time, but how do you measure such things? So in 1911 the very first bird in the Netherlands was caught and ringed: a starling. And now the counter already stands at 12.8 million … Read More
In recent decades, the northern wheatear has declined sharply in the Netherlands. This characteristic breeding bird of dry open dunes is struggling with, among other things, habitat degradation due to nitrogen deposition. Because the species often breeds in old rabbit burrows, the decline in the rabbit population is also a problem. Sovon is conducting research … Read More
Biodiversity is exposed to increasing pressure by climate and land use changes. But how are species responding to these pressures and which pressure is more dominant remain controversial questions. A recent collaborative study including 28 European countries assesses, for the first time, how 170 bird species have responded to major human induced pressures at a … Read More
It would seem logical: more geese eat more grass, leaving less for the farmer to harvest. But a recent study suggests it may not be so straightforward. An international team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) looked at the impact of different goose species and the number of geese on agricultural damage. Their … Read More
On September 14, 2022, Magali Frauendorf will defend her thesis ‘Causes of spatiotemporal variation in reproductive performance of Eurasian oystercatchers in a human-dominated landscape’ at Radboud University. In December 2016 she started her PhD in the project CHIRP (Cumulative Human Impact on biRd Populations) at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in collaboration with Radboud University … Read More
Why is the Oystercatcher population declining ? And can we turn this tide? What are the cumulative effects of human activities in the breeding and wintering areas? The Cumulative Human Impact on biRd Populations (CHIRP) study investigated these questions. CHIRP will be closed at the beginning of 2022. In the Symposium Oystercatcher we look back … Read More
Why is the population of breeding Mallards in the Netherlands declining? Based on an analysis of four different datasets collected by citizen scientists, researchers from Sovon Vogelonderzoek, Radboud University and the Vogeltrekstation have come to the conclusion that a high duckling mortality is the main cause. If we want to protect the Mallard, we will … Read More
A new study from researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) rolls back the curtain on half a century of evidence highlighting climate change-driven changes in more than 60 different bird species in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and carried out in … Read More