Writing is usually integrated in the curriculum of science studies. However, students often lack the skills to write for various audiences or, to produce a well written manuscript. We developed a concise project of 15 European Credits to improve the writing skills in an early phase of the bachelor study. …

Airborne pollen monitoring is of global socio-economic importance as it provides information on presence and prevalence of allergenic pollen in ambient air. Traditionally, this task has been performed by microscopic investigation, but novel techniques are being developed to automate this process. Among …

The simultaneous analysis of a broad range of polar ionogenic metabolites using capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) can be challenging, as two different analytical methods are often required, that is, one for cations and one for anions. Even though CE-MS has shown to be an effective method …

Freshwater habitats are under stress from agricultural land use, most notably the influx of neonicotinoid pesticides and increased nutrient pressure from fertilizer. Traditional studies investigating the effects of stressors on freshwater systems are often limited to a narrow range of taxa, depending …

The hydrozoan species Nemalecium lighti (Hargitt, 1924) is widely distributed in tropical marine waters around the world. Here we report the complete linear mitochondrial genome of N. lighti from Sint Eustatius (Lesser Antilles). The mitochondrial genome with a length of 14,320 bp encodes for 13 protein-coding …

In 2001 and 2002 an excavation conducted in the town of Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands revealed the vestiges of a Roman fort, Castellum Albaniana, situated along the historical Rhine delta and used for centuries during the Roman occupation (41 AD − 275 CE). Among the animal bones retrieved from …

Classical ecological theory posits that species partition resources such that eachspecies occupies a unique resource niche. In general, the availability of more resources allowsmore species to co-occur. Thus, a strong relationship between communities of consumers andtheir resources is expected. However, …

Organic farming is increasingly promoted as a means to reduce the environmental impact of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics in conventional dairy systems. These factors potentially affect the microbial communities of the production stages (soil, silage, dung, and milk) of …

DNA barcoding is an important molecular methodology for species identification that was developed over the last two decades and it should be covered inthe biology bachelor curriculum. Here, we present an example of DNA barcoding by sequencing a segment of the 28S nuclear ribosomal large subunitrRNA gene …

De samenstelling van de bacterie- en schimmelgemeenschap als geheel is specifiek voor elk onderdeel van de kringloop op een melkveebedrijf. Dat laat een verkennend onderzoek gefinancierd door de Triodos Foundation zien. Zo is de bacterie- en schimmelgemeenschap in de bodem heel anders dan die in de mest. …