Nico M. van Straalen

http://www.bio.vu.nl/do/staff/NMvanStraalen.htm

Curriculum vitae & Publications

Research interests

I am interested the application of molecular insights to problems of ecology and evolution. How does natural selection act upon genetic variation to cause adaptive change in populations? What is the relative importance of transcriptional regulation in evolutionary processes, as opposed to variation in the coding regions of genes? These questions require in-depth studies at the level of genome structure and function, combined with physiology and population ecology. Stress due to environmental pollution is eminently suitable to investigate evolutionary processes because pollution is often a strong selection pressure that can be quantified an experimentally manipulated.

Selected publications

Van Straalen, N.M. (2003) Ecotoxicology becomes stress ecology. Environmental Science and Technology, 37(17), 324A-330A.

Van Straalen, N.M. & D. Roelofs (2006, 2011) An Introduction to Ecological Genomics. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Janssens, T.K.S., Mariën, J., Cenijn, P., Legler, J., Van Straalen, N.M., & Roelofs, D. (2007) Recombinational micro-evolution of functionally different metallothionein promoter alleles from Orchesella cincta. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 7, 88.

Van der Heijden, M.G.A., Bardgett, R.D., & Van Straalen, N.M. (2008) The unseen majority: soil microbes as drivers of plant diversity and productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. Ecology Letters 11, 296-310.

Nota, B., Verweij, R.A., Molenaar, D., Ylstra, B., Van Straalen, N.M., & Roelofs, D. (2010) Gene expression analysis reveals a gene set discriminatory to different metals in soil. Toxicological Sciences 115, 34-40.

Research projects

1. Ecological genomics
The genomics revolution offers new possibilities to address questions of ecology and evolution in a way that was not possible before. Can we understand evolutionary adaptation to new environmental conditions from the interactions between gene functions throughout the genome? The aim of this project is to use the exciting new possibilities offered by genomics technology to deepen our understanding of evolutionary mechanisms, the tree of life, and the interaction between living organisms and their environment. For more information, see the textbook written by Dick Roelofs and me: "An Introduction to Ecological Genomics" (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed, 2011).

2. Soil invertebrates
Almost every evolutionary lineage of animal has some representative living in the soil environment. The soil invertebrate community is an immensely rich source for studies of biodiversity, ecology and evolution. However, most of ecological theory is inspired by studies on above-ground ecosystems. This has introduced a bias since, in several ways, ecological relationships among soil-living communities are different from those above-ground. I am writing a book on the ecology and evolution of soil invertebrates to gather and synthesize all the scattered information on those little rotters in the soil.

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