Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Exotic plants Humans create stepping stones for exotic plants All that is needed is some disturbance of the natural vegetation combined with a warmer environment (e.g. on a south-facing slope), an international team of ecologists states. The team (wit…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Plants shift to the west Nitrogen pollution relates to unexpected westward shift in European forest plants New research reveals nitrogen pollution, and to a lesser extent climate change, unexpectedly as the key driver behind surprising westward shifts…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content ERC grant IMBALANCE P - Plants and Ecosystems (PLECO) IMBALANCE-P CREAF leads the project IMBALANCE-P funded by the prestigious research program ERC Synergy Grants of the European Union. The project has received 13.6 million euros and will take place …

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content ReSPEc Towards a Remotely Sensed estimation of the Photosynthetic Energy balance (01/07/2018 - 30/06/2020) Researcher: Sebastian Wieneke Contact Sebastian Wieneke, PhD Marie Curie post-doctoral researcher Show email address Cookie prreferences Strictl…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Awards Academic Council for Service to Society Award 2019: Knappe k(n)oppen Knappe k(n)oppen, Citizen Science project under supervision of Ivan J., won the ‘Academic Council for Service to Society Award’, together with other citizen Science projec…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content PLECO Ecology in a time of change The research group Plants and Ecosystems (PLECO) is affiliated to the Faculty of Science. PLECO was created in 1975 by prof. Ivan Impens. Prof. Reinhart Ceulemans was the head of the group and spokesperson from 2000 u…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content CLIMPRO The overall objective of this study is to quantify how adaptive management can affect the provision of ecosystem services, focusing on wood production, river runoff and climate change mitigation. The study will enhance our understanding of how…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Organisation Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary for the proper functioning of the website and can not be switched off. They are generally defined only as a result of actions you carry out and that enable you to make use …

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content NETs Negative Emission Technologies for CO2 removal Basalt NETs manipulation experiment NETs manipulation experiment Biochar Achieving the climate targets as agreed at the climate summit in Paris requires rapid decarbonization of all sectors. However,…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content ANAFAUNA ANAFAUNA (1/9/2019 – 31/8/2020) Implementation of soil fauna effects into the ecosystem model ANAFORE Ecosystem models dynamically simulate fluxes of carbon, water, nitrogen and other nutrients through an ecosystem such as forest or grassla…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content WISLAS Warmed Icelandic Soils, Lipids and Sequencing: towards a better understood climate proxy (2016 - 2018) Researcher: Cindy De Jonge Chemical fossils are molecular components that carry information on the environment in which they were produced, s…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Phenology Phenology studies the seasonal cycle of plants and describes it through key events such as flowering and bud-burst (in spring) and leaf coloration and fall (in autumn). These events are crucial for the annual growth of the plants, with impli…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Education Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary for the proper functioning of the website and can not be switched off. They are generally defined only as a result of actions you carry out and that enable you to make use of …

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content ICOS Integrated Carbon Observation System ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) is a European Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) for quantifying and understanding the greenhouse gas balance of the European continent and of adjacent regions. The mis…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content PhDs Completed PhDs since 1999 2025 Juan Zhou - Effects of fire on biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality: field observations and meta-analysis. Defended on 13.05.2025. Jet Rijnders - Assessing the role of enhanced weathering in sustainable agr…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Members Spokesperson Ivan Nijs Member Manuela Balzarolo Naheeda Begum Matteo Campioli Alexander Cannaerts Bedassa Regassa Cheneka Hans De Boeck Simon De Canniere Elena De Rijk Geike De Sloover Gaby Deckmyn Filip Desmet Sophia Findeisen Bert Gielen Thi…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Research We study the functioning of plants, microbes and ecosystems, the mechanisms underlying the spatial and temporal patterns therein, and especially their reciprocal relations with several global changes. Our key research foci are: impacts of- an…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Press Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary for the proper functioning of the website and can not be switched off. They are generally defined only as a result of actions you carry out and that enable you to make use of the …

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content ESFRI Grants European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures ICOS ANAEE Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary for the proper functioning of the website and can not be switched off. They are generally defined only as a r…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content MSCA Fellowships Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Current MSCA ANAFAUNA CLIMPRO Former MSCA ReSPEc Rainforest-GHG PHYSIO-POP WISLAS Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary for the proper functioning of the website and can not …

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content About PLECO Research group of Plants and Ecosystems PLECO’s mission statement is: to improve our fundamental understanding of the impact of global changes on plants and ecosystems at different hierarchical levels of organisation so that we can simul…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Research Topics Biogeochemical cycles Biomass production Climate extremes Functional plant diversity Invasive species Microbial ecology Negative Emission Technologies (NETs) Phenology Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary f…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content RainForest-GHG Rain Forest GreenHouse Gases (01/09/2018 - 30/08/2020) Researcher: Laetitia Brechet Contact Laetitia Brechet, PhD Marie Curie post-doctoral researcher Show email address Cookie prreferences Strictly necessary cookies They are necessary …

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Academic Bibliography Soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions in grasslands: Is more always better? Source Zenodo, 2025, Author(s) Dajana Radujković, Miguel Portillo-Estrada, Björn Hendrickx, Giandiego Campetella, Willem-Jan Emsens, Höhn Maria, G…

Plants and Ecosystems search menu search content Microbial Ecology plant-soil interactions We study various aspects of the microbial ecology of soils and plants. An overarching line is how soils and plants interact through microbial communities in terms of nutrient flows, plant community composition…