Currently, I am a PhD candidate with a specialization on the modelling of wild bees. The models that I work with, are distribution models of Dutch bees. They help us to better understand where bees occur in the Netherlands and why. This is very important, because more than half of the Dutch bees are threatened. Many bees in the Netherlands are specialized bees or parasites. Until now my research has contributed to a significant improvement of the models by integrating information on plants and other bees.
Keywords
Modelling, species interactions, pollination, bees
Researchinterest
With a toolbox of different types of models in one hand, I try to answer ecological questions at a broad and small scale. A selection of topics I am working on currently.
- How do biotic interactions and environmental factors influence the distribution of plants and pollinators?
- How do threatened and non-threatened bees differ in how they react to climate and land-use?
- Hedges, ditches and hills: how do small scale landscape elements influence biodiversity?
- The EnergyBee model: predicting honey bee hive weight with spatial data.
Currenttopics
Flowering Arches
Bee-friendly planting. The 'Flowering Arches', or 'Bloeibogen in Dutch, application provides insight into the common bee species and their food availability in a selected area in The Netherlands and provides specific plant advice. The tool uses…