Plant Sciences' contribution to the Bioactive Molecules research theme is to identify new plant bioactive molecules, and unravel their mechanisms of action in plant development or health, and the regulatory networks and (bio)synthetic pathways required for their production.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme is to understand what are the key drivers of plant biodiversity during evolution with a focus on plant life history and resilience traits and develop tools to restore and maintain plant biodiversity.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Development & Disease research theme is to unravel the processes that allow plants to adapt to changing abiotic and biotic environmental conditions or stresses, with the aim to contribute to the sustainable production of food, flowers and bio-based products using…

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to dissect how microorganisms and microbiomes interact with the plant host and the insects on those plants, and how these insights may be harnessed to improve plant growth and health, by steering microbiome composition and…

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

Identification and characterization of components of DNA repair pathways and their role in Agrobacterium T-DNA integration and repair of CRISPR/Cas induced DSBs.

The plant hormone auxin regulates plant growth and development through polar cell-to-cell transport-generated maxima and minima. PIN FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux carriers determine the direction of this auxin flow through their asymmetric placement on the plasma membrane (PM).

As a new vision on food production, the feasibility study on LED light to grow crops with the biological- and chemical evaluation of final products.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study the design and functioning of Dutch political institutions as well as attitudes and behaviour of political elites and citizens.

Promotor: Prof.dr. P. Hooykaas, Co-promotor: Dr. R. Offringa

Do large deletions represent a risk during CRISP/CAS9-mediated genome editing in plants?

Plants produce an astonishing variety of secondary metabolites (SMs) which are thought to play vital roles in the fitness of plants through ecological interactions.

How can we make agricultural production systems more sustainable as the worldwide demand for healthy, safe food continues to grow? How can we develop healthy new food crops that have higher yields while requiring fewer harmful chemicals?

Multicellular giant algae Chara species have been widely used in physiological studies for decades.

Promotor: P.G.L. Klinkhamer, Co-Promotores: K. Vrieling, P.P.J. Mulder

The mission of the Plant Science research programme is to contribute to the sustainable production of high quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge of basic biological processes related to development of plants and their interaction…

This new article by Bassant Hassib and James Shires is part of a special issue for Journal of Cybersecurity, based on a selection of contributions from THe Hague Program for Cyber Norms' 2019 Conference.

Press freedom in Indonesia is still under pressure, despite the demise of Soeharto’s regime in 1998

Plant exudates appeared long time ago in the history line of life in the early Devonian. They are typical saps produced by specialized cells.

This project examines the meaning of this historical place, and the way it has been used by the political institutions that have had their seat there.

The project will clarify that in the search for these new means the treatise On the sublime of ps.-Longinus played a crucial role. However, the project will also place the theatre performances in a broader social and political perspective. These public events and the theatre performances suggest that…

The mission of the Plant Sciences cluster is to contribute to the sustainable production of high-quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products, and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in natural ecosystems. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge…

How can we manipulate the biotic and abiotic environment to increase thrips resistance in tomato and chrysanthemum? More specifically we ask: How can plant secondary metabolites that are not soluble in water be delivered to plants in seed coating or root dipping treatment? Can bacteria be used to…

Political scientist Luzia Helfer (Leiden University) empirically tested claims about media-politics relatiopns using unique data from experimental studies with elected politicians and political journalists in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Which microorganisms live near and inside plant roots? How do they contribute to plant health? Can microorganisms be employed in plant protection?

How is Pol θ responsible for T-DNA integration, and how do other DNA double-strand break repair pathways interact with Pol θ? How may we manipulate T-DNA integration to stimulate error-free integration at a predetermined genomic site?

What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

This comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the south Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnad. Building on a unique combination of unexplored Indian texts and Dutch archival records, this research…

In our lives we often have little attention or appreciation for plants, let alone the ones we commonly call weeds. This inattention for plants has been described as plant blindness. The Stoepplantjes project aspires to decrease plant blindness by changing the image of weeds and using citizen science.…

This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the propositional contents of the writings of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt while bringing these into discussion with their performative meanings, such as polemical forms of reasoning, analogical and metaphorical uses of language, and hidden…

Which traits did change due to the invasion process of plants and how do these traits contribute to the invasiveness of such species. What is the role of carbohydrate accumulation? What is the function of carbohydrate accumulation in plants? Is genetic variation depleted in invasive species under se…

Harvesting rice from the same field, without planting new rice plants? A discovery may bring this scenario closer. Leiden scientists have discovered a gene that allows annual plants to grow after flowering, instead of dying. Publication on 13 April in Nature Plants.

A Persistent Revolution: History, Nationalism, and Politics in Mexico since 1968

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

How and why latex bearing plants select specific chemical compounds for eco-chemical interactions with its biotic factors?

Utilization of plant-originated products as new antibiotics

What plants grow along ditches in the Leiden region? What does this say about vegetation quality? Could it be better? Naturalis and Leiden University's Center for Environmental Sciences are looking for your help to answer these questions.

What are the genes and molecular mechanisms involved in bacteria-mediated plant drought tolerance?

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

Basketry, cordage and textiles made of plant fibers or bark are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. By means of experimental archaeology and microwear analysis, we obtain indirect evidence about this important craft.

A three-volume standard work on galls in Europe. Author Johannes C. (Hans) Roskam is associate professor emeritus in Evolutionary Biology and currently guest at Leiden University.

We examine how soil-derived legacy effects of plants structure natural ecosystems, determine aboveground plant insect interactions, and how we can use soil legacy effects to restore degraded ecosystems.

The Plant BioDynamics Lab (PBDL) is a laboratory dedicated to experiments designed to develop and validate quantitative mathematical models of dynamical processes in biology. The principal objective of developing these models is to make quantitative predictions about these processes.

Linking botanical collections, peoples, and illustrations in seventeenth century Dutch Brazil

How did rulers in the Netherlands and in adjacent smaller German territories adapt their regimes to ongoing change in legitimacy and decision-making during the transition period 1780-1820?

In this article, Meier & Nadler suggest that while non-citizen enfranchisement boosts participation across all citizens, citizens with immigration backgrounds are more reactive to the NCV rights in terms of higher turnout. In this way, the paper adds a critical nuance to individual-based explanations…

Early cave paintings of hunting scenes may give the impression our Stone Age ancestors lived mainly on chunks of meat, but plants were just as key to their survival. Plants rich in starch helped early humans to thrive even at the height of the last Ice Age, Leiden archaeologist Amanda Henry tells Horizon…