Changing rainfall in Madagascar appears modulated by a natural 50-70 year climate cycle originating from the Pacific Ocean. In his PhD thesis Craig Grove argues that it is important to go back in time to determine past natural climate variability, in order to understand the human impact on modern climate. Grove will defend his PhD thesis 'Madagascar’s Climate History Unlocked by Giant Corals' at the VU University Amsterdam on June 4, 2012.

Current distribution models for social animals are inadequate because they do not take into account that species do not just compete with each other but may also attract one another. This is one of the results Eelke Folmer presents in his PhD thesis. Folmer studied 'self-organization' by various species including foraging waders on the Wadden mudflats. Folmer will defend his PhD thesis 'Self-Organization on Mudflats' at the University of Groningen on 20 April 2012.

Glaciers play a vital role in Earth’s climate system, and it’s critical to understand what contributes to their fluctuation. Increased global temperatures are frequently viewed as the cause of glacial melt, but a new study of Patagonia’s Gualas Glacier highlights the role of precipitation in the glacier’s fluctuation. The study, conducted by Sébastien Bertrand of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Jan-Berend Stuut among others, reconstructs a 5,400 year-record of the region’s glacial environment and climate, comparing past temperature and rainfall data with sediment records of glacier fluctuations and the historical observations of early Spanish explorers.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange will be present at the ceremony celebrating the merger of the Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology (CEME) in Yerseke in the province of Zeeland and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) on the island of Texel. These two research institutes merged under the name NIOZ on 1 January 2012.