About:

 

 

 

Jan A. van Gils

scientist

 

Expertise

carrying capacity | digestion | energy budgets | foraging | information use | predator-prey interactions

 

Employment Record

since 2010: scientist NIOZ (Tenure Track/VIDI grant)

2006-2010: post-doc at NIOZ (NWO-WOTRO grant)

2006-2007: post-doc at Bristol University, UK (NWO-TALENT grant)

2003-2008: post-doc at NIOO (KNAW-Vernieuwingsfonds)

2003-2004: post-doc at NIOZ (NWO-PIONIER grant)

1997-2004: PhD-student at NIOZ/University of Groningen (NWO-PIONIER grant)

 

Education

2004: PhD Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Groningen (cum laude)

1996: MSc Biology, University of Groningen (cum laude)

1990: BSc Biology, University of Groningen (cum laude)

1989: Athenaeum B, Theresialyceum, Tilburg

 

Prizes & Grants

2011: ALW Open Competition, NWO

2009: VIDI-grant, NWO

2007: Dutch Zoology Prize, Royal Dutch Zoological Society

2006: WOTRO Integrated Programme, NWO

2005: TALENT Grant, NWO

2004: Best PhD Thesis in Functional Ecology Graduate School

 

Research Interests

In the current biodiversity decline, predators are often the first to disappear. Predators are thought to play a positive role in biodiversity maintenance as they prevent certain prey species in achieving dominance, relaxing resource competition among prey, hence promoting prey growth rates, prey coexistence and diversity. Losses of species at the highest trophic levels in communities may therefore cause extinctions and shifts in size structure at lower trophic levels. However, this role of predators is still often underappreciated, largely because many ecosystems have already lost their top-predators and/or human-induced disturbances now blur the positive predation effects. Most of all, the role of migrant predators structuring communities along their migratory route has mostly been neglected.

Aiming to fill this knowledge gap, we study the role of molluscivore shorebirds for intertidal benthic communities, with a focus on the pristine and uninhabited Banc d’Arguin (Mauritania). On their way to and from Mauritania, these shorebirds (re)fuel in the Dutch Wadden Sea, an area that has lost much of its value due to human disturbance (notably bottom-disturbing fisheries). Therefore, molluscivore shorebird numbers are on the decline, both in the Wadden Sea and in West-Africa, and we are investigating whether the benthic community changes observed at Banc d’Arguin may in fact represent ‘spatial knock-on effects’ of human disturbance in the Wadden Sea. Recently, in parallel with the project in Mauritania, a project on crustacean-eating crab plovers in Barr al Hikman (Oman) has started. 

 

Projects

Pervasive impact of avian migrant predators on intertidal communities may connect  ecosystems on a global scale (NWO-VIDI grant)

Cascading predator-prey effects in a pristine seagrass-based food web (NWO-ALW grant)

 

Fragile biodiversity linkages: production and consumption in a nutrient-poor seagrass-dominated intertidal ecosystem, the Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania (NWO-WOTRO grant) 

 

  

 

Publications

For an overview of my publications click here

Recent book: The Flexible Phenotype

My PhD thesis