This ecological community has long been known to affect host biology, and their diverse roles have been further clarified in recent years following numerous studies of animal:microbiota interactions in diverse systems.

What is the connection between materials with weak and strong gravitational interactions?

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

Intimate Legal Interactions (ILI) is an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars who share an interest in laws governing intimate relationships – such as marriage and civil partnership, divorce, birth, death, parenthood, childcare, sexual/romantic relationships, and caring relationships…

How does global change across time and space lead to convergence and loss of variation or increasing diversity and conflict?

How do social and political developments influence the process of meaning-making in different parts of the world? Why is a particular discourse interpreted in numerous ways depending on the context it is produced and propagated? And how are culture, politics, history, and language intertwined?

Fostering multi-polar perspectives that engage more connected, nuanced and pluralistic understandings of the world. Global Interactions encourages and supports research that provides significant new insights on these global processes across time and space.

Media & interaction is where artificial intelligence and machine learning meet philosophy, cognitive science, and the creative arts. Examples of research questions in this domain are: 'Can an algorithm be creative by human standards?', 'Can creative processes, such as composing music or writing poetry,…

Membrane proteins and membrane interactions of proteins are studied by spin label EPR. Intact, native membranes, vesicles of all sizes and nano-disks can be investigated, because the size of the object does not matter in EPR. Whereas solution NMR is limited to micelles (a few nm in diameter), by EPR…

This thesis deals with the use of sound in interactions in the context of participatory systems and data sonification. We investigate an interactive environment where participants perceive information of the data through sound elements.

Media & interaction is where artificial intelligence and machine learning meet philosophy, cognitive science, and the creative arts. Examples of research questions in this domain are: 'Can an algorithm be creative by human standards?', 'Can creative processes, such as composing music or writing poetry,…

Host-Microbe Interactions is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

Many biological processes occur by biomolecules coming together and organizing into specific clusters without being bound to each other. These interactions range from clustering, transiently interacting (kiss and run), or assembling to multimeric units that can only function in conjunction. The hydrogen…

Mycoheterotrophy is a particular mode of life in which plants obtain carbohydrates from their associated fungal partners, instead of by using photosynthesis.

To make successful communication possible, people need much more than their knowledge of the language system.

Interaction between Legal Systems acknowledges that law-making and law enforcement are increasingly taking place on various levels: in a global context, in EU context, on a national level and in a private law framework. These levels influence each other, sometimes directly, on the basis of a hierarchical…

The lipid membrane is a basic structural component of all living cells. Embedded in this nanometer-thin barrier, membrane proteins shape the membrane and at the same time respond to the shape of the membrane.

The aim of this thesis is to study cell-cell interactions and the development of an assay to explore and quantify the exchange of membrane compounds.

Streptomyces are bacteria abundant in soil that participate in diverse and complex interactions. These bacteria are the main producers of the antibiotics we currently use in the clinic.

Biological cells, the basic building blocks of all life forms, are surrounded by a lipid membrane. More than half of the membrane is occupied by membrane proteins, which can regulate the cell functionality through specific arrangements.

Explore an interactive i-doc platform for virtual navigation of ethnographically investigated case studies in Gdańsk, Turin, and Rotterdam.

Duality, stochastic processes

It is well-known that humans have significantly transformed ecosystems since their adoption of agriculture. However, in a deeper past, prehistoric hunter-gatherers may already have altered and modified their niche in ways that had major impacts on ecosystems.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.J.J. Groenen

Organisms often need to adapt more efficiently and devise new strategies for surviving difficult ecological circumstances.

The roles of shame, guilt and social access in adolescent aggression

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme focus on the interaction of animal hosts with pathogenic microbes but also the beneficial role of the gut microbiome.

In this thesis, the researcher developed a nanosystem based on the metallophilic Interaction between cyclometalated complexes.

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to investigate how beneficial or disease-causing microbes associate and interact with their host.

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…

Every year, in the last month of the Islamic calendar, millions of Muslims from around the world come together in Mecca to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage that all capable Muslims should perform at least once in their lives. In 2013, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden organised the exhibition…

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

The available tools for academic literature search return a list of ranked documents, which might not be ideal for some tasks. To facilitate these tasks, I am creating a visual representation of the academic search space where the user can browse academic topics.

Soil biodiversity is of great importance for the maintenance of multifunctionality in terrestrial ecosystems.

The 18th edition of SIP will be organised by Caroline Mueller at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. More information can be found on the SIP 2024 Homepage. The 17th Symposium on Insect-Plant relationships in Leiden has been held online from 25 to the 30 July 2021.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.

In this thesis it is posed that the central object of preference discovery is a co-creative process in which the Other can be represented by a machine. It explores efficient methods to enhance introverted intuition using extraverted intuition's communication lines.

Smartphone behaviors are so common but how does the brain generate this behavior? The Cognition in the digital environment laboratory (CODELAB) investigated the brain activity surrounding smartphone interactions with the help of Artificial Intelligence. According to their research, the brain fluidly…

On the 4th of June, Menghui Shi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Menghui Shi on this achievement!

This thesis comprises four closely related interpretative studies and set out to answer the compound question: ‘How do teachers interpret their classroom interactions in terms of their pupils’ best interest?’

The thesis describes the use of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, in continuous wave and pulse modes, to address the interaction of α-Synuclein (αS) with membranes and the aggregation of αS.

The studies presented in the work show the potential of the integrative use of biophysical data in defining the structural basis of protein interactions.

Low-mass main-sequence stars like our Sun are continuous sources of outflowing hot magnetised plasma. In the case of the Sun, this is known as the solar wind, whereas for other stars they are called stellar winds.

On 21 February 2019, Ruben Zandvliet defended his thesis 'Trade, Investment and Labour: Interactions in International Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. N.J. Schrijver.

On December 13th, Maaike van Naerssen succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Maaike on this great result.

The mycorrhizal symbiosis is among the most widespread species interactions on Earth⁠. This thesis focuses on orchid mycorrhiza, a unique mycorrhizal type that has caught scientists’ attention for centuries⁠.

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.

Much attention has been paid to the exchange of objects, ideas, and people in the Caribbean. Networks of interaction connected local communities across pan-regional scales, shaping indigenous socio-political integrations and their responses in colonial situations. This work examines the poorly understood…