Dr. Wim van der Putten

netherlands institute of ecology & Wageningen center for soil ecology, the netherlands

Dr. van der Putten graduated at Wageningen University in 1984 with a degree in ecology and then moved to the Institute for Ecological Research at Oostvoorne, The Netherlands. In 1989 he gained his PhD and Wageningen University and currently, he is head of the Department of Terrestrial Ecology at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) and extraordinary professor in Functional Biodiversity at Wageningen University. Wim’s main interest is in aboveground-belowground multitrophic interactions, plant-soil feedback, succession, biodiversity, invasions, and climate change-induced range shifts. In 2004, he was awarded a VICI grant in order to study consequences of rapid range shifts due to current climate warming and in 2012 an ERC Advanced grant on community re-assembly under climate warming. Wim has co-authored an overview on soil biodiversity for the EC DGXI, and is co-editor of both the European and Global Atlases of Soil Biodiversity. He co-founded the Wageningen Centre for Soil Ecology.