Wageningen University (WUR)
Wageningen University has 11.000 students and conducts fundamental and application-oriented research in the life sciences. Wageningen UR supports the Dutch and European governments in the implementation of rules and regulations to assure safe food and a sustainable living environment. The chair group Entomology performs research on plant defence against plant-feeding insects. Our research addresses insect-plant interactions from their molecular bases to the community level, in particular the interactions between plants in the Brassicaceae-family and plant-feeding insects and their natural enemies, in the laboratory, greenhouse and the field. Our interdisciplinary team consists of ecologists, entomologists, molecular biologists and chemists aiming at unraveling biological phenomena underlying the functioning of ecological communities.
Role
In AMIGA Wageningen University lead Workpackage 5 on Trophic structures in agro-ecosystems, to develop a set of Environmental Risk Assessment protocols to assess the non-target effects of GM-crops under realistic field conditions.
Staff members’ profile
Dr. Joop van Loon is an associate professor studying insect-plant and multitrophic interactions with a focus on sensory physiology, behaviour, nutrition and chemical ecology. He participated in the Dutch National Program on Environmental Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms (ERGO; 2008-2012).