Many organisms survive by consuming other organisms. Such interactions are intrinsically unstable because the persistence of the consumers depends on the persistence of their prey. Yet these interactions are common and often continue to exist over many generations and evolutionary time.

At Kantlab we are interested in the mechanisms that allow antagonistic interactions to persist, and we investigate these at different levels of biological organization i.e. from genes to ecological communities. We focus on plant-herbivore and predator-prey interactions to investigate: (1) manipulation of plants by herbivores and (2) improving biological control by changing plant physiology.

Our core model system is centered around tomato plants, herbivorous mites and predatory mites but our projects often include also other plant species (such as sweet pepper, beans, tobacco and arabidopsis), insect herbivores (such as thrips, whitefly and lepidopteran larvae) and insect predators such as mirids.

​

Kantlab is headed by Merijn Kant. The research group is part of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).