Professor of evolution and biodiversity at Leiden University and a senior researcher at the National Natural History Museum 'Naturalis' in Leiden, the Netherlands.
His scientific research has involved a variety of subjects, such as the evolution of snail shells, beetle penises, insect feeding on invasive plants, and the biodiversity of caves and limestone hills. His research has taken him to lots of places, from the mountains of Crete (where he did his PhD), caves in Montenegro and the heart of the rainforest of Borneo (where he worked for six years), to city parks in the Netherlands.
Besides his academic work, he has always been active as a science communicator, writing books and articles for the general public, and giving lectures. Some of his more notable appearances are his TED and TED-Ed lectures, and his appearance with Isabella Rossellini at the New York Public Library. His latest book, Darwin Comes to Town presents the flora and fauna of our cities as an exciting, new man-made ecosystem that is rapidly evolving around us.
More recently, Schilthuizen has taken his science communication one step further and through his company Taxon Expeditions now organises real scientific expeditions for non-biologists to biodiversity hots all over the world (including both rainforests and mountaintops, but also urban parks). The key feature of these trips is to discover and publish entirely new species of wildlife.
You can learn more and follow his activities via Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
During the 8th ŚFN (Sunday, 7 Dec; and Sunday, 8 Dec), Prof. Menno Schilthuizen will deliver two talks:
● Darwin Comes to Town
We are marching towards a future in which three-quarters of humans live in cities, and a large portion of the planet's landmass is urbanised. With much of the rest covered by human-shaped farms, pastures, and plantations, where can nature still go?
One possibility: to the cities. And with more and more wildlife carving out new niches among humans, evolution takes a surprising turn. Urban animals evolve to become more tolerant, curious and resourceful, city pigeons develop ‘detox’-plumage, and weeds growing from cracks in the pavement adjust their seeds. Some city animals are even on their way of becoming an entirely new species.
Thanks to evolutionary adaptation taking place at unprecedented speeds, plants and animals are coming up with new ways of living in the seemingly hostile environments of asphalt and steel that we humans have created. We may be on the verge of a new chapter in the history of life -- a chapter in which much old biodiversity is, sadly, disappearing, but also one in which a new and exciting set of life forms is being born.
● The Urban Naturalist
Imagine taking your smartphone-turned-microscope to an empty lot and discovering a rare mason bee that builds its nest in empty snail shells. Or a miniature spider that hunts ants and carries their corpses around. With a team of citizen scientists, that's exactly what Menno Schilthuizen did—one instance in the evolutionary biologist's campaign to take natural science to the urban landscape where most of us live today.
In this lecture, Schilthuizen invites us to join him, to embark on a new age of discovery, venturing out as intrepid explorers of our own urban habitat—and maybe in the process do the natural world some good. Thanks to the open science revolution, real biological discoveries can now be made by anyone right where they live. Schilthuizen shows just how to go about making those discoveries, introducing them to the tools of the trade of the urban community scientist, from the tried and tested (the field notebook, the butterfly net, and the hand lens) to the new-fangled (internet resources, low-tech gadgets, and off-the-shelf gizmos).
But beyond technology, there is also the promise of reviving the lost tradition of the citizen scientist—rekindling the spirit of the Victorian naturalist for the modern world. At a time when the only nature most people get to see is urban, Schilthuizen demonstrates that understanding the novel ecosystems around us is our best hope for appreciating and protecting biodiversity.