I am Jurgen van Hal and I am working as an ecological research technician at the dept. of Ecological science.
My current tasks and skills are:
Entomology
Determination of invertebrates, incl. Collembola.
Breeding of various invertebrates, currently Nasonia and Drosophila
Teaching assistant 1st years course: field-entomology and lab-determination
Experimental work and field experiments
Setting up and maintaining diverse field, greenhouse and climate- room experiments. These experiments include work with mesocosms, stable isotopes, plants, plant-litter, invertebrates, algae and micro-organisms.
Chemical and animal traits measurements
Diverse chemical analysis and animal-traits such as fat-content, drought tolerance, inundation tolerance, upper thermal limit.
Molecular
DNA isolation, PCR, high-throughput sequencing and microbial community analysis.
Histology
I am working on my histology skills at the moment…
Additional skills and useful hobbies
Microscopy
Maintaining technical installations such as climate-rooms and analytical equipment.
Macro and invertebrate photography
freediving (and scubadiving)