Vincent Kalkman

Freshwater habitats such as rivers, brooks and lakes are among the most attractive landscapes our planet has on offer. Although these habitats are on a global scale relatively scarce, they are nonetheless of vital importance for biodiversity. Climate change combined with the ever-increasing demand for fresh water by humans will put severe pressure on the biodiversity of these habitats. My work aims at describing and understanding patterns and changes in freshwater biodiversity. I do so by working on the taxonomy, distribution and phylogeny of the most beautiful of all insects: dragonflies and damselflies.

Together with over twenty volunteer specialists I work on on the terrestrial fauna of Aruba-Bonaire-Curacao. We aim to describe the diversity on these islands and make information on identification available through papers, field guides and image recognition. 

In addition I coordinate part of the work on image- and sound recognition going on at Naturalis. For this I cooperate closely with collegues at Naturalis and the team of Observation.org. Our shared aim is to make “Image - and sound recognition services available for all European species which are annually used by over a 100.000 citizen scientist resulting in millions of high quality recordings.”