I am a Dutch biologist with a passion for communicating scientific knowledge. Here at The Inquisitive Biologist, I review (mostly) academic books on a range of subjects of interest to me, with a bias towards evolutionary biology, palaeontology, earth sciences, animal behaviour, conservation biology, environmental history, popular science, and history and philosophy of science. A disclosure for UK readers: where available, I link to Bookshop.org whose fees support independent bookshops; I may earn a commission on sales generated this way.

Please note that I am currently working my way through a substantial backlog and not taking on more review assignments until further notice.

MY BACKGROUND

Having been fascinated with dinosaurs from a young age (this was pre-Jurassic Park, I promise), I decided to study biology in favour of geology at Leiden University. After three very diverse internships involving lizard hunting behaviour, plant programmed cell death, and lion ecology in Cameroon, I was seriously sold on evolutionary biology and continued studying for a PhD at the University of Helsinki, where I graduated in 2010 on the effects of eutrophication (the pollution of water that results from over-enrichment with nutrients) on the mating behaviour of a small fish, the three-spined stickleback.

Realising that scaling the academic pyramid was not all that I had hoped for, I have nevertheless remained passionate about communicating scientific knowledge. Currently, I work for the world’s largest specialist environmental bookstore, NHBS, in rural Devon, England, where I am responsible for cataloguing all relevant new publications in the fields of wildlife, ecology, and conservation. This exposes me to a wealth of fantastic new books, some of which I review here.

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

Below is a list of peer-reviewed publications that resulted from my Master’s project and PhD research. In the unlikely case that you would want to read the papers in full and find yourself behind a paywall, feel free to contact me.

– Candolin, U. & Vlieger, L. (2013). Should attractive males sneak: the trade-off between current and future offspring. PLoS ONE, 8(3), e57992.
– Candolin, U. & Vlieger, L. (2013). Estimating the dynamics of sexual selection in changing environments. Evolutionary Biology, 40, 589–600.
– Vlieger, L. (2010). The effects of eutrophication on alternative reproductive tactics in threespine sticklebacks. PhD thesis.
– Vlieger, L. & Candolin, U. (2009). How not to be seen: does eutrophication influence three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus sneaking behaviour? Journal of Fish Biology, 75(8), 2163–2174.
– Vlieger, L. & Brakefield P.M. (2007). The deflection hypothesis: eyespots on the margins of butterfly wings do not influence predation by lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 92(4), 661–667.
– Vlieger, L., Brakefield, P.M. & Müller, C. (2004). Effectiveness of the defence mechanism of the turnip sawfly, Athalia rosae (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae), against predation by lizards. Bulletin of Entomological Research, 94(3), 283–289.