Aquila Ecologie records more than a hundred species at Heerlijk Westerwolds Land

Waddinxveen-based startup Aquila Ecologie has conducted a survey at Heerlijk Westerwolds Land in the municipality of Westerwolde, recording more than a hundred different species within just a few hours. The company's ecologists describe the species richness as notably high, also relative to the duration of the survey.

Heerlijk Westerwolds Land is a private initiative near Sellingen, established by TechniekECOIST Jan Dommerholt and nutritionist Rineke Dijkinga. The site is managed according to principles of agroforestry and permaculture, with hundreds of planted plants, shrubs and trees. The project operates without subsidies and is largely funded through the proceeds of Dijkinga's books. The land is freely accessible to walkers year-round and also offers guided tours and inspirational training sessions.

Aquila Ecologie was founded in 2022 and combines ecological field research with AI models for species recognition. The company focuses on research into insects, soil life, vegetation and sound, and works with, among other things, a proprietary AI model that identifies grasshoppers based on acoustic signals. That model is available via a free Android app.

What the survey revealed

Aquila Ecologie's report describes a broad range of species groups encountered. In addition to pollinating insects, butterflies, predatory insects, spiders, dragonflies and grasshoppers were recorded. The composition of the soil life was also notable; the researchers describe it as species-rich and as an indicator of a well-functioning soil.

According to Aquila Ecologie, the ecologists were surprised by both the scale and the diversity of what they found. The various components of the ecosystem appear to be in balance with one another, which is far from always the case in surveys of this kind. The report explicitly identifies soil life as the driving force behind the above-ground richness observed.

Heerlijk Westerwolds Land explicitly focuses on what the initiators call "health value per hectare": the degree to which a piece of land contributes to biodiversity and soil quality, independent of agricultural production objectives. The survey results align with that approach.

AI as a tool for ecological research

Aquila Ecologie was founded by ecologist Niels Frenken-Kimpel and data scientist Anne Krediet. Frenken-Kimpel has a background in nature reserve management and leads the fieldwork. Krediet studied Forest and Nature Management and Biology at Wageningen University, and Mathematics at Fontys Tilburg, and develops the AI software the company uses.

The company's premise is that AI models can make ecological research faster and more thorough. For example, an audio recording of a field can be analysed for grasshoppers without a specialist having to process everything manually. Similar models are deployed for plants, bats and birds. This approach allows surveys to cover more species groups in less time, which also helps explain the findings at Westerwolds Land.

The company operates in a niche that has attracted increasing attention in recent years: the combination of field biology and digital data processing. Where traditional ecological research is labour-intensive and requires specialist expertise for each species group, Aquila Ecologie aims to lower that barrier through automated recognition.

Relevance for Dutch agro-ecological practice

The results at Heerlijk Westerwolds Land are primarily a snapshot of one specific location, and not a representative measurement of the broader Dutch biodiversity status. Nevertheless, they illustrate what deliberate land management choices, without subsidies or conventional agricultural practice, can deliver within a few years in terms of measurable species richness.

For investors and policymakers engaged with nature-inclusive agriculture and ecosystem restoration, this kind of detailed field survey is relevant as evidence of impact. The Dutch government and the EU are developing regulations around biodiversity restoration, in which measurable indicators will play an increasingly significant role. Startups that can conduct such measurements faster and more cost-effectively than traditional consultancies are therefore operating in a market with growing institutional demand.

At two years old, Aquila Ecologie is still a young player, but the combination of field expertise and self-built AI tooling sets it apart from both conventional ecological consultancies and purely technology-driven companies without biological expertise.