Marjolijn Christianen

_{Coastal ecosystems are in rapid decline around the world. Restoring them is very expensive and is often unsuccessful. But together with an international team of researchers we discovered a way of increasing restoration success of salt marshes and seagrass meadows, using biodegradable mats. Our findings are just published in Nature Communications (22 July 2020)}

In november Fee Smulders and I visited the Islands Bonaire and Eleuthera (Bahamas) to study the impact of grazing on seagrass ecosystem services. We look back at a very productive, and fun field trip, where we sampled and initiated multiple experiments.

This autumn 6 WUR students will spend some months in Bonaire to investigate different aspects tropical coastal ecosystems together with Fee and Luuk. Subjects range from impacts of surfers on sea turtles, to shark-turtle interactions, impact of sargassum on mangroves and corals, and bioturbation and seagrasses. Students also got introduced into the sea turtle monitoring protocols of Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire. And we went out to the reef for an underwater excursion. Great fun.

Last month our group – the Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group @ WUR – travelled to the Caribbean to analyse the socio-ecological-system of Bonaire. This happened in the same week that a report came out stating that the nature in the Dutch Caribbean is under heavy pressure, highlighting the need for a change in nature management and for additional research. So we went!

Our new paper that just came out today in Marine Biology research suggests so….

Continue reading “Return of the native oyster facilitated by the invasive Pacific Oyster?”