Time for some fieldwork! This time not in Indonesia but 7 hours flying further east in Sharkbay, Australia!
Together with Laura Govers, Tjisse van der Heide, Leon Lamers and Fons Smolders and researchers for the University of Western-Australia we will investigate the driving mechanisms behind the unique seagrass patterns of Shark Bay (picture below). Recently, van der Heide et al. demonstrated that banded spatial patterns in seagrasses (France) resulted from a scale‐dependent feedback between seagrass and hydrodynamics. Moreover, additional measurements showed that stress predictably influenced patterning in the seagrasses, hence suggesting that self‐organized patterns might be a useful stress‐indicator in seagrass ecosystems. Now in Sharkbay, there are patterns at 2 scales: Inside larger seagrass bands smaller seagrass bands occur, we will try to unravel the underlying mechanisms of their formation. We will post updates of our fieldwork on this blog.
