Green sea turtle digging its own watery grave due to invasion of non-native seagrass….
Category Archives: Seagrass
Paper out: estimating the exposure to river plumes for coastal ecosystems
Can we estimate the exposure to river plumes for coastal ecosystems? During my PhD fieldwork I had the opportunity to collaborate with a multidisciplinairy team of hydrologists, physical geologists, modelers, coral reef biologists to study this in East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Personal research NWO-VENI grant received!
Happy news! I received a personal VENI (research) grant today, from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)! To work for 3-4 yrs on “Global defaunation and plant invasion: cascading effects on seagrass ecosystem services”. It will involve …
Experiment on (invasive) seagrass & turtle grazing, Bonaire
Two weeks ago we arrived on Bonaire. Since then we worked non-stop and we made great progress! The first thing we did was to set up a turtle exclosure experiment on the seagrass beds in Lac Bay, after Funchi (STCB) and Sabine Engel (STINAPA) kindly showed us all the suitable seagrass areas. The native dominant …
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Green turtles threaten their own food source in MPAs: New paper Proceedings B
Our new paper is out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B! Green turtle populations have expanded so much in Indonesia’s east coast islands marine protected areas that they are adopting new feeding habits, degrading the ecosystem and threatening their own conservation. Read more about “Habitat collapse due to overgrazing threatens turtle conservation in marine protected …
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Research cruise SIBES 2013 on the Navicula
This week I am joining the SIBES 2013 crew on the Navicula. They are sampling benthos at ± 4500 points spread througout the Wadden Sea, a program that is already running for 6 years.
PhD thesis in the pocket!
The 22th of March was the Big Day, I had to defend my PhD thesis. After a 10 minute summary about my research I had one hour to answer the questions of 8 (associate) Professors. 1.5 hours later this happy photo was taken.
My research in the (Dutch) media
After sending out the press release about my upcoming PhD defense, my research on seaturtles destroying their own habitat did receive some attention in Trouw newspaper and a science-radio program. Check these links here.
10th ISBW Buzios, Brasil (& sea hares)
The 10th international seagrass biology workshop was a success! Together with seagrass specialists from around the globe we enjoyed 3 days packed with talks & workshops in a resort town of Buzios in Brasil. See WSA’s blog by Sity for a nice overview of the highlights and of the speakers (gallery seagrass watch) It also included …
Seagrass expedition Bank d’Arguin, Mauretania
The Bank d’Arguin is a magnificent place: Not only to see loads of beautiful birds, some marked with colourfull rings as a souvenir from the Netherlands, but also to do seagrass research. Together with Jim de Fouw (our expedition leader), Laura Govers, Tjisse van der Heide en Karin van de Reijden we traveled through the …
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