Marine Ecology Research

Category: Meetings

  • Now online: “Wadden Natuur Kaart”

    Now online: “Wadden Natuur Kaart”

    The Wadden Natuur kaart (Wadden Sea Nature Map) is now online: this is one of the publications of the Waddensleutels project on which I worked in the last 2+years. You should definitively explore and test it. For example; activate the benthos hotspot layer (upper left) and see which areas are most interesting as foraging areas for birds. Or check out where intertidal musselbeds occured for 5 years or more (in last 17 years). Or combine a map of shrimp fishery intensity and biodiversity. Our newly developed habitat map allows you to do these analysis per habitat type. Have a go at it. Use this interactive map to make your own map using just your web browser, print it or download it  or continue in a GIS program. In the photo you see Han Olff & Sander Holthuijsen exploring the map at a large touch screen during the symposium in Leeuwarden.

    20150416MC100031 - Version 2

    More Waddensleutels publications here

  • Symposium: Wadden Sea foodweb & role of ecosystem engineers

    Symposium: Wadden Sea foodweb & role of ecosystem engineers

    The Waddensleutels project finished 16 april 2015 with a symposium in Leeuwarden, and with that also my 1st post-doc project.  Topics here were: Which measures should we take to increase the area of musselbeds in the Dutch Wadden Sea & what is the current foodweb stucture and state (and how is this affected by the presence of mussel beds)? We learned that mussel beds are of vital importance for the Wadden sea. Musselbeds increased the biomass of benthos, fish and birds upto 4 times compared to bare surrounding areas. Mussel beds really are the foundations of life in the Wadden Sea.

    These results can be found in our scientific report & glossy

    Schermafbeelding 2015-04-17 om 22.13.55

     

  • 10th ISBW Buzios, Brasil (& sea hares)

    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 a field trip to the seagrass (Halodole wrightii) meadows of  Ilha do Japonês, Cabo Frio. Here Dominik and I found some small green turtles above the seagrass bed and loads of sea hares swimming and mating.

    Together with the other young seagrass punks we had a great conference! See then here in their natural habitat:

    Many thanks to Tjeerd & Leon to provide funding for this great opportunity

  • CERF fieldwork trip: Manatee!

    CERF fieldwork trip: Manatee!

     

    After a week of CERF-ing (Conference of the Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation) in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, I was totally saturated with new knowledge. So a great time to go out to the field & spend a day searching for Florida seagrasses near Sebastian Inlet. Lori, our guide never saw the seagrass in such turbid & low biomass conditions and even when snorkeling in knee deep water we couldn’t see the seagrass or bottom. BUT I did saw my first manatee in the wild, they came very close to us (± 2m). A cool way to end a conference!

  • Visiting CEAB Spain

    Visiting CEAB Spain

    Last year I met Teresa Alcoverro and Rohan Arthur at the Turtle Symposium in India were we discovered that our research had a hudge overlap; we were both doing comparable work on ecosystems with very high densities of green turtles and declining seagrasses, and we only found this out just then. My lastest MS about habitat destruction by green turtles is in an advanced stage, so time to present my results at the lab in CEAB, in Blanes, Spain & discuss possibilities for comparing these special ecosystems of the Lakshadweep islands and the Derawan Archipelago where we both working in. Check out their great paper: “Implications of conserving an ecosystem modifier: Increasing green turtle (Chelonia mydas) densities substantially alters seagrass meadows“. Check also their interesting work showing that fishers of have been in conflict with turtles, and perceive that fish catches have declines over the years due to direct and indirect interactions with turtles. To be continued… (@ CERF)

  • Seagrass workshop Thailand

    Seagrass workshop Thailand

    I just had a great time in Phuket and Trang in Thailand were the seagrass scientists of the world gathered for 11 days for the World Seagrass Conference and the International Seagrass Biology Workshop.

    Here a group picture of al the people joining the ISBW inside the Emerald Cave after surviving the 80 meters of darkness to enter the cave in snake-formation:

    Part of our Workshop was a fieldtrip were we spotted the dugong feeding trails (pic middle) of the 40 dugongs that live in the area around Trang. Further searches of Dominik Kneer and me after the workshop only resulted in a observation of 3 vage brown silhouettes underwater which we lost in the waves after a boat passed by.

    On our first night we released our floating flowers at the Loy Kratong festival (every full moon in November, pic right)

    I presented my first exclosure experiment (seagrass with nutrient addition and mimicked turtle grazing) at the conference and received a 2nd prize in the student presentation competition, yeah.

  • East Kalimantan Programme Conference Samarinda

    East Kalimantan Programme Conference Samarinda

    After our first meeting in Texel in 2009 our second meeting was in Samarinda, Indonesia. The university of Samarinda (UNMUL) hosted the meeting and in 2 days we were updated of the outcomes the 15 WOTRO/ KNAW Phd projects that are now running in the Mahakam and Berau river Delta, including my project. The projects within the East Kalimantan program are very diverse ranging from geological, GIS, physical geography, to ecology, social and law. Many local NGO’ and scientists joined the meeting making it an interactive meeting. And the end of the second day Irfan Cibaj (Total) took us to a very interesting outcrop were he showed us the history of the previous delta in 70 meters of delta deposits. We even learned that there were once hard corals in the Mahakam delta, and that this delta is one in a series of ±30 delta’s that are situated on top of eachother. That puts a the human lifespan into perspective. On the 3rd day a big boat was arranged to travel downstream to show us the apex of the Mahakam rivers and the fluvial and tidal channels that transport the water out and into the delta respectivily. Duddy demonstrated and collected some sediment samples. We closed with a delicious Indonesian diner at Mesra Hotel and I travelled to Derawan Island for 2 days of fieldwork (heavy rain see pic). It was my shortest trip to Indonesia ever. Thanx Retno Wulandari for the picture above!


  • My First ISTS Sea Turtle Symposium

    My First ISTS Sea Turtle Symposium

    Before attending the symposium there were 2 obstacles to take: Waiting before it was safe again to fly from north-europe after the gigantic ash clouds following the  eruption of Eyajallajokull. And secondly, getting my businessvisa (3 days at the visa office) from the Indian Ambassy in The Hague. But the day before departure I finally received the visa and planes were flying again, so Goa, India, here I come!

    After 2 days of pre-symposium workshops on stabile isotopes, south (-east) asia, and opportunities to include dugongs in turtle research, the main symposium began. After a very interesting talk of Teresa Alcoverro on Turtle Grazing, it was time for my first presentation for the 700 seaturtle people in the ecosystem functioning session (invitation only). Based on a lot of positive feedback afterwards the talk was very succesfull. Attending the symposium, its many interesting presentations and meeting so many seaturtle people from around the world motivated me a lot. Thank you all!

  • Sylt Seagrass Workshop

    This Autumn our seagrass researchers team from Radboud university Nijmegen and NIOO Yerseke visited our seagrass collegues in the Wadden Sea Station Sylt Germany. Besides the presentations we had some wonderfull excursions to the seagrass in the bay behind the institute. And our hosts Harald and Ragnild Asmus also to took us out to dinner to tast some of the local seafood. A wonderfull trip, enjoy the pictures!

  • NAEM Posterprize 2009

    NAEM Posterprize 2009

    10 February Judith Sarneel and me found our way back (was it a Levy walk?) to Conference centre “De Werelt” for 2 days of total saturation by Ecological research during the Netherlands Annual Ecology Meeting in Lunteren: At daytime listen to “Allee effects”, early warning signals by spatial patterns, plantquality-herbivore interactions and at nighttime getting inspired from foodweb interations compared between seagrass, Serengeti-Mara, Hluhluwe (S.A.), and Barro Colorado (Panama) ecosystems.

    The second day it was time for Madelon and me to present our poster “Overgrazing by Green Turtles?” (PDF) together with 45 others. The poster were evaluated on scientific quality, clarity and attractiveness. Not without succes, like you will see below we won the NERN and NECOV 2009 posterprize, and 300 euros! We are very happy with this result, now its time to write an article from it to apply for the PhD paper award next year ☺

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    The only critics on the poster: increase fontsize of the author names