Marine Ecology Research

Blog

  • Rewilding day – setting up muddy rewilding experiments

    Last Thursday on #RewildingDay, our WildMarsh team was knee-deep (literally! – see below) in putting research into practice, setting up two hudge field experiments in Zeeland to collect robust rewilding data—hence this belated update.
    Setting up these experimental exclosures is no walk in the park! Our team persevered through challenging conditions, hauling heavy wooden poles, fences, and tools through deep gullies and manually carrying materials hundreds of meters through thick mud.

    Building the exclosures at Hedwige polder with Marieke, Jente (and Aiso and Bart in the background)

    All this effort to investigate:

    The impact of deer on low marsh colonization in the #Hedwige polder
    The effects of water buffalo grazing and trampling on the high marsh (drowned lands of Saeftinghe), and we’ll be investigating effects on #biodiversity wave erosion and heatwave resilience.

    Buffalo exclosure – in bright green @ Baalhoek, Zeeland

    One significant advantage we have in this Dutch landscape (compared to some of our other research sites) is our collaboration with local experts. The ecologists at @Zeeuws landschap have been invaluable partners, providing baseline data and access to their excellent field station.
    We’re also fortunate that colleagues from the Province of Zeeland and NIOZ established exclosures 5 years ago (see drone photo) giving us valuable insights into the longer-term impacts of megaherbivore reintroduction.
    Additionally, we’re collaborating with Freenature, who manage the herd and are helping us track buffalo spatial movements. Early results already show interesting differences in the impacts of buffalo compared to cattle,
    Next week Marieke Mom and Jente van Leeuwe will coordinate finalizing all the exclosures and taking the first measurements. Thanks to the many students colleagues and volunteers (Sven, Aiso, Jens van der Zee , Marlies Vollebregt , Brenda Walles, Twan, Bart de Koster, Valerie, Justin, Vincent and team Baecke) that helped this week, and already to those helping the I next. Stay tuned for updates as our exclosures yield their first data sets. the WildMarsh team

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  • Seagrass COP 2025 @WUR

    Seagrass restoration is a collective effort!  Last Monday, we had the privilege of hosting the Seagrass Community of Practice 2025 at Wageningen University. Together with Witteveen+Bos, we designed a program focused on knowledge exchange and collaboration. With 65 experts from academia, consultancy, government, and NGOs, we explored the latest insights and best practices in seagrass restoration.

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  • New letter in PNAS: Risks of habitat loss from seaweed cultivation within seagrass

    Lina Mtwana Nordlund about our new letter in PNAS: “Seagrasses are really cool, they can reduce the abundance of bacterial pathogens from the water. This is great for seaweed farming BUT can be quite harmful for the seagrass!”

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  • Seascape connectivity – field workshop Curacao

    Can coastal ecosystem recovery outpace the impacts of coastal development? 🌊 Our blue carbon workshop in #Curaçao explored this question. A week packed with in-water research, on-site discussions with experts from Curaçao and Bonaire, and quality time to reflect on future work with colleagues Céline, Mischa, and Mandy. We:

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  • Kenya workshop and Zanzibar visit

    How to strengthen coastal #resilience in Kenya? —this was the focus of last week’s workshop in Tiwi, where around 35 of us gathered to exchange ideas. Participants included

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  • We are hiring: WildMarsh PhDs

    We are hiring! Two PhD Positions are available as part of the NWO-funded WildMarsh project, focusing on trophic #rewilding in coastal ecosystems! Collaborate with a team from Wageningen University and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) as we explore how reintroducing large animals 🦌🐃 in #saltmarshes impacts biodiversity and coastal resilience against climate change. 🌱🌊:

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  • Seagrass Workshop and Conference Napels

    What an extraordinary week at hashtag#ISBW15_WSC, “the largest gathering of hashtag#seagrass experts on the planet,” in beautiful Naples! 🌿🌍 Great seagrass research, seagrass!, delicious food, an amazing venue, and lovely people (photos below):

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  • Field Project Marine Sciences 2024

    🚀 Field Project in Marine Sciences: Mission Accomplished! 🌊 122 dedicated Wageningen University & Research students immersed themselves in both ecological and social marine fieldwork techniques, analyzing the intricate socio-ecological system around Texel

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  • Wrapping up three productive fieldwork weeks in Eleuthera, The Bahamas. During this time, we kicked off Delphine Carroll ‘s MSc. project on seagrass-turtle-shark interactions and established a fruitful collaboration with Nicholas Higgs and the incredible team at the Cape Eleuthera Institute.

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  • Automated detection of vegetation and megaherbivores from drone imagery using deep learning – New paper

    Does deep learning and coding deter you from using it? As ecologists, we experienced that too, but we have dived in. In our new paper, led by Rebecca James, we employed deep learning to automate the analysis of aerial drone imagery to assess spatial patterns within subtidal #seagrass meadows and the distribution of turtles UNDERWATER 🌊🐢.

    Now you can try deep learning on your own system because we provide accessible, open-access tools to automatically classify vegetation and animals in aerial imagery.

    🌿🚁 Paper highlights:

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