Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
-
A global meta-analysis on the drivers of salt marsh planting success and implications for ecosystem services
- Planting has been widely adopted to battle the loss of salt marshes and to establish living shorelines. However, the drivers of success in salt marsh planting and their ecological effects are poorly understood at the global scale. Here, we assemble a global database, encompassing 22,074 observations reported in 210 studies, to examine the drivers and impacts of salt marsh planting. We show that, on average, 53% of plantings survived globally, and plant survival and growth can be enhanced by careful design of sites, species selection, and novel planted technologies. Planting enhances shoreline protection, primary productivity, soil carbon storage, biodiversity conservation and fishery production (effect sizes = 0.61, 1.55, 0.21, 0.10 and 1.01, respectively), compared with degraded wetlands. However, the ecosystem services of planted marshes, except for shoreline protection, have not yet fully recovered compared with natural wetlands (effect size = −0.25, 95% CI −0.29, −0.22). Fortunately, the levels of most ecological functions related to climate change mitigation and biodiversity increase with plantation age when compared with natural wetlands, and achieve equivalence to natural wetlands after 5–25 years. Overall, our results suggest that salt marsh planting could be used as a strategy to enhance shoreline protection, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.
-
Vegetation controls on channel network complexity in coastal wetlands
- Channel networks are key to coastal wetland functioning and resilience under climate change. Vegetation affects sediment and hydrodynamics in many different ways, which calls for a coherent framework to explain how vegetation shapes channel network geometry and functioning. Here, we introduce an idealized model that shows how coastal wetland vegetation creates more complexly branching networks by increasing the ratio of channel incision versus topographic diffusion rates, thereby amplifying the channelization feedback that recursively incises finer-scale side-channels. This complexification trend qualitatively agrees with and provides an explanation for field data presented here as well as in earlier studies. Moreover, our model demonstrates that a stronger biogeomorphic feedback leads to higher and more densely vegetated marsh platforms and more extensive drainage networks. These findings may inspire future field research by raising the hypothesis that vegetation-induced self-organization enhances the storm surge buffering capacity of coastal wetlands and their resilience under sea-level rise.
-
On the relative role of abiotic and biotic controls on channel network development: insights from scaled tidal flume experiments
- Tidal marshes provide highly valued ecosystem services, which depend on variations in the geometric properties of the tidal channel networks dissecting marsh landscapes. The development and evolution of channel network properties are controlled by abiotic (dynamic flow-landform feedback) and biotic processes (e.g., vegetation-flow-landform feedback). However, the relative role of biotic and abiotic processes, and under which condition one or the other is more dominant, remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the impact of spatio-temporal plant colonization patterns on tidal channel network development through flume experiments. Four scaled experiments mimicking tidal landscape development were conducted in a tidal flume facility: two control experiments without vegetation, a third experiment with hydrochorous vegetation colonization (i.e., seed dispersal via the tidal flow), and a fourth with patchy colonization (i.e., by direct seeding on the sediment bed). Our results show that more dense and efficient channel networks are found in the vegetation experiments, especially in the hydrochorous seeding experiment with slower vegetation colonization. Further, an interdependency between abiotic and biotic controls on channel development can be deduced. Whether biotic factors affect channel network development seems to depend on the force of the hydrodynamic energy and the stage of the system development. Vegetation-flow-landform feedbacks are only dominant in contributing to channel development in places where intermediate hydrodynamic energy levels occur and mainly have an impact during the transition phase from a bare to a vegetated landscape state. Overall, our results suggest a zonal domination of abiotic processes at the seaward side of intertidal basins, while biotic processes dominate system development more towards the landward side.
-
Kleine en grote verhalen van de Belgische Geologische DIenst - Petite et grande histoire du Service géologique de Belgique
-
Wat vooraf ging: twee rivaliserende kampen - L'histoire préliminaire : Deux camp rivaux
-
De vroege geschiedenis: Het ontstaan van de Belgische Geologische Dienst - L'histoire préliminaire : Aux origines du Service géologique de Belgique
-
Grote verwezenlijkingen - Principales réalisations
-
Regionalisering - Régionalisation
-
De geologische kaart van België - La carte géologique de Belgique
-
Verschillen tussen "museumgeologen" en "vrije geologen" - Différences entre les "géologues de musée" et les "géologues libres"
-
Informatisering - Informatisation
-
Een dak boven het hoofd voor de BGD - Un toit pour le SGB
-
Enkele opmerkelijke personen - Quelques personnes remarquables
-
Gender- en taaldiversiteit aan de BGD: een geschiedenis van vooruitgang - La diversité linguistique et de genre au SGB: une histoire de progrès
-
Sint-Barbara - Sainte Barbe
-
Comfort op kantoor: temperatuur in tijden van energieschaarste - Le confort au bureau : la température en période de pénurie d'énergie
-
Archeo-antropologisch assessment van de menselijke resten van de opgraving Baardegem-N411
-
Terreininterventie en archeo-antropologische detailstudie van menselijke resten uit WO I afkomstig van een toevalsvondst te Wijtschate – Wijtschatestraat 82 (2020) (TV ID 4468)
-
A PLACE ON THE FRINGE OF SAGALASSOS The excavations at the Rock Sanctuary
-
FROM BURIAL PLOT TO DUMP SITE Te history of the PQ4 compound at Sagalassos (southwest Anatolia)
