Van der Heide, Prof. Tjisse
Tjisse van der Heide is a researcher for the Royal Netherlands Institute for Marine Research (NIOZ) and Professor of Coastal Ecology at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES) at the University of Groningen.
Van der Heide conducts research into coastal ecosystems and the role of ecosystem engineers. ‘Ecosystem engineers are organisms that do not only respond to environmental circumstances but also highly influence them, and thus create suitable living circumstances for themselves and other species. Due to human interference, many ecosystem-engineers-dominated ecosystems all over the world and the species that live within them have been lost. Examples of such ecosystems are eelgrass beds, mussel and oyster beds, salt marshes, and dunes.’ Van der Heide researches how ecosystems work and how ecosystems that have dissipated can be recovered. He does so by combining field and lab experiments with computer models. In addition, Van der Heide is Vice Chair of the Dutch OBN Knowledge Network for Nature Restoration and Management’s team of experts on dune and coastal landscapes.
In 2024, van der Heide received a Vici-grant for his research on the restoration of coastal ecosystems by temporarily mimicking the habitat-forming species. With this grant, a new framework that combines methods from ecology, industrial design, and engineering to design tailormade mimics will be tested.
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| Last modified: | 29 February 2024 11.24 a.m. |