Eliza Heery

National University of Singapore | NUS · Department of Biological Sciences

In the marine environment, greening of grey infrastructure (GGI) is a rapidly growing field that attempts to encourage native marine life to colonize marine artificial structures to enhance biodiversity, thereby promoting ecosystem functioning and hence service provision. By designing multifunctional sea defences, breakwaters, port complexes and of...

The urbanisation and hardening of shorelines is likely to continue in response to coastal population growth and climate change. To mitigate associated ecological impacts, ecological engineering is being increasingly applied to enhance local biodiversity. This includes retrofitting topographically complex tiles or units onto intertidal artificial st...

Green spaces and agronomy have long been used in terrestrial urban environments to help mitigate the negative effects of urbanization on social-ecological systems. However, they represent an unexplored frontier in marine urban environments, which are also central to human–environment interactions in coastal cities. We evaluated the feasibility and...

Urban shorelines undergo substantial hydrodynamic changes as a result of coastal engineering and shoreline armouring that lead to major shifts in sedimentation, turbidity, and other factors. These changes often coincide with major shifts in the composition and distribution of marine biota, however, rarely are hydrodynamic-mediated factors confirmed...

Human population density within 100 km of the sea is approximately three times higher than the global average. People in this zone are concentrated in coastal cities that are hubs for transport and trade – which transform the marine environment. Here, we review the impacts of three interacting drivers of marine urbanization (resource exploitation,...

Interactions in the Marine Benthos - edited by Stephen J. Hawkins August 2019

Human population growth and accelerating coastal development have been the drivers for unprecedented construction of artificial structures along shorelines globally. Construction has been recently amplified by societal responses to reduce flood and erosion risks from rising sea levels and more extreme storms resulting from climate change. Such stru...

Human population growth and accelerating coastal development have been the drivers for unprecedented construction of artificial structures along shorelines globally. Construction has been recently amplified by societal responses to reduce flood and erosion risks from rising sea levels and more extreme storms resulting from climate change. Such stru...

Human population density within 100 km of the sea is approximately three times higher than the global average. People in this zone are concentrated in coastal cities that are hubs for transport and trade – which transform the marine environment. Here, we review the impacts of three interacting drivers of marine urbanization (resource exploitation,...

Coral reefs worldwide are facing multiple severe stressors leading to ecosystem degradation, but local extinctions of species are not well documented. Here, we track the diversity of Pocilloporidae Gray, 1840 coral species—many of which are known to be sensitive to environmental disturbances—on Singapore reefs through time, integrating information...

Over the last decade there has been a global effort to eco-engineer urban artificial shorelines with the aim of increasing their biodiversity and extending their conservation value. One of the most common and viable eco-engineering approaches on seawalls is to use enhancement features that increase habitat structural complexity, including concrete...

Artificial structures, such as seawalls and breakwaters, are essential components of shoreline protection, yet they can have major consequences for marine organisms, particularly those in surrounding sediments. Improved understanding of the mechanisms by which artificial structures influence sedimentary habitats and the scale at which these mechani...

Artificial structures are agents of change in marine ecosystems. They add novel habitat for hard-substrate organisms and modify the surrounding environment. Most research to date has focused on the communities living directly on artificial structures, and more research is needed on the potential impacts these structures have on nearby communities a...

Urbanization is a process that heavily alters marine and terrestrial environments, though terrestrial urban ecosystems have been studied far more intensively. Terrestrial studies suggest that urbanization can facilitate mesopredators by enhancing food and shelter resources and reducing predation pressure from apex consumers. This in turn has consid...

Given predicted increases in urbanization in tropical and subtropical regions, understanding the processes shaping urban coral reefs may be essential for anticipating future conservation challenges. We used a case study approach to identify unifying patterns of urban coral reefs and clarify the effects of urbanization on hard coral assemblages. Dat...

Adaptation to sea level rise (SLR) is primarily taking place at the local level, with varied governments grappling with the diverse ways that SLR will affect cities. Interpreting SLR in the context of local planning requires integrating knowledge across many disciplines, and expert knowledge can help planners understand the potential ramifications...

Along urbanised coastlines, urban infrastructure is increasingly becoming the dominant habitat. These structures are often poor surrogates for natural habitats, and a diversity of eco‐engineering approaches have been trialled to enhance their biodiversity, with varying success. We undertook a quantitative meta‐analysis and qualitative review of 109...

Extensive development and construction in marine and coastal systems is driving a phenomenon known as “ocean sprawl”. Ocean sprawl removes or transforms marine habitats through the addition of artificial structures and some of the most significant impacts are occurring in sedimentary environments. Marine sediments have substantial social, ecologica...

Bycatch and resultant discard mortality are issues of global concern. The groundfish demersal trawl fishery on the west coast of the United States is a multispecies fishery with significant catch of target and nontarget species. These catches are of particular concern in regard to species that have previously been declared overfished and are curren...

Quantifying discarded catch is needed to guide effective fishery management and recognize the unintended impacts of fishing; ultimately to promote a more sustainable fishery. To understand fishing mortality prior to the establishment of an IFQ management system, we provide estimates of discarded and total catch (sum of discard and landings) in the...

Discarded catch is a major concern in mixed-stock fisheries and enumeration of discard has been a challenge in marine fishery management. We provide estimates of discarded and total catch in the U.S. Pacific west coast groundfish demersal trawl fishery from 2002 through 2009, under trip limit management. Discarded-catch data from the West Coast Gro...

Length frequency data are a central component of many statistical age-structured models, which are used widely to conduct fisheries stock assessments and produce estimates of stock status for management. However, these data can be biased due to systematic errors during the sampling process. This study examined how bias in length frequency data affe...