Patrick Meire

University of Antwerp | UA · Department of Biology

Tidal marshes are often restored on compact agricultural soil that limits tidally induced groundwater dynamics and soil aeration after restoration. We hypothesized that impaired soil aeration affects biogeochemical cycling and leads to altered porewater nutrient concentrations in restored tidal marshes. We studied soil hydraulic properties, groundw...

Distribution and abundance of the two calanoid copepod species Eurytemora affinis (Poppe, 1880) and Eurytemora velox (Lilljeborg, 1853) were studied in the Scheldt estuary (Belgium, The Netherlands) in order to look for general patterns of both species’ distribution in relation to environmental factors and compared with their distribution in the tr...

Many tidal marshes have been lost by past land use changes, but are nowadays increasingly restored and created to provide valuable ecosystem services such as nature‐based flood and erosion protection along estuarine shorelines. To be functional for flood and shoreline erosion protection, restored and created tidal marshes should develop erosion res...

Citation: Mouth, C.; Ferreira, F.; Sukhikh, N.; Bou, E.; Bernard, A.; Tackx, M.; Azémar, F.; Meire, P.; Maris, T.; Legal, L. Exploring the Genetic Structure and Phylogeographic Patterns of the Copepod Genus Eurytemora in Europe. Diversity 2024, 16, 483. https://doi.org/10.3390/ d16080483 Academic Editors: Abstract: The genus Eurytemora is a diverse...

The main tributaries of the Scheldt estuary offer an interesting setting to study the response of organisms to various environmental conditions. The Bovenscheldt and the Dender are closed to tidal entrance by locks, and are hence essentially fresh water systems with low turbulence. The Durme and the Rupel, with its two sub-tributaries (the Beneden-...

Policy makers increasingly acknowledge the importance of considering ecosystem services (ESs) and biodiversity in impact assessment (IA) to reduce ecosystem degradation and halt ongoing losses of biodiversity. Recent research demonstrates how ESs can add value to IA, i.e., by shifting the focus from avoiding negative impacts to creating opportuniti...

Enhanced weathering (EW) of silicate rocks is a negative emission technology that captures CO2 from the atmosphere. Olivine (Mg2SiO4) is a fast weathering silicate mineral that can be used for EW and is abundant in dunite rock. In addition to CO2 sequestration, EW also has co-benefits in an agricultural context. Adding silicate minerals to soils ca...

The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating, with glaciers shifting from marine to land termination and potential consequences for fjord ecosystems downstream. Monthly samples in 2016 in two fjords in southwest Greenland show that subglacial discharge from marine-terminating glaciers sustains high phytoplankton productivity that is domin...

Increased pressures from human activities may cause cumulative ecological effects on marine ecosystems. Increasingly, the study of ecosystem services is applied in the marine environment to assess the full effects of human activities on the ecosystem and on the benefits it provides. However, in the marine environment, such integrated studies have y...

Increased pressures from human activities may cause cumulative ecological effects on marine ecosystems. Increasingly, the study of ecosystem services is applied in the marine environment to assess the full effects of human activities on the ecosystem and on the benefits it provides. However, in the marine environment, such integrated studies have y...

Meltwater runoff from glaciers carries particles, so-called glacial flour that may affect planktonic organisms and the functioning of marine ecosystems. Protist microplankton is at the base of marine food webs and thus plays an important role in sustaining important ecosystem services. To assess the effect of glacial flour on photoautotrophic, hete...

We studied how changing human impacts affected phytoplankton dynamics in the freshwater and brackish tidal reaches of the Zeeschelde estuary (Belgium) between 2002 and 2018. Until the early 2000s, the Zeeschelde was heavily polluted due to high wastewater discharges. By 2008, water quality had improved, resulting in lower nutrient concentrations an...

Wetland communities are shaped by high levels of stress, disturbance and competition. Using South African palmiet wetlands as a case study (Prionium serratum dominated valley-bottom wetlands), we explore whether autogenic or allogenic succession is the dominant process driving community dynamics in valley-bottom wetlands in drylands. Several wetlan...

Much uncertainty exists about the vulnerability of valuable tidal marsh ecosystems to relative sea level rise. Previous assessments of resilience to sea level rise, to which marshes can adjust by sediment accretion and elevation gain, revealed contrasting results, depending on contemporary or Holocene geological data. By analyzing globally distribu...

Nature-based strategies, such as wave attenuation by tidal marshes, are increasingly proposed as a complement to mitigate the risks of failure of engineered flood defense structures such as levees. However, recent analysis of historic coastal storms revealed smaller dike breach dimensions if there were natural, high tidal marshes in front of the di...

Groundwater fluxes in tidal marshes largely control key ecosystem functions and services, such as vegetation growth, soil carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. In tidal marshes restored on formerly embanked agricultural land, groundwater fluxes are often limited as compared to nearby natural marshes, as a result of historical agricultural soi...

This chapter presents the causes of physical and ecological degradation of estuaries in relation to human activities and climate change. The direct and indirect effects of degradation on ecosystem services and fish are listed, as well as the key questions that need to be answered in order to undertake rehabilitation and restoration actions. Ecohydr...

In this study we explore the sub-lethal effects of two malaria vector control pesticides, deltamethrin and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), on Xenopus laevis by incorporating different levels of biological organisation. Pesticide accumulation in frog tissue was measured alongside liver metabolomics and individual swimming behaviour to assess...

Many estuaries exhibit seasonality in the estuary‐scale distribution of suspended particulate matter (SPM). This SPM distribution depends on various factors, including freshwater discharge, salinity intrusion, erodibility, and the ability of cohesive SPM to flocculate into larger aggregates. Various authors indicate that biotic factors, such as the...

Estuaries often show regions in which Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) accumulates. The location and magnitude corresponding to such accumulation result from a complex interplay between processes such as river flushing, salinity, nutrients, phytoplankton grazing, and the light climate in the water column. Of particular interest is the long-term evolution of t...

The vulnerability of the world’s tidal marshes to sea-level rise threatens their substantial contribution to fisheries, coastal protection, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. Feedbacks between relative sea-level rise (RSLR) and the rate of mineral and organic sediment accumulation in tidal wetlands, and hence elevation gain, have b...

The threat to wildlife from chemical exposure exists regardless of the presence of conservation boundaries. An issue exacerbated by the use of environmentally persistent insecticides for vector control and long-range transport of legacy persistent organic pollutants. In this comparative study between two important conservation regions in South Afri...

The development of the Smartsediment Ecosystem Services QGIS tool enables users to make a first numerical evaluation of the impact of sediment management on ecosystem services in an estuary. This article is of interest to everyone involved in the management of estuaries and coastal areas. Read more to find out how the Smartsediment tool can be us...

Phytoplankton primary production (PP) in turbid estuaries is often limited by light-availability. Two important factors altering light-climate are solar irradiance at the water surface and exponential light-extinction coefficient within the water column. Additionally, the depth of the water body changes the light-climate and corresponding PP by alt...

As an estuary being restored, the Scheldt (Belgium/The Netherlands) offers an interesting setting to study the response of organisms and ecosystems to changing conditions. In this regard, this study specifically deals with the spatio-temporal distribution and possible genetic differentiation among the species complex Eurytemora affinis (Copepoda, C...

Macrophytes are important organisms in running water systems, having a decisive role in ecological processes and interactions. Their temporal and spatial distribution in streams can be highly variable, and this is often determined by flow velocity. In this study, macrophyte growth, morphology and nutrient stoichiometry were studied monthly during o...

It is expected that climate change will cause more frequent extreme events of heavy precipitation and drought, changing hydrological conditions in riverine ecosystems, such as flow velocity, evapotranspiration (drought) or runoff (heavy precipitation). This can lead to an increased input of terrestrial organic matter and elevated levels of dissolve...

Climate change can result in multiple indirect alterations of the environment in riverine ecosystems, due to changes in precipitation and runoff. Flow velocity, concentrations of CO2 and nutrients are thereby expected to change, and consequences of the combination of those effects for macrophytes, a key organism group, are still poorly understood....

There is increasing recognition that soils fulfil many functions for society. Each soil can deliver a range of functions, but some soils are more effective at some functions than others due to their intrinsic properties. In this study we mapped four different soil functions on agricultural lands across the European Union. For each soil function, in...

Sediment transport in estuaries and the formation of estuarine turbidity maxima (ETM) highly depends on the ability of suspended particulate matter (SPM) to flocculate into larger aggregates. While most literature focuses on the small-scale impact of biological flocculants on the formation of larger aggregates, the influence of the flocculation pro...

Since the early 2000s, there have been substantial efforts to transform the concept of ecosystem services into practice. Spatial assessment tools are being developed to evaluate the impact of spatial planning on a wide range of ecosystem services. However, the actual implementation in decision-making remains limited. To improve implementation, tool...

The Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) is a damaging invader which is designated as a species of Union Concern within the European Union. A negative impact of the crabs on macrophyte vegetation in lowland rivers is suspected but not yet proven or quantified. We have performed a mesocosm study that combines a density gradient of Chinese mitten...

Transport and transformation of inorganic nutrients are influenced by abiotic-biotic interactions and determine downstream water quality. Macrophytes play an important role in these complex ecological interactions. The role of macrophytes was studied in three reaches of the groundwater-fed, oligotrophic River Fischa with different macrophyte covera...

The weathering of silicates is a major control on atmospheric CO2 at geologic timescales. It was proposed to enhance this process to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. While there are some studies that propose and theoretically analyze the application of rock powder to agricultural land, results from field experiments are still scarce. In ord...

There is increasing interest in the use of nature-based approaches for mitigation of storm surges along coasts, deltas, and estuaries. However, very few studies have quantified the effectiveness of storm surge height reduction by a real-existing, estuarine-scale, nature-based, and engineered flood defense system, under specific storm surge conditio...

The second coastal safety assay in The Netherlands, reported in 2006, showed that more than 70% of the 24-kilometre-long Wadden Sea dyke on the island of Texel failed to meet safety standards. A refurbishment was executed on 14 kilometres of the dyke, increasing its width and height, and adding a cover layer of grass and asphalt. Along the remainin...

Although the consideration of socio-economic demands with biodiversity conservation is now high on the environmental policy agenda, it is not yet standard practice in spatial planning. This is argued to be related, amongst others, to a lack of awareness among stakeholders and practitioners of the underpinning role of ecosystem functioning and biodi...

Despite great advances, experiments concerning the response of ecosystems to climate change still face considerable challenges, including the high complexity of climate change in terms of environmental variables, constraints in the number and amplitude of climate treatment levels, and the limited scope of responses and interactions covered. Drawing...

Due to an increasing appreciation of the highly valuable ecosystem services of tidal marshes, an increasing number of projects are being implemented to re-introduce tides on formerly embanked land using a variety of ‘soft’ engineering techniques. However, the ecological development of the recreated tidal marshes largely depends on the design of the...

There is growing consensus that human interventions can fundamentally change fine sediment transport in estuaries. Critical transitions in response to human interventions have been hypothesized based on indirect observational evidence and theoretical understanding. So far direct evidence has been lacking. Based on a 20 year data-set of surface susp...

Anurans from the genus Xenopus have long been used as standard testing organisms and occur naturally in tropical and sub-tropical areas where malaria vector control pesticides are actively used. However, literature on the toxic effects of these pesticides is limited. This review analyses the available data pertaining to both Xenopus and the pestici...

Accurate measurement of water content (θ), apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) of soils, and soil solution electrical conductivity (ECw) is critical for a better management of irrigation water and the effective monitoring and control of soil salinity. In this paper, we demonstrate the design and validation of an identical time domain reflectomet...

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a high-throughput technology with potential to infer nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and carbon (C) content of all vascular plants based on empirical calibrations with chemical analysis, but is currently limited to the sample populations upon which it is based. Here we provide a first step towards a global arctic-a...

Wetlands globally are highly threatened by agriculture, and damage associated with it, such as invasion by alien species and the impacts of fertilizers and pesticides. South African palmiet wetlands make an interesting case study to investigate this, as they are valuable valley-bottom, peat-forming systems, highly threatened by agricultural develop...

While the importance of grasslands in terrestrial silicon (Si) cycling and fluxes to rivers is established, the influence of large grazers has not been considered. Here, we show that hippopotamuses are key actors in the savannah biogeochemical Si cycle. Through a detailed analysis of Si concentrations and stable isotope compositions in multiple eco...

The representation of the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services (ES) is a crucial research frontier in the field of ES modeling. In fact, most current ES models focus on static ES assessments, that need to be repeated with different inputs per time step to explore potential changes in ES. Here, we present a new approach for the dynamic modeling o...

The multiple ecosystem services (ES) co-produced by social-ecological systems include ES directly resulting from ecosystem functioning, and ES mediated by human activities, which can have negative effects on the system and on the ES provided. As a result, different patterns of multiple ES delivery can be characterized by sustainable or unsustainabl...

• Aquatic macrophytes can have a significant impact on their associated community of epiphytic algae and bacteria through the provisioning of structural habitat complexity through different growth forms, the exudation of nutrients and the release of allelochemicals. In turn, this effect on epiphytic biofilm biomass and nutrient content has a potent...

In places where tidal marshes were formerly embanked for agricultural land use, these marshes are nowadays increasingly restored with the aim to regain important ecosystem services. However, there is growing evidence that restored tidal marshes and their services develop slowly and differ from natural tidal marshes in many aspects. Here we focus on...

Many macrophyte species in lowland streams exhibit signs of grazing and herbivore damage, even though herbivory by aquatic macroinvertebrates and fish is generally considered to be of little importance. In this study, we collected evidence for the hypothesis that herbivory on macrophytes by macroinvertebrates and fish is more widespread than assume...

There are many different anthropogenic causes of wetland degradation, such as disturbances which affect the physical structure of wetlands, resulting in erosion (altered fire regimes, road and railway building through wetlands, channelization of wetlands), pollution, land-cover change, and climate change. These different types of degradation have v...

Microhabitat suitability models are useful tools to enhance the reintroduction success of fish. Since 2008, a translocation and reintroduction program has been carried out in Flanders to prevent substantial loss of genetic variability in the Cottus perifretum (bullhead) population, and to meet the goals set by the Habitat Directive. To this end, ha...

The weathering of silicates is a major control on atmospheric CO2 at geologic time scales. It was proposed to enhance this process to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. While there are some studies that propose and theoretically analyze the application of rock powder on agricultural land, results from field experiments are still scarce. In or...

Despite the importance of water purification to society, it is one of the more difficult wetland ecosystem services to quantify. It remains an issue in ecosystem service assessments where rapid estimates are needed, and poor-quality indicators are overused. We attempted to quantify the water purification service of South African palmiet wetlands (v...

Along the Scheldt estuary, intertidal areas such as intertidal flats and intertidal marshes have important functions including flood water storage, water quality regulation and provision of important habitats. The functioning of intertidal marshes is determined by short-term geomorphic processes: the marshes are regularly flooded and sediments are...

We provide reflectance spectra for 22 South African palmiet wetland species collected in spring 2015 from three wetlands throughout the Cape Floristic Region. In addition, we provide summarized plant functional trait data, as well as supporting and meta-data. Reflectance spectra were collected with a portable ASD Fieldspec Pro using standard method...

Integrated ecosystem management is challenging due to many, often conflicting, targets and limited resources to allocate. A valuable and straightforward approach is to integrate an ecosystem services assessment in a cost-effectiveness analysis as method to evaluate and compare the cost-effectiveness of several management scenarios to reach one or m...

The deliverable relates to Task 4.2 Quantifying the supply for Soil Functions Functions. The aim of this task is to quantify the potential supply of soil functions at EU level. This is based on:  The large-scale proxy-indicators for each of the soil functions, as identified in WP3  The spatial distribution of soils and soil properties across Euro...