Tjeerd J Bouma

NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research | NIOZ · Department of Spatial Ecology

Tidal marshes provide many valuable ecosystem services and can play an important role in nature-based flood risk mitigation along low-lying coasts and estuaries, by attenuating waves and increasing erosion resistance. There is an effort around the world to restore or create tidal marshes, but it remains unknown how different marsh restoration and c...

With the projected escalation of extreme storm events, coastal ecosystems risk undergoing catastrophic shifts and losing essential ecosystem services. Subtidal soft‐bottom mussel beds, vital components of these ecosystems, are particularly vulnerable to hydrodynamically‐induced dislodgement (i.e., detachment of mussel clumps from the bed), especial...

Storm surge barriers and closure dams influence estuarine morphology. Minimizing consequential ecological impacts requires a thorough understanding of the morphological adaptation mechanisms and associated time scales. Both are unraveled using three decades of morphological measurements on the adaptation of the Eastern Scheldt estuary (The Netherla...

Tidal flats are valuable ecosystems that depend on complex biogeomorphic processes between organisms and sediment transport. Climate change has led to a rise in extreme weather events, such as storms. This, in turn, has increased sediment dynamics and created risks for the benthic communities inhabiting tidal flats. However, replicating sediment di...

Nature‐based solutions, through conservation or (re)creation of vegetated shorelines, are recognized to mitigate the impact of waves and erosion risks on shorelines. Wave attenuation is known to be dependent on plant traits, resulting in increasing wave attenuation rates with increasing shoot density, shoot thickness, height, and stiffness. However...

Restoration engineering measures, such as managed realignments or building groins, modify the environmental characteristics of coastal intertidal ecosystems. Creating physical modifications that are beneficial to an intertidal system's ecology necessitates an in‐depth understanding of the relationships between the abiotic and biotic components of a...

1) Background: Willow forests are well established as nature-based solutions contributing to flood protection in the riverine environment. With climate change, storm surges in winter may increasingly expose downstream floodplain forests to seawater pulses. The effects of seawater pulses on willows are unknown, as previous studies focused on long-te...

In face of sea-level rise and increasing risks for storm impacts on shorelines, there is a growing demand for developing nature-based flood defenses, for example by restoring or creating salt marshes in front of engineered structures such as dikes. However, salt marshes can only optimally provide flood defense if their sediment beds are erosion res...

The long‐term sustainability of natural and bottom‐cultured mussel beds relies on the availability of spat (i.e. juvenile mussels). Traditional spat collection methods, which disrupt the donor population and its habitat, have prompted the adoption of suspended mussel spat collectors (SMCs) as an ecologically sustainable alternative. However, practi...

Tidal flats are shrinking in extent globally. The dynamics of the response of estuarine tidal flats to global environmental changes remain unclear. Tidal-flat morphology is shaped by the interplay among wave and tidal forces, river discharge and sediment supply, and preservation of tidal flats requires a balance between erosional and depositional p...

Striking large‐scale spatial patterns in ecosystems, generated by self‐organization through biotic and abiotic feedback processes, influence ecosystem functioning and response to global environmental change. A remarkable example of this are the regular ridge‐runnel patterns found on tidal flats, which play an important role in mudflat‐marsh transit...

Coastal vegetated ecosystems including mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes are often shaped by positive plant–environment feedbacks. Plants improve their own living conditions with increasing patch size and density by attenuating hydrodynamics and stabilizing sediments. As these habitat modifications are critical for survival and growth, the po...

Recent remote sensing analysis has revealed extensive loss of tidal flats, yet the mechanisms driving these large-scale changes remain enigmatic. This study traces the spatiotemporal variations of 2538 tidal flat transects across China to elucidate how their morphological features vary with external factors, including suspended sediment concentrati...

Foundation species that modify their habitat can facilitate other species, including other foundation species. Most studies focus solely on a single foundation species, overlooking such facilitation cascades. In this study, we investigated the interactions between the two coastal foundation species Mytilus edulis (blue mussel) and Lanice conchilega...

Fishing-down-marine-food-webs has resulted in alarming declines of various species worldwide. Benthic rays are one examples of such overexploited species. On tidal flats, these rays are highly abundant and play an ecologically important role. They use tidal flats as refuge, feeding and resting grounds, during which they bury into the sediment, whic...

Transplantations of organisms in aquatic ecosystems play an important role in ecological restoration and commercial practices. However, success rates of these transplantations, especially when ecosystem engineers are involved, are often low. To enhance transplantation success, the promotion of self‐facilitation between transplants that mitigate env...

Mangrove trees influence their physical environment by exerting drag on tidal flows and waves while also stabilising the sediment bed of intertidal flats. These processes influence sediment accretion, the mangrove habitat and their resilience to sea level rise. However, little is known about the magnitude and spatial extent of the effects of mangro...

Tidal marshes store large amounts of organic carbon in their soils. Field data quantifying soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks provide an important resource for researchers, natural resource managers, and policy-makers working towards the protection, restoration, and valuation of these ecosystems. We collated a global dataset of tidal marsh soil organ...

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 vegeta...

Artificial structures are often used as a tool for habitat restoration and the recreation of degraded coastal ecosystems and their associated food webs. However, it is often unknown if and how these artificial structures may influence the habitat use of target species, thereby hampering restoration goals. In this study, we test how artificial barri...

Habitat restoration through transplantation of ecosystem engineering species has become an increasingly popular conservation strategy. However, the success of these restoration efforts depends largely on the ability of transplanted organisms to establish and persist in their new environment. Ecosystem engineers typically occur in large numbers and...

Aggregation into groups may affect performance of individuals through the balance and strength of facilitative versus competitive interactions. We studied in situ how seasonal variation in abiotic environment affects this balance for blue mussels, a semi-sessile species. We hypothesize that seasonal variation in stresses and resources affects the s...

Human-induced land subsidence causes many coastal areas to sink centimetres per year, exacerbating relative sea level rise (RSLR). While cities combat this problem through investment in coastal infrastructure, rural areas are highly dependent on the persistence of protective coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves and marshes. To shed light on the fu...

Transplantation success of ecosystem-engineering species can be low in dynamic environments, as such ecosystem-engineers often require density-dependent positive feedback mechanisms to overcome environmental stressors. These self-facilitating feedback mechanisms play an important role in self-organization, whereby complex systems tend to organize a...

Understanding the relationships among the environment, species traits and ecosystem properties is important for developing management measures that optimize the delivery of ecosystem services (ESs). Here, we identify the most important relationships responsible for the delivery of two key ESs provided by tidal marshes: (1) nature-based shoreline pr...

Hard substrates play an important role in global marine systems as settlement surface for sessile reef-forming species such as corals, seaweeds, and shellfish. In soft-sediment systems, natural hard substrates such as stones, bedrock and driftwood are essential as they support diverse assemblages of reef-associated species. However, availability of...

Coastal saltmarshes provide globally important ecosystem services including 'blue carbon' sequestration, flood protection, pollutant remediation, habitat provision and cultural value. Large portions of marshes have been lost or fragmented as a result of land reclamation, embankment construction, and pollution. Sea level rise threatens marsh surviva...

Salt marshes play an important role in coastal protection by reducing the impact of waves and shoreline erosion risks. While mature vegetation is responsible for the persistence and stability of marsh ecosystems, seedling survival of pioneer species is especially crucial for marsh propagation. Marsh seedlings, however, may be threatened by climate...

Salt marshes fronting coastal structures, such as seawalls and dikes, may offer important ecosystem‐based coastal defence by reducing the wave loading and run‐up levels during storms. We question (i) how the long‐term salt marsh development in the Dutch Wadden Sea relates to the tidal‐flat foreshore bathymetry and (ii) how the wave run‐up onto dike...

The implementation of climate change mitigation strategies based on the conservation and restoration of Blue Carbon ecosystems requires a deep understanding of the magnitude and variability in organic carbon (Corg) storage across and within these ecosystems. This study explored the variability in soil Corg stocks and burial rates across and within...

With the capacity to reduce wave energy and trap sediment, Scirpus mariqueter has become an important native species of annual grass for ecology restoration at the Yangtze Estuary in eastern China. Due to seasonal variances of biophysical characteristics, S. mariqueter usually bends and breaks in winter, resulting in flattened stems that may reduce...

Forecasting transitions between tidal ecosystem states, such as between bare tidal flats and vegetated marshes, is crucial because it may imply the irreversible loss of valuable ecosystem services. In this study, we combine geospatial analyses of three European estuaries with a simple numerical model to demonstrate that the development of micro-top...

Intertidal coastal sediments are important centers for nutrient transformation, regeneration, and storage. Sediment resuspension, due to wave action or tidal currents, can induce nutrient release to the water column and fuel primary production. Storms and extreme weather events are expected to increase due to climate change in coastal areas, but li...

Coastal ecosystems are generally controlled by the combination of bottom‐up (resource‐driven) and top‐down (consumer‐driven) trophic, and non‐trophic interactions. Anthropogenic disruption of these interactions, for example, through eutrophication or overfishing, leads to loss of the foundation species composing these ecosystems. Within degraded ec...

Heatwaves affect tidal flat ecosystems by altering the bioturbating behavior of benthic species, with potential consequences for sediment oxygenation, particle mixing, and erodibility. Although the frequency and duration of heatwaves are expected to increase under global warming scenarios, we lack insights into how heatwaves' temporal dynamics affe...

Vegetated coastal ecosystems such as salt marshes, dunes and seagrass meadows occur at the land–sea interface—a dynamic environment typified by harsh growing conditions. These ecosystems are known as biogeomorphic landscapes because their functioning depends on biophysical interactions by which organisms engineer landforms to their own benefit. The...

Previous studies have revealed the importance of short‐term bed‐level change on the long‐term development of intertidal ecosystems. One of the recent advancements in the short‐term bed dynamics observation is the developments of laser‐based surface elevation dynamics (LSED) and acoustic surface elevation dynamics (ASED) sensors. These two sensors a...

Sediment redistribution in coastal systems is known to reshape geomorphology, disturb ecological habits, and affect socioeconomics, but little is known about storm-induced delta erosion and long-distance sediment transport along the coastline. Previous studies suggested that the East Asian winter monsoon winds drive southward longshore sediment tra...

The fate of coastal ecosystems depends on their ability to keep pace with sea-level rise—yet projections of accretion widely ignore effects of engineering fauna. Here, we quantify effects of the mussel, Geukensia demissa, on southeastern US saltmarsh accretion. Multi-season and -tidal stage surveys, in combination with field experiments, reveal tha...

Almost one third of people on Earth live near the coast where they are at risk from floods. Coastal areas are often protected from flooding by human-built flood-protection structures, like dikes and seawalls. Now that Earth’s climate is changing, sea-level rise and storms are becoming more intense and frequent, which increases the risk of flooding....

Mangrove forests are increasingly valued as wave-attenuating buffers in coastal flood defence strategies. However, as mangroves are vulnerable to wave-induced erosion, this raises the question, how can the stability of these protective mangrove forests be promoted? To address this question, we investigate how mangrove dynamics in a microtidal syste...

Reef‐forming species form integral aspects of coastal ecosystems, but are rapidly degrading world‐wide. To mitigate these declines, nature managers increasingly rely on the restoration of habitat‐structuring, reef‐forming species by, for example, introducing artificial reefs that may directly function as complex reef habitat. Since the use of biode...

The coastal protection function provided by the vegetation of tidal wetlands (e.g. salt marshes) will play an important role in defending coastlines against storm surges in the future and depend on how these systems respond to such forcing. Extreme wave events may induce vegetation failure and thereby risking loss of functionality in coastal protec...

Attaining the goals of ‘The UN‐Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’ requires efficient methods for large‐scale restoration of degraded ecosystems. Seed‐based approaches may offer opportunities for massive recovery of native vegetation but are prone to failure when applied to highly valued coastal wetlands such as salt marshes. Pinpointing the impact of...

Large grazers (megaherbivores) have a profound impact on ecosystem functioning. However, how ecosystem multifunctionality is affected by changes in megaherbivore populations remains poorly understood. Understanding the total impact on ecosystem multifunctionality requires an integrative ecosystem approach, which is especially challenging to obtain...

Coastal systems store enormous carbon quantities in their sediment, which originates from various autochthonous and allochthonous sources. Carbon fluxes in coastal ecosystems have a strong effect on the recipient food-webs and carbon emission offsets. Yet, the relative importance of autochthonous vs. allochthonous C inputs to coastal carbon budget...

Understanding the sensitivity of tidal flats to environmental changes is challenging. Currently, most studies rely on process-based models to systematically explain the morphodynamic evolution of tidal flats. In this study, we proposed an alternative empirical approach to explore tidal flat dynamics using statistical indices based on long-term time...

The cover image is based on the Research Article ‘Mother knows best’: Maternal oviposition effects of a range‐expanding insect herbivore degrade coastal wetlands by targeting juvenile foundation plant species by Zhonghua Ning et al., https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.4369.

Despite active seagrass restoration gaining traction as a tool to halt and reverse worldwide seagrass losses, overall success remains limited. Restoration strategies, through seeding or transplantation, face different environmental bottlenecks that limit restoration success. Choosing the most appropriate strategy of the two for a specific location,...

Storm‐induced erosion events may alter the diversity of tidal flat communities by selecting species that can better tolerate such disturbances. Introduced and invasive species are highly adaptable to a wide range of abiotic characteristics, and this adaptability may make them better able to withstand erosion events. With a novel flume method, we co...

Mechanical disturbance from waves and sediment dynamics is a key bottleneck to mangrove seedling establishment. Yet, how species vary in tolerance to sediment dynamics has not been quantified. We identified how tolerance to sediment dynamics differs for three mangrove propagule traits: propagule size, successional stage, and type of embryo developm...

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...

Tidal marshes are increasingly valued for their nature-based shoreline protection function, as they reduce waves, currents and erosion. The effectiveness of this function depends on the ability of tidal marsh plants to grow and survive under pressure from waves and currents. However, how this varies with species-dependent plant traits is poorly und...

Elucidating bottlenecks at critical life stages and quantifying associated resilience (including resistance and recovery) to physical processes are central in inform restoration and attain sustainable development of coastal biogeomorphic ecosystems. Seedling establishment is a key life stage determines saltmarsh restoration potentials. However, the...

There is an increasing demand for the creation and restoration of tidal marshes around the world, as they provide highly valued ecosystem services. Yet restored tidal marshes are strongly vulnerable to factors such as sea level rise and declining sediment supply. How fast the restored ecosystem develops, how resilient it is to sea level rise, and h...