Willem-Jan Emsens- PhD
- Professor (Assistant) at University of Antwerp
Willem-Jan Emsens
- PhD
- Professor (Assistant) at University of Antwerp
About
49
Publications
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Introduction
Willem-Jan Emsens currently works as researcher at the Antwerp Zoo Centre for Research and Conservation (CRC/KMDA) and as Assistant-Professor at Antwerp University (ECOSPHERE), and does research in Biogeochemistry, Ecology, Ecohydrology, Vegetation science and Soil microbiology, with specific interest in peatlands and species-rich grasslands. Coordinator of scientific activities in nature reserve "De Zegge". Additional (personal) interest in Tropical ecology and Zoology.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 2023 - present
Centre for Research and Conservation
Position
- Professor (Assistant)
January 2019 - December 2019
January 2018 - present
Education
January 2012 - September 2017
September 2008 - January 2011
September 2005 - July 2008
Publications
Publications (49)
Op 22 april 2020 woedde een hevige en ongewenste natuurbrand in het noordoostelijke deelgebied van natuurreservaat "Landschap de Liereman" te Oud-Turnhout. Ongeveer 30 hectare van het vochtige heide- en veenlandschap werd hierbij aangetast.
In dit rapport behandelen we de resultaten van een meerjarige studie naar de effecten van de brand op bodemch...
Elevated atmospheric deposition has acidified European heathland soils, reducing plant and soil biodiversity. Slow‐release silicate rock powders (SRP) are being explored to enhance pH and base saturation in these soils. We compared the effects of SRP and liming on soil chemistry, the soil microbiome, and vegetation with an untreated control, 5 year...
Fens are the predominant peatlands in temperate regions and provide key ecosystem services such as water retention and carbon sequestration. Under threat of drainage, discharge of polluted water, and subsequent eutrophication, fen conservation is a priority. A key feature of fens is their high biodiversity, particularly of specialist bryophytes tha...
Microarthropods such as mites (Acari) and springtails (Collembola) play a key role in the functioning of nutrient‐poor ecosystems. They contribute to the comminution of organic matter and they are likely to affect the structure and function of soil microbial communities through grazing and by changing substrate availability. However, the precise ef...
Natuurbeheer en -herstel in de Lage Landen was tot ongeveer de jaren ‘80 van vorige eeuw nog veel gebaseerd op trial-and-error, aangedreven door de nodige dosis lef om maatregelen en ideeën in het veld uit te proberen.
De kennis en ervaringen die zo werden opgedaan, die soms doorspekt waren met buikgevoel, werden vervolgens opgeschreven, gedeeld en...
Understanding whether nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) or potassium (K) (co)limit productivity across biodiverse herbaceous habitats is crucial to guide management. Therefore, we investigated for 386 plots representing 13 nutrient-limited habitat types across Europe whether community N:P:K stoichiometry and limitation types differ along wide-ranging gr...
Peatlands in Europe have declined dramatically both in surface and in quality. At the same time, these wetlands fulfil essential ecosystem services such as water purification, biodiversity conservation and carbon retention. Restoration of degraded peatlands is therefore key to enhance these services. This chapter describes the hydrological and ecol...
A better understanding of factors controlling the distribution of soil organic matter (SOM) in differently stabilized pools in soils during ecosystem development is essential to more efficiently manage soil as a C sink and aid global warming mitigation. We, thus, investigated C and N stocks in bulk soil and differently stabilized soil fractions (fr...
Peatland degradation is tightly connected to hydrological changes and microbial metabolism. To better understand these metabolism processes, more information is needed on how microbial communities and substrate cycling are affected by changing hydrological regimes. These activities should be imprinted in stable isotope bulk values (δ ¹⁵N, δ ¹³C) du...
The hog deer (Axis porcinus) is an endangered cervid with drastic population declines. There are two recognized subspecies of hog deer: A. p. porcinus, ranging from Punjab Province in Pakistan, Nepal and the Northern part of India to Myanmar, and A. p. annamiticus found in Indo-China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The current geographic ran...
Soil inoculation from plant species-rich into species-poor grasslands may enable the establishment of self-facilitating networks between microbes and vegetation, thereby steering ecosystem development.
We conducted a three-year experiment that covered a wide range of post-agricultural grasslands to determine how succession is affected by the intera...
Hog deer (Axis porcinus) were once widespread throughout much of lowland Southern Asia, but numbers rapidly declined during the last two decades. In Cambodia, the species was considered extinct until 2006 when a small number of individuals (presumedly spp. annamiticus) was rediscovered along the western bank of the Mekong River, near Kratie. Since...
The formation of soil aggregates is related to the stability of soil organic carbon, which distinguishes the living conditions of microbial communities in different micro-niches. Here, we investigated fungal and bacterial community structure, networks, biomass and respiration in individual micro-niches between and within soil aggregates using seven...
Peatlands have been drained for land use for a long time and on a large scale, turning them from carbon and nutrient sinks into respective sources, diminishing water regulation capacity, causing surface height loss and destroying biodiversity. Over the last decades, drained peatlands have been rewetted for biodiversity restoration and, as it strong...
Drainage-induced shifts in physicochemical peat properties are irreversible on a decadal time span. We investigated whether carbon emissions from fen peat can be estimated using two proxies: current water levels and peat properties (as affected by drainage history, i.e. degradation legacy). We collected bare peat monoliths from a long-term drained...
Het Zeeuwse landschap wordt gekenmerkt door een uitgebreid netwerk van binnendijken. Die herinneren ons aan vroegere tijden waarin de strijd tussen mens en water in alle hevigheid woedde. Veel van deze dijken herbergen een unieke botanische rijkdom. Dit heeft hen de naam 'Zeeuwse bloemdijken' opgeleverd. Helaas takelt deze rijkdom al gedurende dece...
Op veel plaatsen in Nederland vindt natuurontwikkeling plaats op voormalige landbouwgrond. Voordat deze gronden geschikt zijn voor de ontwikkeling van soortenrijke natuurtypen, moet de voedselrijkdom vaak drastisch lager worden. Een van de manieren om dit te doen is door de voedselrijke bovenlaag af te graven. Hiermee wordt het landbouwkundige verl...
Many of the world’s peatlands have been affected by water table drawdown and subsequent loss of organic matter. Rewetting has been proposed as a measure to restore peatland functioning and to halt carbon loss, but its effectiveness is subject to debate. An important prerequisite for peatland recovery is a return of typical microbial communities, wh...
In tropical regions the extent of agricultural land is increasing rapidly at the expense of natural forest, with associated losses of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Agroforestry has long been proposed as a more sustainable agricultural system, conserving biodiversity while providing significant local livelihoods. In this context, camera traps...
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...
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...
Many endangered plant species remain absent in rewetted, previously drained fens.
We performed a 3-year introduction experiment with endangered fen species (9 Carex- and 6 bryophyte
species) in 4 hydrologically restored fens to investigate which factors hamper establishment and survival. Carex species were introduced as adults and seedlings, mosses...
Patches are of central interest to many areas of environmental science because they provide a lower limit of structural detail in synoptic studies, and an upper limit of contextual structure for point measurement-based studies. Identification and delineation of macrophyte patches however, is often arbitrary and case-specific. In this paper we propo...
Low phosphorus (P) availability limits plant biomass production in fens, which is a prerequisite for the persistence of many endangered plant species. We hypothesized that P limitation is linked to soil iron (Fe) content and soil Fe : P ratios as iron compounds provide binding sites for dissolved P, presumably reducing P availability to plants.
We...
Anthropogenic eutrophication of wetlands may have a significant impact on the global biogeochemical silicon (Si) cycle, as Si filtering by wetland vegetation codetermines fluxes of Si towards the oceans. We experimentally investigated how macronutrient (NPK) enrichment alters total Si storage and Si stoichiometry in litter from six wetland species...
Eutrophication is a major threat for the persistence of nutrient-poor fens, as multilevel feedbacks on decomposition rates could trigger carbon loss and increase nutrient cycling. Here, we experimentally investigate the effects of macronutrient (NPK) enrichment on litter quality of six species of sedge (Carex sp.), which we relate to litter decompo...
Rewetted, previously drained fens often remain sources rather than sinks for carbon and nutrients. To date, it is poorly understood which soil characteristics stimulate carbon and nutrient mobilization upon rewetting. Here, we assess the hypothesis that a large pool of iron in the soil negatively affects fen restoration success, as flooding-induced...
Sulfur mobilization.
Mobilization of total dissolved Sulfur (S) over time (t = 0, 30 and 127 days) in the pore water of 40 soil cores that differ in experimental water level treatment (rewetted or drained) and initial soil iron content (high or low). Soil cores were classified into 4 groups: rewetted iron-poor fens (n = 10 cores from 2 sites), drai...
Dataset with raw data.
(XLSX)
Global land-use intensification and drainage has altered the biogeochemical properties of many peatlands, and concomitant eutrophication has led to a loss of low-competitive fen species. We investigated the hypothesis that removal of a degraded and eutrophied top peat layer, thereby exposing an underlying peat layer, can improve conditions for rich...
Foraging activity in animals reflects a compromise between acquiring food and avoiding predation. The risk allocation hypothesis predicts that prey animals optimize this balance by concentrating their foraging activity at times of relatively low predation risk, as much as their energy status permits, but empirical evidence is scarce. We used a uniq...
Zabraňuje velká koncentrace železa úspěšné obnově minerálně bohatých slatinišť? Camiel J. S. A g g e n b a c h 1,2 , Hans B a c k x 2 , Willem Jan E m s e n s 2 , Ab P. G r o o t j a n s 3,4 , Leon P. M. L a m e r s 3 , Alfons J. P. S m o l d e r s 3,5 , Pieter J. S t u y f z a n d 1,6 , Lesław W o ł e j k o 7 & 2 D e d i c a t e d t o K a m i l R...
We tested the hypothesis that prey refuges attract
predators, leading to elevated predator activity in the vicinity of
refuges.We used camera traps to determine whether the spatial
activity of a predator, the ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), was
biased toward refuge locations of its principal prey, the agouti
(Dasyprocta punctata). We radio-tracked ago...
The Neotropics have many plant species that seem to be adapted for seed dispersal by megafauna that went extinct in the late Pleistocene. Given the crucial importance of seed dispersal for plant persistence, it remains a mystery how these plants have survived more than 10,000 y without their mutualist dispersers. Here we present support for the hyp...
Animals that rely on refuges for safety can theoretically increase their foraging area without simultaneously increasing predation risk and travel costs by using more refuges. The key prediction of this theory, a negative correlation between food abundance, home range size and the number of refuges used, has never been empirically tested. We determ...
