Herman Hummel's research while affiliated with NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and other places

Publications (128)

Article
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Assessing the environmental status of Protected Areas (PAs) is a challenging issue. To indicate that status, the identification of a common set of variables that are scientifically sound, and easy to assess and monitor by the PA practitioners, is particularly important. In this study, a set of 27 Essential Variables (EVs) for PA management was sele...
Article
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p>Protected Area (PA) managers and policy makers need to determine and demonstrate the effectiveness of PA management and keep track of the conservation status in ways that are practical, scientifically sound and comparable among PAs in various terrestrial and aquatic environments. As most existing methods for measuring the managerial efficiency of...
Chapter
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This article provides an overview of European Marine Biodiversity Observatory Systems. It explains why more attention should be focused on marine biodiversity and raises concern about the understudied marine realm. It builds on a historical perspective of the creation of networks of marine stations, as well as the need of harmonization among them....
Article
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To account for progress towards conservation targets, monitoring systems should capture not only information on biodiversity but also knowledge on the dynamics of ecological processes and the related effects on human well-being. Protected areas represent complex social-ecological systems with strong human-nature interactions. They are able to provi...
Article
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For many years, Protected Areas (PA) have been an important tool for conserving nature. Recently, also societal aspects have been introduced into PA management via the introduction of the Ecosystem Services (ES) approach. This review discusses the historical background of PAs, PA management, and the ES approach.We then discuss the relevance and app...
Article
During a re-examination ofmacrozoobenthic samples from a long-term monitoring programme in the Dutch Oosterschelde andWesterschelde, the abundant presence of peritrich ciliates on specimens of Bathyporeia Lindström, 1855, was discovered. Out of the more than 3500 Bathyporeia specimens investigated, 44% contained ciliates. Although Bathyporeia sarsi...
Article
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We compared and contrasted 11 European case studies to identify challenges and opportunities toward the operationalization of marine and coastal ecosystem service (MCES) assessments in Europe. This work is the output of a panel convened by the Marine Working Group of the Ecosystem Services Partnership in September 2016. The MCES assessments were us...
Article
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Protected Areas are a key component of nature conservation. They can play an important role in counterbalancing the impacts of ecosystem degradation. For an optimal protection of a Protected Area it is essential to account for the variables underlying the major Ecosystem Services an area delivers, and the threats upon them. Here we show that the pe...
Data
List of mistakes made in the surveys and the ways used to correct them. Categories are Ecosystem Services (ES), Threats (Thr), and Ecosystem Types (ETy). The variable which was originally indicated (“between quotation marks”) is followed by our Remark on it (unless it may have been renamed). For the Actions taken: Split means that the term is split...
Data
List of ecosystem types. Indicated for the transitional waters (TW) and the mountainous (MO) protected areas. (PDF)
Data
Example of the survey sent to, and answers from, the scientists working on protected areas. (PDF)
Data
Harmonisation tables for all variables. (S2a) ecosystem services, (S2b) threats, and the classification of the variables into variables of biotic, abiotic or socio-economic (anthropogenic) nature, grey cells are variables indicated by PA managers. (PDF)
Article
50 years of the European Marine Biology symposium – a continuing success story - Volume 97 Issue 3 - Alexandra C. Kraberg, Maarten Boersma, Herman Hummel, Karen H. Wiltshire, M. Frost
Article
In the frame of the COST ACTION ‘EMBOS’ (Development and implementation of a pan-European Marine Biodiversity Observatory System), coverage of intertidal macroalgae was estimated at a range of marine stations along the European coastline (Subarctic, Baltic, Atlantic, Mediterranean). Based on these data, we tested whether patterns in macroalgal dive...
Article
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‘Biodiversity’ is one of the most common keywords used in environmental sciences, spanning from research to management, nature conservation and consultancy. Despite this, our understanding of the underlying concepts varies greatly, between and within disciplines as well as among the scientists themselves. Biodiversity can refer to descriptions or a...
Article
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Examining how variability in population abundance and distribution is allotted among different spatial scales can inform of processes that are likely to generate that variability. Results of studies dealing with scale issues in marine benthic communities suggest that variability is concentrated at small spatial scales (from tens of centimetres to f...
Article
Coastal ecosystems are highly complex and driven by multiple environmental factors. To date we lack scientific evidence for the relative contribution of natural and anthropogenic drivers for the majority of marine habitats in order to adequately assess the role of different stressors across the European seas. Such relationship can be investigated b...
Article
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Within the COST action EMBOS (European Marine Biodiversity Observatory System) the degree and variation of the diversity and densities of soft-bottom communities from the lower intertidal or the shallow subtidal was measured at 28 marine sites along the European coastline (Baltic, Atlantic, Mediterranean) using jointly agreed and harmonized protoco...
Article
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The degree of development and operability of the indicators for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) using Descriptor 1 (D1) Biological Diversity was assessed. To this end, an overview of the relevance and degree of operability of the underlying parameters across 20 European countries was compiled by analysing national directives, legisla...
Research
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This poster describes the environment driven structures in macrofauna communities and changes herein observed in recent monitoring surveys
Article
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In September 2014 a group of 130 marine biologists from 26 countries assembled in the 49th European Marine Biology Symposium (EMBS) held in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The EMBS is a series of annual conferences providing presentations and dialogue in a fairly informal atmosphere – the perfect conditions for encouraging interactions on state-of-art is...
Article
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In this work we examined morphological variation at different levels to study performance and population structuring of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis. Our objectives were: (i) to develop an integrated technique for analyzing morphological variation in blue mussels and, based on this technique; (ii) to perform a morphometric description of mussels...
Article
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Mussels from the Mytilus edulis complex were used as biomonitors for two groups of organic pollutants: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs, congeners: 28, 52, 101, 118, 138, 153 and 180) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, chr...
Article
The fluctuations in densities or biomass of a number of invading and native polychaete and mollusc species in the Southwest Netherlands were compared over a period of 20 years. For recent invaders a lag phase of 7–10 years occurred after their first appearance, followed by an exponential increase in abundance or biomass for 2–3 years. High numbers...
Article
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Mussels of the genus Mytilus have been used to assess the circumglacial phylogeography of the intertidal zone. These mussels are representative components of the intertidal zone and have rapidly evolving mitochondrial DNA, suitable for high resolution phylogeographic analyses. In Europe, the three Mytilus species currently share mitochondrial haplo...
Article
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Stable carbon (δ 13C) and nitrogen (δ 15N) isotope (SI) values of sedimentary organic matter (SOM), seston and two dominant bivalves, Mytilus spp. and Macoma balthica, were studied at 18 stations along the European coast in spring and autumn 2004. Three main regions, the Baltic Sea (BS), the North Sea and English Channel (NS), and the Bay of Biscay...
Article
The bivalve Macoma balthica (L.) is a key species of intertidal mudflats in France and Europe. Its natural range has experienced a contraction along the European coastline towards the northeast during the past five decades. This southern boundary shift seems to be correlated with the increased sea surface temperature in the Bay of Biscay (France),...
Article
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During the 1960s and early 1970s, the open system of the Rhine-Meuse estuary with a continuous salinity gradient was converted into a series of stagnant fresh water lakes separated by sluices from the North Sea coastal region ‘Voordelta’. For the last 50 yr, the macrozoobenthic communities have been monitored intensively, and a large dataset is ava...
Article
To study the possible environmental impact of hydraulic cockle-dredging on macrobenthic communities and the environment, a fishing experiment was executed on a tidal mudflat in the Oosterschelde (SW Netherlands) according to a BACI (before-after-control-impact) design. Following the characterization of the initial situation, a part of the mudflat w...
Article
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Late Quaternary (Eemian) deposits of the Netherlands contain shells that resemble those of living Mytilus galloprovincialis. Similar broad-shelled mytilids also occur in estuaries of the southwestern Netherlands together with slender individuals typical of M. edulis. We sampled living mussels along a depth gradient in the Oosterschelde to a) invest...
Article
Corophium multisetosum Stock, 1952 has been found in several estuaries and water bodies in Europe ranging from fresh and brackish to salt water. The species appeared to be distributed over a wide geographic range from the Iberian Peninsula to the southern Baltic region and is recently found in the Mediterranean and Gulf of Mexico, showing remarkabl...
Article
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The genetic constitution of mussels (Mytilus spp.) was studied by means of three nuclear (Me 15/16, EF-bis, ITS) and one mtDNA (ND2-COIII) marker on a large European scale. In addition to a sharp cline between Atlantic and Mediterranean M. galloprovincialis, we observed a clear genetic distinction between the Black Sea and Mediterranean populations...
Article
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The general aim of setting up a central database on benthos and plankton was to integrate long-, medium- and short-term datasets on marine biodiversity. Such a database makes it possible to analyse species assemblages and their changes on spatial and temporal scales across Europe. Data collation lasted from early 2007 until August 2008, during whic...
Article
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The former tidal inlet Lake Veere was turned into a stagnant brackish lake in 1961. Ever since, the system has shown a continuous degradation. The current study shows the monitoring results for the macrozoobenthic communities and the abiotic conditions for the period 1990–2008. This includes the first step to remediation, the restoration of the exc...
Article
An experiment was performed to test an alternative dredging strategy for the Westerschelde estuary. Clean sand dredged from the navigation channel was disposed seawards of an eroding intertidal flat in order to modify morphology and hydrodynamics, improving the multi-channel system with ecologically productive shallow water habitat. Five years of i...
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Production of European flat oysters Ostrea edulis in the Netherlands has been hampered by the presence of the haplosporidian parasite Bonamia ostreae, which is now an enzootic species following its establishment after 1980. We analyzed histopathological data from annual shellfish disease monitoring from 1988 to 2006 to quantify prevalence of B. ost...
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Mussels from Mytilus edulis complex were used as biomonitors of the trace metals Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, and Cu at 17 sampling sites to assess the relative bioavailability of metals in coastal waters around the European continent. Because accumulated metal concentrations in a given area can differ temporally, data were corrected for the effect of season be...
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We studied the effect of crustacean predators on native/non-native Macoma balthica bivalves in aquarium experiments. North Sea M. balthica (NS Macoma) were recently observed in the southern Baltic Sea. They differ genetically and in terms of morphology, behaviour and evolutionary history from Baltic Sea M. balthica (BS Macoma), and this may affect...
Article
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Mussels from Mytilus edulis complex were used as biomonitors of the trace metals Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, and Cu at 17 sampling sites to assess the relative bioavailability of metals in coastal waters around the European continent. Because accumulated metal concentrations in a given area can differ temporally, data were corrected for the effect of season be...
Article
Most benthic invertebrates and plant species that survive in the brackish Baltic Sea are characterized by populations in which growth is reduced and genetic diversity is low, indicating that these species live under marginal conditions. In this study, we tested for a salinity-related growth rate reduction in 21 European Macoma balthica populations....
Article
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This study examines whether or not biogeographical and/or managerial divisions across the European seas can be validated using soft-bottom macrobenthic community data. The faunal groups used were: all macrobenthos groups, polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, sipun- culans and the last 5 groups combined. In order to test the discriminati...
Article
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We analyzed patterns of species diversity in a compiled data set covering the European coast (from Norway to Crete) that was made available in the framework of the MarBEF European Network of Excellence. The focus was on the distribution patterns of species diversity over large areas across Europe. The objectives of our analysis were two-fold. First...
Article
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CONTENTS ABSTRACT: Within the European Network of Excellence (NoE) on Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (MarBEF), marine biodiversity scientists from across Europe have been brought together to focus on 3 broad themes. Theme 1 describes large-scale (and long-term) distribution patterns of marine biodiversity, Theme 2 examines the conseq...
Article
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We describe an integrated database on European macrobenthic fauna, developed within the framework of the European Network of Excellence MarBEF, and the data and data integration exercise that provided its content. A total of 44 datasets including 465 354 distribution records from soft-bottom macrobenthic species were uploaded into the relational Ma...
Article
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Macroecology provides a novel conceptual framework for analysis of the distribution and abundance of organisms at very large scales. Its rapid development in recent years has been driven primarily by studies of terrestrial taxa; the vast potential of marine systems to contribute to the macroecological research effort remains largely untapped. Inter...
Article
Thermal tolerance limits of ectotherms may result from respiratory limitations. In response to declining oxygen availability, organisms have shown to exhibit oxyregulation by enhancing ventilation and heartbeat rates. In this study we examined how this regulatory response in mussels (Mytilus) changes with increasing temperature. Experimental mussel...
Article
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The genetic composition of wild and cultured mussel populations from the Oosterschelde, The Netherlands, is compared to representative samples of mussel shipments from culture sites in Ireland and Great Britain. A total of 2272 mussels from 27 samples were assayed for the nuclear DNA markers Me 15/16, EFbis and M7. The three markers showed similar...
Article
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The pan-European MacroBen database was used to compare the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and the Benthic Quality Index (BQIES), 2 biotic indices which rely on 2 distinct assessments of species sensitivity/tolerance (i.e. AMBI EG and BQI E[S50]0.05) and which up to now have only been compared on restricted data sets. A total of 12 409 stations wer...
Article
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This study examines whether or not biogeographical and/or managerial divisions across the European seas can be validated using soft-bottom macrobenthic community data. The faunal groups used were: all macrobenthos groups, polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, sipunculans and the last 5 groups combined. In order to test the discriminating...
Article
Full-text available
Within the European Network of Excellence (NoE) on Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (MarBEF), marine biodiversity scientists from across Europe have been brought together to focus on 3 broad themes. Theme 1 describes large-scale (and long-term) distribution patterns of marine biodiversity, Theme 2 examines the consequences of changes i...
Article
Water works during the 1960s and 1970s changed the northern part of the RhineeMeuse estuary in the south-west of the Netherlands into a freshwater lake, from west to east divided into three basins called the Haringvliet, the Hollands Diep and the Biesbosch. Concurrently water quality parameters (e.g. nutrients and pollutants) changed drastically du...
Article
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Seasonal variations in seawater temperature require extensive metabolic acclimatization in cold-blooded organisms inhabiting the coastal waters of Europe. Given the energetic costs of acclimatization, differences in adaptive capacity to climatic conditions are to be expected among distinct populations of species that are distributed over a wide geo...
Article
To study differential cold-shock resistance of marine mussel populations (Mytilus spp.) from different climatic regions in Europe, we sampled 12 populations, ranging from 43 to 58°N. Minimum critical temperatures for aerobic metabolism (CTmin) were determined before and after 3 months of common acclimatization in an outdoor mesocosm. Additionally,...
Article
The marine bivalve Macoma balthica has disappeared from the Spanish part of the Bay of Biscay during the past four decades. Investigating the possible role of climate change in forcing this species up north, we translocated it down south, back into two Spanish estuaries, and followed the thermal acclimatization of the metabolic rate during spring,...
Article
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The growth of mussels, Mytilus edulis (L.), was studied in most of the northeastern part of their distribution. The growth, longevity and maximal size of molluscs from 24 wild populations and one cultured population located in the White Sea and the southeast part of the Barents Sea were compared. The 25 studied populations were combined in six clus...
Article
Metal concentrations of Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn in an infaunal facultative deposit-feeding bivalve, the Baltic clam Macoma balthica, in the Gulf of Gdansk (southern Baltic Sea) were assessed and compared to selected concentrations of metals in the environment. Between October 1996 and September 1997, dissolved and easy extractable (by 1M HCl) met...
Article
Existing data on metal concentrations in mussels from subarctic, temperate, subtropical and tropical waters were analyzed using multivariate statistics in order to assess regional variations in metal contamination. Potential errors were reduced by only analyzing data from surveys that employed the same protocols, analytical methodologies and analys...
Article
The genetic diversity of the soft-shell clam Myaarenaria from seven locations in Europe (two stations in the southern Baltic Sea (the Gulf of Gdansk) and two in the North Sea (Veerse Meer and Oosterschelde), and three additional stations in the Denmark Straits and Bay of Biscay) was determined using starch gel electrophoresis of allozymes. The resu...
Conference Paper
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The conference was organized as a moderated bulletin board. Both the introduction to the themes and topics, and summaries of the discussions, were available on the Internet, (www.vliz.be/marbena). Contributions to the conference were posted through a form on the web site. A total of 13 topics, split up into three sessions, were discussed in three w...
Conference Paper
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The topics and issues raised in the electronic conference have been presented to the Marbena Workshop in Piran (Slovenia) held on 27 November-1 December 2004. This volume includes introductions and summaries of discussions. All the discussion points raised during the conference can be reviewed by registering onto http://www.vliz.be/marbena This pub...
Article
Recent studies of the Baltic clam Macoma balthica (L.) from the southern Baltic (the Gulf of Gdansk) have revealed striking morphological, histological and cytogenetic features. Strong deformation of the shell, including elongation of the posterior end and the appearance of an easily visible flexure in this part, has been recorded. The population c...
Article
Fourteen acidic and neutral free amino acids (FAA) were investigated in soft tissue of Macoma balthica from different depth zones of the Gulf of Gdansk (Baltic Sea) over a full seasonal cycle. The dry weight of the bivalves and physico-chemical parameters of overlying bottom water and surface sediments were measured simultaneously at each site. In...
Article
. The genetic diversity, differentiation and performance of some dominant invertebrates in the marine coastal zone of Europe are reviewed in order to discuss the use of the metapopulation concept in the marine coastal realm. A consistently high genetic diversity of the species studied (mussels of the Mytilus edulis complex, Baltic clams Macoma balt...