prof. dr. ir. T. (Tjisse) van der Heide

I’m researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), and a professor of Coastal Ecology at the University of Groningen. I study interactions between organisms and their environment in coastal ecosystems. My research primarily focuses on the ecosystem-level importance and functioning of “ecosystem engineers” – species that significantly modify habitat conditions. Ecosystem engineers are often the “foundation species” of a system, which basically means that many other species depend on them. Over the last decades, human impact has resulted in worldwide declines of foundation species-structured ecosystems such as bivalve reefs, seagrass meadows and salt marshes. In my research, I combine fieldwork, laboratory experiments, GIS and computer models to unravel how these systems function and how to preserve and restore them.