Press releases

Mussel beds are not an ‘at random’ collection of mussels, but mussels form a pattern that looks like the way molecules and atoms are arranged in materials like bronze, steel or polymers like rubber. A team consisting of ecologists and mathematicians from the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Utrecht University, and Leiden University, reveal their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) of July 1st.

Why are gull chicks murdered especially on Sundays? How does man influence the size of gull populations? These and many other questions are answered in the doctoral thesis of Kees Camphuysen from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research NIOZ. Camphuysen will defend his thesis at the University of Groningen on 21 June.

“We cracked the DNA-code of a giant algae virus; this is the first algae virus that belongs to the ‘Giant Viruses’”, concludes prof. Dr Corina Brussaard of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the University of Amsterdam in the 10 June issue of the journal PNAS. Until now the few known giant viruses all had an animal host, but now it appears that giant viruses with a plant host also exist.

Dr Corina Brussaard of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) has been appointed Special Professor of Viral Ecology at the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She will deliver her inaugural lecture on Friday 7 June.

The tectonic opening of the Tasmanian strait between Australia and Antarctica was a contributory factor  to the earth beginning to cool down 49 million years ago. This is the result of a study carried out by an international research team led by paleoclimatologists from Utrecht University. With this cooling, the then ice-free greenhouse world eventually changed into the ice capped earth we know today. The results of the study will be published on May 27 in the leading scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

An international team of scientists discovered a surprisingly strong regional sea-level rise which occurred during the onset of Antarctic glaciation about 34 million years ago, while the global sea-level on average lowered. In an article, published today in Nature Geoscience, scientists of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Utrecht University and TU Delft explain why.

Past increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have led to acidification of the ocean and global warming. Petra Schoon of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) found that these climate events had a large impact on the climate of Northern Europe, such as warming of 5-8˚C and removal of most of the oxygen from the water of the North Sea. Schoon will defend her thesis on April 3rd at Utrecht University.

Former NIOZ director Carlo Heip died

Professor Carlo Heip died in his sleep on Friday 15 February. Carlo Heip was professor at the universities of Ghent and Groningen and he was director at NIOO-CEME (Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology) in Yerseke and later at NIOZ (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research).

Carlo Heip (1945) studied Biology at Ghent University, where he started a research group for marine biology after he graduated. In 1987, he was appointed director of the Delta Institute in Yerseke, which was incorporated into the Netherlands Institute for Ecology (NIOO) as the Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology (CEME) in 1992 and has been a division of NIOZ since 2012. In 2006, Carlo Heip was appointed general director at NIOZ on Texel. He retired in 2011. After that, he stayed on as an advisor at NIOZ and he became the general editor of the Journal of Sea Research.

Science article reveals

Because in the summer of 2012 Arctic sea ice has melted off much more than usual, algae living underneath the ice could grow faster than normally. In addition, the melting of the ice also caused these algae to sink to the sea floor in large numbers. This resulted in enormous spots without oxygen at large depths, which has considerable consequences for the ecosystem in the Arctic Ocean. These are some of the results published today in the journal Science by a team of scientists from a various countries. The Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) also took part in this special expedition.

On 27 January, the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) opened the first Dutch laboratory on Antarctica. The Dirck Gerritsz Laboratory consists of four ship containers that have been converted into laboratories and placed in a docking station. These laboratories have been developed by NIOZ, which will use them for carrying out research into areas such as algae and traces of iron in the Antarctic Ocean with its rising water temperature.

A group of scientists has put forth a proposal for monitoring global changes in biodiversity. This proposal will be published in the scientific journal Science today. It will be presented at a conference in Bonn at the end of January. Rob Jongman from Alterra Wageningen UR and Carlo Heip from the Royal Dutch Institute for Sea Research have contributed to this proposal.

Northwest Africa and Southeast Australia are regions which are particularly vulnerable to climate change. In her thesis, Raquel Lopes dos Santos of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, investigate organic compounds in marine sediment cores, in order to reconstruct past environmental conditions in these areas. She found that vegetation changes were large and abrupt over the past 150,000 years in these regions and were caused by climate change as well as indirectly by humans. Lopes dos Santos will defend her thesis at the Utrecht University, on 17 December, 2012.

“Organic matter will be  consumed by the ocean floor organisms if the ‘quality’ is good enough”, stated Lara Pozzato in her PhD Thesis. The quality is more important than, for exemple, the amount of oxygen in the environment. Pozzato studied the interactions among organic matter and organisms at sea floors in different settings. She will defend her PhD thesis on November 16, at the Utrecht University.

The amount of dissolved iron in the surface water of some parts of the Antarctic Ocean is so small that it limits algal growth. In the Arctic Ocean, iron concentrations are higher due to the influence of rivers. Maarten Klunder measured iron concentrations in various parts and at various depths of the Arctic Ocean. In addition, he ascertained where the iron came from. On 5 October 2012, Klunder will defend his PhD thesis on this research project at the University of Groningen.

About 50 million years ago, the Antarctic summer was subtropical, winter temperatures were above freezing and there was a tropical rainforest on the coast. These are the remarkable results of a research cruise to eastern Antarctica aboard a drilling vessel, led by expedition leader Henk Brinkhuis from Utrecht University and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. The international research team will publish their results in the authoritative scientific journal Nature later this week.

The edges of the salt marshes in the Gulf of Mexico have been eroding more quickly since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and parts are lost permanently. This is the outcome of research that is published by the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and that was carried out by an American-Dutch research team. This erosion is caused by a combination of marsh compaction and acute oil contamination.

It has always been a mystery why seagrasses are the only vascular plants that can survive at the bottom of the sea despite lethal concentrations of sulphides. In a joint study by the University of Groningen, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the University of Florida researchers have concluded that seagrasses cooperate with small clams and bacteria that live in the sea soil and render sulphides harmless. The results will appear this week in the leading scientific journal Science.

Mussels and Pacific oysters have a significant impact on Wadden Sea biodiversity, not only as food sources, but also because they create a habitat for many other species. In a study, recently published online in the international journal Ecosystems, scientists from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and the University of Groningen (RUG) show that the impact of mussel and oyster beds that are exposed at low tide, may be much greater than their actual size would suggest.

At the 5th International Symposium on Deep-Sea Corals, experts from around the world will discuss the latest scientific insights into cold-water coral reefs. One of the topics for discussion will be the possible consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill two years ago. The conference is organized by NIOZ, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, and it takes place at the Amsterdam zoo Artis from 1 to 6 April.

Seeds carried by visitors on their clothing, rucksacks and camera bags may be the cause of the introduction of non-indigenous plants to Antarctica that might pose a threat to natural biodiversity and the functioning of the Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems.

This week, the Geochemical Society announced that NIOZ scientist Prof. Stefan Schouten has been granted the prestigious C.C. Patterson Award. Schouten has been granted this award for his many contributions to organic geochemistry, and more specifically to the development of a so-called paleothermometer. The award will be presented during the V.M. Goldschmidt Conference in Montréal at the end of June.

On Tuesday 29 November, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) on the Dutch island of Texel launched the Netherlands Deep Sea Science & Technology Centre. In this multidisciplinary research centre, work on the deep sea in biology, chemistry, geology and technical NIOZ departments will be combined for facilitating contact with for instance the offshore industry.

From mid November to mid December, Roeland Bom and Jan van Gils will carry out research in the Barr al Hikman wetlands in Oman. This research expedition is part of Roeland Bom’s PhD research project.

Theunis Piersma’s research group has been awarded a TOP grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for the development and application of individual tracking tools for all relevant temporal and spatial scales, so providing global or very specific local data sets.

“There is no dramatic global decline of plant plankton in the oceans’; this is one of the most important conclusions drawn by Marcel Wernand, a NIOZ scientist, in his PhD thesis, which he will defend at Utrecht University on 8 November 2011. This result contrasts sharply with earlier findings.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded a Veni research grant to NIOZ scientist Furu Mienis. This grant will enable Mienis to continue her research into cold-water coral reefs.