Estuarine Ecosystem Engineering: Biogeomorphology in the estuarine intertidal

Estuarine Ecosystem Engineering: Biogeomorphology in the estuarine intertidal

Montserrat Trotsenburg, F.

De Vriend, H.J. (promotor)
Winterwerp, J.W. (promotor)
Herman, P.M.J. (promotor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Hydraulic Engineering

2011-07-01

The aim of this thesis was to investigate how (macro)benthic organisms interact with the ecological functioning, erodibility and small- to medium-scale morphodynamics of estuarine intertidal sediment by modulating its composition and/or properties. In these interactions, scale is of great importance for the ecosystem engineers. The changes they cause in their abiotic environment may persist over longer periods and a?ect larger spatial scales than the actual bio-engineering process itself. Small scale interactions between biota and the immediate physico-chemical environment “scale up” due to e.g. density-dependent e?ects and emerge as intrinsic landscape characteristics . Sediment ecosystem engineering may become apparent at di?erent scales: an individual organism can a?ect ?uxes and/or the state of material in the immediate environment, whereas populations or communities typically exert their in?uence on a landscape scale. In this thesis we have demonstrated that the sedimentary interactions on a micro-scale (the sand-mud matrix) are a?ected by benthic organisms on a larger scale (the sediment bed), subsequently leading to geomorphological changes on again a larger, landscape scale (an intertidal ?at). In a series of experimental and model studies, we have employed di?erent approaches to investigate the sedimentological e?ects of both individual species and benthic communities.

estuary
macrobenthos
microphytobenthos
mud
sand
sediment
cohesiveness
erosion
deposition

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doctoral thesis

(c) 2011 Montserrat Trotsenburg, F.