Dick van Oevelen
- Profiel:
- The central theme in my work as marine ecologist is the marine food web, which I study in various places, ranging from estuaries (e.g. Dutch Delta), coastal seas (e.g. North Sea and Caribbean Sea), fjords (e.g. Greenland and Antarctica) and open ocean (e.g. Atlantic and Pacific seafloor). The food web is a relatively simple concept: organisms in the marine environment are linked by interactions that represent the transfer of energy and nutrients. Because of the high biodiversity in the marine ecosystem, the complexity of food webs is however staggering and deciphering these interactions is a challenging task. For example, we can never measure all interactions at the same time, and we also discover new interactions meaning that we have to add linkages to the food web. In my research I use a range of techniques to understand marine food webs, such as stable isotopes at natural abundance and tracer level, compound-specific analysis (carbohydrates, fatty acids and amino acids) and food web modelling (e.g. linear inverse modelling) and data assimilation. A link to several food web modelling and data science tools can be found here. Many food web studies were done in international collaborations in EU-projects (e.g. HERMES, HERMIONE and CoralFISH) and in the deep-sea mining projects MIDAS and "Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining" (JPI-Oceans). Another topic I worked on was the functioning of warm- and cold-water coral reefs, which is primarily focussed on the mechanisms that allow these hotspot ecosystems to flourish, including the interaction of hydrodynamics and organic matter transport.
- E-mail:
- dick.van.oevelen@nioz.nl
- Organisatie:
- NIOZ