Publicaties

Introduction: European and member state legislation encourage the sustainable development of offshore environments, with the restoration or creation of flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) habitats offering potential solutions to enhance biodiversity and provide ecosystem services. The site selection and identification of suitable habitats for flat oyster habitat restoration projects remains a significant knowledge gap. Methods: By combining seabed ...

Motivated by the high turnover rate of the Eurasian eagle owl (Bubo bubo) population in the south of the province of Limburg, the Netherlands, which is linked to extremely high concentrations of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and DDE (dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene) found in owl carcasses, a habitat suitability (HS) assessment for this region was conducted to identify possible sources of PCBs in the environment. Twelve environmental ...

Worldwide river systems are under pressure from human development. River managers need to identify the most important stressors in a stream basin, to propose effective management interventions for river restoration. In the European Union, the Water Framework Directive proposes the ecological status as the management endpoint for these interventions. Many decision support tools exist that use predictive water quality models to evaluate different ...

The fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus is a wetland specialist species endemic to South and Southeast Asia. Nepal represents the northern limit of its biogeographic range, but comprehensive information on fishing cat distribution in Nepal is lacking. To assess their distribution, we compiled fishing cat occurrence records (n = 154) from Nepal, available in published literature and unpublished data (2009-2020). Bioclimatic and environmental ...

In recent years, fuzzy models have been acknowledged as a suitable approach for species distribution modelling due to their transparency and their ability to incorporate the ecological gradient theory. Specifically, the overlapping class boundaries of a fuzzy model are similar to the transitions between different environmental conditions. However, the need for ecological expert knowledge is an important constraint when applying fuzzy species ...

Invasive alien species are a major threat to ecosystems. They can change habitats and alter ecosystem functioning and related services, crowd out or replace native species, and damage human activities. The control of exotic species such as A. filiculoides is globally considered as a critical task in the new invaded areas. Habitat suitability models can help to determine the biotic or abiotic factors which affect the presence/absence, and density ...