Herman, P.

Open Marine Archive

Scientia Marina 77(1)
March 2013, 201-202, Barcelona (Spain)
ISSN: 0214-8358
doi: 10.3989/scimar.03840.05A
Carlo Heip (1945-2013) studied biology at Ghent 
University, where he graduated with a study of the 
ecology and population dynamics of meiobenthos. 
His study site was a small brackish-water pond but 
his interest was the ocean and his peers were inter-
national colleagues. He founded a research team on 
marine biology at Ghent University that still exists. 
The team became integrated in the first Belgian 
multidisciplinary oceanographic project in the mid-
1970s. At this time he wrote a seminal paper on 
the ecology of marine nematodes, focusing on the 
functional role and ecophysiology of meiobenthos, 
explored ecotoxicology of metals in nematodes, and 
developed the use of meiobenthic diversity as a tool 
in biomonitoring. As the chairman of ICES’s ben-
thic ecology working group, in 1986 he organized 
the North Sea Benthos Survey, one of his first big 
international achievements.
When he became director of the Delta Institute 
of Hydrobiological Research in Yerseke, the Neth-
erlands in 1987, the institute was looking for a new 
identity. It had been founded to ensure scientific 
follow-up of the Delta Works that closed off the ma-
jor estuaries in the SW Netherlands. After comple-
tion of the works the institute was reoriented, under 
Heip’s guidance, to play an international role in the 
study of the ecology of estuaries and coastal seas. 
Around 1990 he coordinated the EU project JEEP92, 
which compared and modelled the ecology of sev-
eral European estuaries. In 1992 the Delta Institute 
became part of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology 
(NIOO-KNAW). On this occasion Heip founded and 
led a research group that focused on the interaction 
between species and their biogeochemical and phys-
ical environment. The research had a strong model-
ling component and stretched from estuaries to the 
Obituary
Carlo Heip (1945-2013)
202 • P. HERMAN
SCI. MAR., 77(1), March 2013, 201-202. ISSN 0214-8358 doi: 10.3989/scimar.03840.05A
deep sea. It resulted in a few well-known reviews 
on estuarine processes, new model developments es-
pecially for benthic processes, and the development 
of new biogeochemical methods, in particular using 
stable isotopes, for the study of estuarine ecology. In 
contrast to most studies in biogeochemistry, it kept a 
strong focus on biology and species.
From the early 1990s onwards, he was very ac-
tive as a PI and co-ordinator of European research 
projects in land-ocean interaction studies. He was 
the driving force behind the ELOISE initiative, 
which succeeded in bringing together many excel-
lent research projects in coastal ecology. 
Within the scientific study of global change, he 
had the strong feeling that biodiversity issues were 
underrepresented, at least in part because the spe-
cialists on marine biodiversity were split into many 
isolated groups with few ties to ecology. For this 
reason he actively engaged in several initiatives to 
bring together the relevant partners. This resulted in 
initiatives such as the marine research stations net-
work (MARS) and, very importantly, the European 
Network of Excellence MARBEF (Marine Biodiver-
sity and Ecosystem Function). MARBEF resulted in 
many excellent studies on marine biodiversity and 
also in compiled datasets at European scale. It great-
ly contributed to international biodiversity databases 
such as OBIS (Ocean Biodiversity Information Sys-
tem) and to global initiatives such as the Census of 
Marine Life. Most importantly, it succeeded in orga-
nizing the community and representing biodiversity 
scholars in multidisciplinary marine initiatives, as 
well as representing marine biodiversity in the over-
all biodiversity organisations. 
In 2006, Heip became director of the Netherlands 
Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ) at Texel. He re-
mained there until his retirement in 2011. As a direc-
tor he managed to lead the institute to achieve a high 
level of recognition in 2011. He also achieved the 
merging of the NIOO-CEME in Yerseke with NIOZ, 
thus bringing together the two Dutch institutions to 
which he had devoted his professional life. Between 
1993 and 2010 he acted as scientific editor of Scien-
tia Marina.
After his retirement he continued representing 
marine biodiversity in many global platforms. He be-
came editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sea Research 
and had many plans. These were severely shortcut 
by the illness that struck him in the autumn of 2012.
Heip had the leadership and vision that made him 
an excellent organizer, both as a director and as a 
co-ordinator of the numerous international initia-
tives he was involved with. His sharp intelligence 
and remarkable memory allowed him to participate 
in a broad scientific field. He had an innovative and 
creative mind and a special gift for summarizing 
the essence of a scientific field or debate. He was, 
above all, a people manager. He had a keen inter-
est in people and knew perfectly well what to expect 
from them. He stimulated his collaborators by giv-
ing them respect, trust and strategic guidance. Even 
when disagreeing he would always try to understand 
other people’s motives and goals. As a teacher, he 
stimulated by sketching perspectives more than by 
prescribing actions. 
Already as a teenager, when he was a bird 
watcher, Heip had a drive for nature. He was keen 
on bringing scientific knowledge to the policy and 
management level and on improving coastal and ma-
rine management. He was involved with local and 
regional estuarine management, as well as with Eu-
ropean and worldwide programmes for the protec-
tion of biodiversity. And above all, he was a warm 
person with a good sense of humour, who enjoyed 
all good things in life. 
PETER HERMAN
NIOZ Yerseke


Obituary: Carlo Heip (1945-2013)

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