Rene van der Zande

Rene van der Zande is an Honorary Fellow at the Coral Reef Ecosystems Laboratory (CRE Lab) of The University of Queensland, affiliated since 2014 (initially as a PhD student). He currently conducts collaborative research with the California Academy of Sciences and the CARMABI Research Station on Curacao.

His research interests include:

• Ecophysiology of reef-building corals under local and global stressors
• Phenotypic plasticity in coral health responses
• Interactive effects of environmental stressors like eutrophication and climate change
• Coral calcification processes
• Host-symbiont relationships in coral-dinoflagellate systems

Presently, he investigates mesophotic corals (depths >40m) to determine physiological adaptations to low-light environments, using manipulative experiments and stable isotope analyses to examine symbiosis status and alternative energy acquisition mechanisms in deep-water corals.