dr. R (Ronald) Osinga

I am a marine biologist with specific interest in the ecophysiology of sedentary marine invertebrates, in particular scleractinian (stony) corals and sponges. I did my MSc in marine biology at the University of Groningen (thesis projects on Indonesian seagrass beds and marine microalgae) and I did a PhD on the effects of algal deposition on the microbiological activity in North Sea sediments at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. I started at Wageningen University in 1996, as a postdoctoral researcher at the Bioprocess Engineering group, where I established a research line on the biotechnology of marine sponges. In 2004, I moved to the Aquaculture and Fisheries group, where I established a research line on coral aquaculture. Since November 2015, I am Assistant Professor at the chairgroup Marine Animal Ecology (MAE).

My research at MAE aims at understanding how different environmental factors influence recruitment and growth of these organisms and how genotypic variability influences the response of species to environmental changes. Factors of interest include (but are not limited to) ocean pH, nutrification, dissolved oxygen, illumination, siltation, water flow velocity and temperature.

Most of my research is executed in the facilities of Carus at Wageningen University, where we have the possibility to do experimental work on live corals and live sponges. Experiments are mostly dose-response experiments to test either short-term responses of combinations of environmental factors on the metabolism and the feeding biology of the targeted species or long-term responses on the growth of these species. I am combining this work with field studies on natural reef environments.

Knowledge obtained from my research leads to a better understanding of the mechanisms that determine distribution patterns of corals and sponges in natural ecosystems and will help society to more effectively manage natural resources and to create new reef ecosystems.

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ronald_Osinga

LinkedIn: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/ronald-osinga-6a464423