Rene M. van der Zande

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated how spatial and seasonal changes in environmental conditions (temperature and PAR) influence benthic community structure, and the composition and frequency of coral-algal interactions across eight distinct zones and over a 23-month period at Heron reef on the southern Great Barrier Reef.

TL;DR: The growth, bioerosion capacity and likelihood of survival of C. orientalis and similar photosymbiotic excavating sponges could be substantially reduced rather than increased on end-of-the-century reefs under “business-as-usual” emission profiles.

TL;DR: The results indicate that ocean warming and acidification under business-as-usual CO2 emission scenarios will likely extirpate thermally-sensitive coral species before the end of the century, while slowing the recovery of more thermologically-tolerant species from increasingly severe mass coral bleaching and mortality.

TL;DR: This paper quantified carbonate production, erosion, and dissolution within and between distinct geomorphological habitats of Heron Reef on the southern Great Barrier Reef in order to better under-stand spatial variations in framework and sediment net carbonate budgets.

TL;DR: The conclusion that photosynthetic products (photosynthates) and/or by-products (oxygen) stimulate sponge bioerosion is supported, which further reveals the importance of symbionts in the ecology of such sponges and in their ability to sustain high bioer explosion activity in otherwise nutrient-poor ecosystems.