Dr. Ir. Jasper de Goeij of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) received a prestigious VENI grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to investigate the role of sponges in the recycling of energy on coral reef ecosystems.

Coral reefs are hotspots of biological activity. For decades a major question in coral reef ecology, known as ‘Darwin's Paradox', was: How can one of the most productive ecosystems in the world thrive in the marine equivalent of a desert? Sponges play a pivotal role in answering this question. Sponges take up food that cannot be used by most reef inhabitants and convert it into food that can be, through a unique and peculiar fast cell turnover. Dr. De Goeij, Post-Doc at the Aquatic Ecology and Ecotoxicology (AEE)  research group of IBED, hopes to unravel a new biological loop (recycling pathway) within the food chain of benthic ecosystems, facilitating the formation of hotspots of biological activity.

VENI grants are part of NWO's Innovational Research Incentives Schemes and are targeted at talented individual researchers within 3 years after finishing their PhD. The grant carry a monetary award of 250 K€ that gives successful applicants the opportunity to develop their own innovative research during a three year period of time.

On Sunday 7 November 2010, De Goeij spoke about the research of his VENI project as one of two main guests of the popular scientific Radio show  Labyrinth on Dutch national radio (Radio 1).