Maria Grigoratou

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Executive Secretary Designate at European Polar Board

Planktic foraminifera are a major contributor to marine inorganic carbon production. They leave abundant calcium carbonate shells on the sea floor, which serve as prime proxies for the physical and chemical attributes of past oceans. Despite a well-preserved fossil record and wide use in palaeoceanography, our understanding of their ecology is limi...

Marine heatwaves, increasingly frequent, impact marine ecosystems and services. Still, understanding how temperature affects observed responses remains limited due to complex interactions among temperature, abiotic and biotic factors, and community dynamics. Here we try to ll this gap by exposing simulated plankton communities to seasonal heatwaves...

Under climate change, model ensembles suggest that declines in phytoplankton biomass amplify into greater reductions at higher trophic levels, with serious implications for fisheries and carbon storage. However, the extent and mechanisms of this trophic amplification vary greatly among models, and validation is problematic. In situ size spectra off...

Anthropogenic warming is altering species abundance, distribution, physiology, and more. How changes observed at the species level alter emergent community properties is an active and urgent area of research. Trait‐based ecology and regime shift theory provide complementary ways to understand climate change impacts on communities, but these two bod...

Neurodiversity refers to variations in the human brain that affect information processing; it includes conditions, or “neurotypes,” such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia, among others. Neurodiversity can be conceptualized as significant differences in the ways t...

The poster presents outcomes from the action of the EU funded projects ECOTIP-EU4OceanObs: Biogenic Data Products to Advance Ocean Carbon Sequestration Modelling in the Arctic. More details can be found here: https://www.eu4oceanobs.eu/biogenic-data-products-to-advance-ocean-carbon-sequestration-modelling-in-the-arctic/ https://www.eu4oceanobs....

Planktonic Foraminifera are unique paleo-environmental indicators through their excellent fossil record in ocean sediments. Their distribution and diversity are affected by different environmental factors including anthropogenically forced ocean and climate change. Until now, historical changes in their distribution have not been fully assessed at...

Zooplankton are major consumers of phytoplankton primary production in marine ecosystems. As such, they represent a critical link for energy and matter transfer between phytoplankton and bacterioplankton to higher trophic levels and play an important role in global biogeochemical cycles. In this Review, we discuss key responses of zooplankton to oc...

Fish contribute to the export of carbon out of the euphotic zone. They ingest organic carbon fixed by phytoplankton, store it in their tissues for their lifetime, and contribute to long-term sequestration by producing sinking fecal pellets, respiring at depth, or via their own sinking carcasses. While the flux of carbon through fish is small relati...

Ecosystem models need to capture biodiversity, because it is a fundamental determinant of food web dynamics and consequently of the cycling of energy and matter in ecosystems. In oceanic food webs, the plankton compartment encompasses by far most of the biomass and diversity. Therefore, capturing plankton diversity is paramount for marine ecosystem...

Planktonic Foraminifera are ubiquitous marine protozoa inhabiting the upper ocean. During life, they secrete calcareous shells, which accumulate in marine sediments, providing a geological record of past spatial and temporal changes in their community structure. As a result, they provide the opportunity to analyze both current and historical patter...

Planktonic foraminifera are one of the primary calcifiers in the modern ocean, contributing 23‐56% of total global pelagic carbonate production. However, a mechanistic understanding of how physiology and environmental conditions control their abundance and distribution is lacking, hindering the projection of the impact of future climate change. Thi...

Planktonic foraminifera are important calcifiers in the modern ocean. Despite this importance, the main functions of foraminifera's test and ornamentation such as spines are unclear. Spinose species dominate the planktonic foraminifera population in subtropical oligotrophic gyres, while non-spinose species dominate in deeper waters and at high lati...

The Marine Biodiversity Observation (MBON), Modelling Different Components of Marine Plankton Biodiversity team (MODIV) and OceanObs research Coordination Network (OO RCN) organized a workshop titled: “Plankton ecosystem function: biodiversity, forecasting, and prediction needs” on November 9-10, 2020. The workshop aimed to bring observationists, e...

Despite the important role of planktonic foraminifera in regulating the ocean carbonate production and their unrivalled value in reconstructing paleoenvironments, our knowledge on their ecology is limited. A variety of observational techniques such as plankton tows, sediment traps and experiments have contributed to our understanding of foraminifer...

Despite the important role of planktonic foraminifera in regulating the ocean carbonate production and their unrivalled value in reconstructing paleoenvironments, our knowledge on their ecology is limited. A variety of observational techniques such as plankton tows, sediment traps and experiments, have contributed to our understanding of foraminife...

Although metazooplankton includes a wide size range of organisms, our knowledge is essentially based on mesozooplankton. A first estimation of the metazooplankton standing stock in a Mediterranean area, and of its size fractions and functional groups are provided by combining data out of three nets with different mesh sizes (45, 200 and 500 μm). Da...

Zooplankton community composition was studied in the North Aegean frontal area in the winter-spring period along a trophic gradient going from the less saline and cold modified Black Sea water to the high salinity and temperature waters of Levantine origin. Samples were collected at the upper 100 m of three stations positioned along this gradient b...

Zooplankton community composition was studied in the North Aegean frontal area in the winter-spring period along a trophic gradient ranging from the less saline and cold modified Black Sea water to the high salinity and warm waters of Levantine origin. Samples were collected in the upper 100 m of three stations positioned along this gradient using...