Susanne Menden-Deuer She/her
Professor, Oceanography in the Graduate School of Oceanography
Menden Deuer’s research interests focus on marine planktonic food web structure and function. Her research group conducts hypothesis driven experiments in the laboratory, at sea and in silico around two themes of ecosystem production and plankton’s role in large scale processes in a changing ocean. The team’s efforts combine in-situ measurements of marine production in temperate and polar seas, laboratory measurements of plankton behavior and physiology and theoretical modeling work to establish linkages between microscopic events (e.g. predator movements) and macroscopic phenomena (e.g. phytoplankton production and distributions).
“Microplastics are ubiquitous contaminants in marine ecosystems worldwide, yet we don’t know whether and how these particles enter marine food webs. To shed light on this, we are conducting feeding studies – with single-celled zooplankton at the base of the marine food web – to measure whether plastics are retained within organisms and passed up the food chain.”
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Header image credit: Jasmin Sessler