Profile

Biography

My principal research interests lie in the field of microbial plankton ecology, physiology and the role of the bacteria, phytoplankton and zooplankton on the marine carbon cycling. I have worked on the coupling, or uncoupling, between primary production and respiration processes and the influence of the community structure and environmental variables, such as temperature and dissolved organic matter, on the metabolic balance. My recent projects have involved research cruises, as well as microcosm and mesocosm experiments in the laboratory with cultured bacteria, phytoplankton and zooplankton organisms and natural plankton communities.

Current PDRA and PhD students

Florence Atherden (National Oceanography Centre - 2023)

James Gallagher (National Oceanography Centre - University of Southampton, 2022-) working on environmental drivers of mixotrophy and its impact on the plankton metabolic balance

Dominic Dennis (University of East Anglia, 2022-) working on the synthesis of fluororescent tetrazolium salts

Completed Master students

Emily Condie (2021), MSc Thesis: Effects of the dissolved organic matter leached from plastic on plankton metabolism

I welcome enquiries from potential MSc and PhD students.

You can also find me on ORCID (0000-0003-4807-3287) and my personal Twitter account is @e_garciamartin

Roles

Coordinator of the Arctic for BIOPOLE programme

I have held several research and teaching responsibilities including member of Health and Safety Committee, Symposium committee organiser, scientific reviewer, undergraduate module organiser, and Co-chair/ Secretary and Treasurer of a Oceanography Professional Society (https://oceanografas.gal/).

Committees

UKRI Talent Peer Review College member

Researcher representative of the Sustainable and Social Responsibility Committee (NOC)

Projects

Current projects

Biogeochemical processes and ecosystem function in changing polar systems and their global impacts (BIOPOLE) is a 5 year project (2022-2027) funded by NERC. The aim of the project is to examine biogeochemical processes and ecosystem function in polar ecosystems

https://biopole.ac.uk/

Current and Future Effects of Microplastics on Marine Shelf Ecosystems (MINIMISE) is a NERC funded project (2019-2023) which aim is to develop the use of highly sensitive bio-imaging techniques to visualise microplastics within living tissuesfor tracing how microplastics move between prey animals and their predators

Past Projects

Land Ocean CArbon TransfEr (LOCATE) was a multidisciplinary national-scaled project funded by NERC () which main objective was to quantify the transport of terrigenous organic matter from soils to the ocean, with a special focus on rivers, estuaries and coastal waters.

https://www.locate.ac.uk/

Monitoring Anthropogenic Particles and Plankton using citizen Science (MAPPS) was a UK national-scale project funded by NERC-UKRI and the Royal Society with the main aim to increase the observations on the abundance of anthropogenic particles and plankton composition and their spatial variability in different aquatic environments such as rivers, lakes and coastal waters. To achieve this goal, 21 citizen scientists were trained in the use of PlanktoScope, an ultra-low-cost microscopic imaging device.

REMineralisation of organic carbon by marine bActerIoplanktoN: reducing the known unknown (REMAIN) is a NERC funded project (2017-2022) which aim is to determine how the contribution of bacterioplankton respiration to microbial community respiration varies with plankton community structure and dissolved organic matter.

https://www.remainproject.com

Marine bacterioplankton respiration: a critical unknown in global carbon budgets is a Leverhulme project (2017-2022) that investigate the role of plankton respiration in carbon sequestration and the production of CO2 with especial emphasis on the contribution of marine bacteria to the total plankton respiration.

Fluorometric Tetrazolium Salt/Formazan Assays for Histochemistry and Biomedical Applications was a NERC Innovation proposal which aim was to develop a novel fluorometric assay which could be used to evaluate the potential of newly developed drugs and to quantify plankton respiration

CArbon/Nutrient DYnamics and FLuxes Over Shelf Systems (CANDYFLOSS), a project part of the Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry consortium funded by NERC and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The aim of the research is to reduce the uncertainty in our understanding of nutrient and carbon cycling within the shelf seas, and of their role in global biogeochemical cycles.

https://www.uk-ssb.org/

Scaling, monitoring and predicting marine plankton metabolism in a changing ocean (SCALAR) a MICINN (Spanish Government) funded project which studies the functional relation between community structure and metabolism, and the scaling rules and controls that connect plankton community metabolism to biogeochemical processes.

Publications

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Land Ocean CArbon TransfEr (LOCATE) was a multidisciplinary national-scaled project funded by NERC () which main objective was to quantify the transport of terrigenous organic matter from soils to the ocean, with a special focus on rivers, estuaries and coastal waters.

Fluorometric Tetrazolium Salt/Formazan Assays for Histochemistry and Biomedical Applications was a NERC Innovation proposal which aim was to develop a novel fluorometric assay which could be used to evaluate the potential of newly developed drugs and to quantify plankton respiration