The organizers
Viktória B-Béres
is an algologist and an ecologist at the Functional Algology Research Group of the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research in Hungary. She received her PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of Debrecen in 2013. Her research focuses on understanding the structural and functional dynamics of benthic algal communities in freshwater ecosystems. She is investigating how extreme climatic events affect benthic algae and how conservation strategies relate to these communities. She participates in several national and international projects, supervises Ph.D. and postdoc students, and also teaches many courses for BA and MA students. See more on ResearchGate.
Motivation for Writing an Identification Guide for Freshwater Cryptomonads:
One of the main missions of our research group is to assist practical specialists. Our employees have been involved in WFD-based algological monitoring development and biomonitoring work for years. It is a well-known fact, that no large, comprehensive work focusing specifically cryptomonads and summarizing new knowledge has been published in recent decades. The Hungarian identification guide is not available to professionals at all. Furthermore, obtaining information on the appearance and distribution of the species in Hungary is challenging and incomplete. The writing of the identification guide introduced at the meeting was supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary.
Enikő T-Krasznai
is an algologist and an ecologist at the Functional Ecology Research Group of the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research in Hungary. She received her PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of Debrecen in 2011. Her research focuses on the functional dynamics of phytoplankton assemblages in freshwater ecosystems. She has been working on phytoplankton analysis in environmental laboratories for 20 years. She works as an external phytoplankton analyst for company Zwerver. See more on ResearchGate.
István Bácsi
is a microbiologist and biotechnologist at the Department of Hydrobiology, University of Debrecen, Hungary. He received his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Debrecen in 2008. His research focuses on the effects of environmental changes and inorganic or organic pollutants on the physiological processes of algae (nutrient uptake, life cycle, accumulation of metabolic products); on biotechnological application possibilities of algae (bioremediation) and on interspecific interactions of algae (nutrient competition, allelopathy, toxicity). He has many courses and practices in several Bachelor and Master training programs of the University and supervises Ph.D. students. See more on ResearchGate.
Satu Zwerver
is the owner of company Zwerver, a plankton counting company since 2006. She received her BSc in the Netherlands in 1994, van Hall Institute and worked after that in the Dutch aquatic research company Koeman en Bijkerk bv, with for example Anton Joosten as a colleague. Taxonomy has always been her favorite and she loves to dig in the books and articles in search for the right names of plankton organisms. Her works consists of counting phyto- and zooplankton samples mainly for the monitoring purposes in Finland. Do take a look at her blog on plankton.
Päivi Hakanen
received her master’s degree in marine biology at the University of Helsinki in 2009. After that she did some postgraduate studies in 2010-2014 at the University of Helsinki. During her studies she focused on the phytoplankton of the Baltic Sea studying the ecology of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium ostenfeldii and the taxonomy of the unarmoured dinoflagellate Levanderina fissa.
In 2013, she started to learn about freshwater phytoplankton under the guidance of Satu. Since 2016, she has been analysing phytoplankton samples and reporting the results for the Company Zwerver. See more on ResearchGate.
