Finishing my PhD research a few months ago was a big achievement so far. Now, presenting my PhD and having it awarded as one of the best oral presentations was a very nice way to close this chapter of my career.

I am a Brazilian marine biologist and PhD in Ecology at Federal University of Santa Catarina, POSECO-UFSC. For the past 10 years I’ve been dedicating my research studies to the ecology of epipelagic copepods and their relation with the oceanographic features in the South Atlantic Ocean. My research topics focus on morphological taxonomy of copepods and zooplankton imaging systems (ZooScan) applying functional trait-based approaches. Currently, collaborating in research projects, scientific communication and outreach of Ocean Culture within the PlancZEu, AtlantECO (H2020 Blue Growth) and Veleiro ECO projects.

The main approaches regarding copepod biodiversity defined two milestones to be achieved in my PhD research. The latitudinal gradients of copepod functional diversity and body size from South Atlantic to the Southern Ocean. For this purpose, in my time as a visiting graduate student at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples (SZN), I have participated in the 1st Advanced Zooplankton Course - Morphological and Molecular Taxonomy of Marine Copepods (AZC1) on October and November 2018 (www.azc1szn.it). After that course, I stayed at SZN for a 10-month stage under the supervision of Maria Grazia Mazzocchi, a senior scientist in copepod taxonomy. In the frame of the European transnational access program ASSEMBLE Plus (assembleplus.eu/), I got the opportunity to revisit the Tara Oceans zooplankton collection at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche in France «May 2019». I selected the samples from South Atlantic aiming to enlarge the latitudinal gradient of my copepod dataset from the southern Brazilian cruise, and access a large variety of ecosystems, from tropical to polar waters. Over there, I combined high-throughput imaging system followed by semi-automatic classification (ZooScan and ECOTAXA, respectively). Since plankton imaging instrumentation has been developed at the host institution, I could be acquainted with the latest imaging tools and specialists in imaging plankton research. The second part of the research was dedicated to identify the copepods to the species level at SZN in Naples. Both approaches, traditional morphological taxonomy and the size structure brought novel insights about species functional traits for the first time in South Atlantic, and the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships related with copepod functional groups.
It was the very first time I’ve been in the Copepoda Conference and I was very delighted to attend the event with many copepodologists recognized worldwide. All the presentations were very interesting, and I was very proud with the Brazilian researcher’s representation. I’m looking forward to attend the next ICOC (this time in-person and in JAPAN!), with a new interesting topic. I sincerely thank everyone who listened, made compliments and voted for my presentation. It keeps me inspired and motivated to carry on my studies on copepod research. Special thanks to my supervisors, Andrea Freire and Maria Grazia Mazzocchi, for giving me the funding opportunities, for sharing their knowledge, and being so supportive all the time along my PhD research and at this conference.