Elena Motivans
Contact
Elena Motivans
Doctoral Researcher 'Spatial Interaction Ecology'
Department of Community Ecology
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ/
German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Puschstraße 4
D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
(postal address)
Tel: +49 341 9739144
Room: A.02.13
Research
In my current research l am interested in learning more about pollinator interactions in some of the very diverse but understudied systems that we have right here in Europe, focusing on traditionally managed meadows in Eastern Europe. To understand what factors influence the interactions in these regions, I am examining functional diversity and pollen transport. I am also interested in using new tools, such as molecular methods and machine learning, to make pollen analysis more accessible for analyzing plant-pollinator interactions and for higher resolution of insect identification.
Curriculum Vitae
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2016 - present
Doctoral Researcher in the Research Group Spatial Interaction Ecology (SIE), Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH – UFZ, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig.
Thesis title:
"Unraveling plant-pollinator networks across land-use gradients"
11/2016 - 03/2020
Scientific content writer for ZME Science
Project:
Writing general interest biology and ecology-related articles
04/2017 – 05/2018
Research Assistant in the Research Group Spatial Interaction Ecology (SIE), Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH – UFZ, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig.
Project:
Maintaining a database on Pacific Island tree biodiversity
04/2017 – 07/2017
Research Assistant at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH – UFZ, Leipzig
Project:
Conducting molecular analyses on on chytrid fungi samples from amphibians
11/2016 – 02/2017
Research Fellow at Slovenian National Institute of Biology, Marine Biology Station Piran
Project:
Developing molecular methods to detect fish fraud in products from grocery stores
04/2015 – 10/2016
Research Assistant at Zoological State Collection, Munich
Projects:Imaging invertebrate species for inclusion in barcoding databases and using eDNA barcoding to reassemble the species community from the SeaLife Aquarium
05/2013 – 06/2013
Field Assistant at Department of Biology, McGill University
Projects:Involved in sampling for a project on the evolution of stickleback fish on Vancouver Island, BC
2014 – 2016
Master of Science
Evolutionary Genomics, Ecology, and Systematics
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany
Thesis title:
“Influence of environmental conditions on eDNA detection using the invasive fish species Neogobius melanostomus”
2011 – 2014
Bachelor of Applied Science
Major Biology, minor English Literature
McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Thesis title:
“The parallelism of body shape and dimorphism between the sexes under similar selective pressures in Oncorhynchus nerka”
TEACHING AND MENTORING
2018 – present
2018
CONFERENCES
9 - 13 September 2019
SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS
• Lehre@LMU Award for Student Research Projects (2016)
• EES Young Researcher Award for Best Master’s Presentation (2016)
• ERASMUS+ internship funding— (2016/2017)
• Best PhD presentation at the iDiv conference (2019)
• iDiv Science Communication Award (2020)
OUTREACH
17 June - 18 October 2020
02 December 2020
Projects and Collaborations
- pollen visitation networks and functional diversity along land-use and natural gradients in extensive landscapes
- collaborating with the iCyt platform at iDiv/UFZ to test new tools for the identification of pollen from insects
- using barcoding to test how the taxonomic grain of pollinator identification affects visitation networks
Peer-reviewed Publications
Dunker, S., Motivans, E., Rakosy, D., Boho, D., Mäder, P., Hornick, T., Knight, T. M. (2020) Pollen analysis using multispectral imaging flow cytometry and deep learning. New Phytologist, 229: 593-606. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16882.
Schwarz, B., Vázquez, D.P., CaraDonna, P.J., Knight, T.M., Benadi, G., Dormann, C.F., Gauzens, B., Motivans, E., Resasco, J., Blüthgen, N., Burkle, L.A., Fang, Q., Kaiser‐Bunbury, C.N., Alarcón, R., Bain, J.A., Chacoff, N.P., Huang, S.‐Q., LeBuhn, G., MacLeod, M., Petanidou, T., Rasmussen, C., Simanonok, M.P., Thompson, A.H. and Fründ, J. (2020) Temporal scale‐dependence of plant–pollinator networks. Oikos, 129: 1289-1302. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.07303
Oke, K. B., Motivans, E., Quinn, T.P., Hendry, A.P. Sexual dimorphism modifies habitat‐associated divergence: Evidence from beach and creek breeding sockeye salmon. (2019) Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 32: 227– 242. https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13407
Stoeckle, B. C.*, Beggel, S.*, Cerwenka, A. F.*, Motivans, E.*, Kuehn, R., Geist, J. (2017) A systematic approach to evaluate the influence of environmental conditions on eDNA detection success in aquatic ecosystems. PLOS ONE, 12(12): e0189119. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189119 *equally contributing first authors