MENA OLIVER, Catalina

CV Summary

I am interested in the role and contribution of specific microbes to the community activity and how their spatial and temporal dynamics influence the element cycles. I am also interested in the nutritional strategies of phytoplanktonic communities and in understanding their role in the ocean carbon cycle.

At present, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre Oceanogràfic de Balears (IEO-CSIC, Palma) with a Vicenç Mut fellowship, funded by the Regional Balearic Government (dgrdi.caib.es). I focus my research on the impact of organic contaminants on phytoplankton activity, using a combination of up-to-date single-cell techniques and genomic approaches.

Esta ayuda ha sido concedida por la Conselleria d’Educació i Universitats del Govern de les Illes Balears y por la Direcció General d’Universitats, Recerca i Ensenyaments Artístics Superiors, y está cofinanciada por la Unión Europea a través del Fondo Social Europeo Plus (FSE+), en el marco del Programa FSE+ de les Illes Balears 2021-2027 (ref. FPI-059-2023).



I obtained my PhD in 2020 at the IEO-CSIC (Palma), focused on phytoplankton community dynamics and temporal and spatial patterns of surface and deep ocean prokaryotic communities. Since then, my postdoctoral research has focused on phytoplankton mixotrophy. I continued as postdoctoral researcher (2020-2021) at the IFREMER (France) working on the importance of dinoflagellate mixotrophic metabolism under different environmental conditions using isotopic approaches. In 2022-2023 I was a postdoctoral researcher with a Juan de la Cierva contract at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC, Barcelona), studying the consumption of dissolved organic compounds by natural planktonic eukaryotic communities and their diel variations using click-chemistry. Then, I returned to the IEO-CSIC (Palma) with a Margalida Comas postdoctoral contract (2024-2025) to continue my research on the impact of phytoplankton mixotrophy on the ocean carbon dynamics, exploring their metabolic flexibility and quantifying their phototrophic and heterotrophic activity.

Margalida Comas postdoctoral contract funded by

Links:
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Update in October 2025