POMP PhD Student Tiziana Durazzano was awarded the Outstanding Poster Award at the Arctic Frontiers: Beyond Borders conference of 2025. Studying at the Institute for Arctic and Marine Biology in Norway, Tiziana has been researching the functional diversity of zooplankton in the Barents Sea, with particular focus on copepods.
Copepods are small crustaceans found in most freshwater and saltwater habitats. Tiziana’s research looks at how environmental factors influence the functional traits of these organisms – such as size, feeding strategies and reproductive behaviours – and how variations in these traits impact the structure and functions of marine planktonic communities in the Arctic.
Her most recent results reveal that water masses and depth-related factors influence community assembly, with possible effects on biogeochemical cycles. Additionally, her research also points to the possible effects of body size and feeding mode on individual fitness, which in turn determine the organisms’ adaptive strategies and adaptations.
In the future, Tiziana plans to take her research further north to examine the functional diversity of copepods in the Arctic basin and their role in the biological carbon pump – the process in which the ocean sequesters carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the ocean interior and seafloor sediments.
About the Arctic Frontiers Beyond Borders conference
Organised by Arctic Frontiers, the Arctic Frontiers 2025: Beyond Borders conference gathers scientists, businesses, policymakers and representatives of local and indigenous peoples from more than 30 countries to discuss themes from climate model data and metal toxicity to the impacts of geopolitics on Arctic communities.
