Bettina Meyer is a German

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

researcher, best known for her work on the

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

and

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

in the

pelagic zone The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

. She is the head of the

ecophysiology Ecophysiology (from Greek , ''oikos'', "house(hold)"; , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , '' -logia''), environmental physiology or physiological ecology is a biological discipline that studies the response of an organism's physiology to enviro ...

of pelagic key species working group at the

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (German: ''Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung'') is located in Bremerhaven, Germany, and a member of the Helmholtz Association o ...

(AWI).

Early life and education

From 1987 to 1992 Meyer read biology, focusing on Marine biology and oceanography, at

Giessen University University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (german: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is named after its most famous faculty member, Justus von ...

and at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

. In 1996 she received her PhD, titled "''Feeding strategies of the calanoid copepods in two different tropicalised areas in the Baltic Sea (Pomeranian Bay, Gotland Sea)''", at the

University of Rostock The University of Rostock (german: link=no, Universität Rostock) is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continen ...

. In 2010 she completed a postdoc at the University Bremen, focusing on ecophysiological studies on the overwintering of Antarctic krill (''

Euphausia superba Antarctic krill (''Euphausia superba'') is a species of krill found in the Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean. It is a small, swimming crustacean that lives in large schools, called swarms, sometimes reaching densities of 10,000–30,000 ind ...

''). Shen then completed a science management course in 2011 at the Malik Management School, Switzerland.

Career and impact

Meyer specialises in

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...

and

with an interest in the

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

and biological flows of matter in the

of the

polar seas Polar seas is a collective term for the Arctic Ocean (about 4-5 percent of Earth's oceans) and the southern part of the Southern Ocean (south of Antarctic Convergence, about 10 percent of Earth's oceans). In the coldest years, sea ice can cover ...

. Her research focuses on key polar

such as Antarctic

krill Krill are small crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, and are found in all the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in n ...

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

amphipods Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descri ...

, and gelatinous plankton (e.g.

salp A salp (plural salps, also known colloquially as “sea grape”) or salpa (plural salpae or salpas) is a barrel-shaped, planktic tunicate. It moves by contracting, thereby pumping water through its gelatinous body, one of the most efficient ...

jellyfish Jellyfish and sea jellies are the informal common names given to the medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, a major part of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbrella- ...

). She also researches the impact of endogenous clocks on the life cycle of these organisms, their

adaptability Adaptability ( la, adaptō "fit to, adjust") is a feature of a system or of a process. This word has been put to use as a specialised term in different disciplines and in business operations. Word definitions of adaptability as a specialised term d ...

and performance to environmental stressors based on their physiological and genetic traits, as well as their role in

biogeochemical cycle A biogeochemical cycle (or more generally a cycle of matter) is the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the ...

s. From 1992 to 1996 and again during 1998 Meyer was a research associate at the

Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research The Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (german: Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung Warnemünde, abbreviated IOW) is a research institution located in Warnemünde (Rostock), Germany. It is part of the Leibniz-Association, cooperates wit ...

, Germany. In 1997 she completed a one-year research associate position at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in Plymouth (UK), funded by a prestigious EU Marie Curie postdoc fellowship. Since 1999 she has been a research associate at the

(AWI), within the Polar Biological Oceanography section. Meyer is the current head of the Ecophysiology of pelagic key species working group at AWI, while also heading the international and collaborative project Helmholtz Virtual Institute PolarTime: Biological rhythms and clocks in polar pelagic invertebrates. She has travelled to the Southern Ocean on a number of occasions on the RV Aurora Australis, and the RV Polarstern. From 2009–2011 Meyer collaborated with Prof. Kramer and Dr M. Teschke in the

Chronobiology Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines timing processes, including periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms, such as their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. These cycles are known as biological rhythms. Chronobi ...

Research Group at the Charité hospital and University of Medicine, Berlin, was an active member of the Lazarev Sea Krill Study (LAKRIS), the German contribution to Southern Ocean Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (SO-GLOBEC) from 2005-2008 and served as a board member on the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC). Meyer currently serves on the senate commission on oceanography at the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

(DFG) and is an associate member of SO-eEOV WG (designing a biological observing system in the Southern Ocean to inform global ocean observing of marine ecosystems). Meyer holds a professorship at the

University of Oldenburg The Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (german: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg) is a university located in Oldenburg, Germany. It is one of the most important and highly regarded educational facilities in northwestern Germany ...

(Germany), where she heads a project at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Oceans (ICBM) focusing on the biodiversity and biological processes of the polar oceans.

Awards and honors

Meyer was awarded the EU Marie Curie postdoc fellowship in 1997 to work in the Zooplankton group at the

Plymouth Marine Laboratory Plymouth Marine Laboratory (abbreviated as PML) in the city of Plymouth, England, is a marine research organization and registered charity. It is a partner of the UK Research & Innovation's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). PML's chai ...

Selected works

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References

External links

Bettina Meyer
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Bettina German women scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people German Antarctic scientists Women Antarctic scientists German marine biologists Women marine biologists