Dr. Dania Albini
I am an aquatic ecologist interested in how aquatic ecosystems respond to global change and other stressors, such as warming and sewage pollution. My research focuses on understanding the effects of multiple stressors across different levels of organisation - from individual organisms to food webs and entire ecosystems - and across multiple scales, from controlled laboratory experiments to field studies.​​​​​​​​​​​​
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I am currently working as a Senior Research Officer at the University of Essex (UK), in the group of Dr. Eoin O'Gorman on a the webDNA Leverhulme Trust project.
Aquatic Ecology | Global Change
Senior Research Officer: webDNA: food web reconstruction through environmental DNA analysis
University of Essex, O'Gorman Group, 2025-2027
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The aim of the project is to test whether food webs inferred from the taxonomic lists generated through eDNA metabarcoding will capture similar ecosystem responses to environmental change as those constructed using traditional methods from food web ecology. The approach will be generalised by conducting the same comparative methods in three independent scenarios, exploring different temporal scales and different aquatic environments.​​
Post Doctoral Researcher: NERC QUANTUM Project: Quantifying the effects of agricultural land use on aquatic communities
University of Exeter, 2024
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I worked in Prof. Charles Tyler Lab, focusing on the current understanding of how agricultural land use impacts riverine ecosystems.
Post Doctoral Researcher: NERC Agile Project: The ecological effects of CO2 leakage on the pelagic marine system
University of Oxford, Jackson Group, 2023
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I worked in Dr. Michelle Jackson’s aquatic ecology research group to investigate the ecological effects of simulated CO2 leakage from CSS and warming, on marine plankton communities.
Research Council of Norway (RCN) Independent Fellowship: Implications of winter climate change and human-induced stressors for the Arctic zooplankton
​​University of Oslo, and University of Oxford and University of Svalbard. Groups: Dr. Michelle Jackson, Dr. Khuong Dinh, January 2023- April 2023
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In this project I worked on the responses of marine Arctic zooplankton to multiple stressors, during the Polar night.
Post Doctoral Researcher: Effects of pollution, warming and other stressors on aquatic communities
University of Oxford, Imperial College London, Groups: Dr. Michelle Jackson, Prof. Guy Woodward, 2021-2022
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I worked in Dr. Michelle Jackson’s aquatic ecology research group and in Prof. Guy Woodward lab on the NERC project: “Disentangling the effects of chemical pollution and warming on aquatic plankton communities”. I used freshwater mesocosm experiments and lab experiments to study multiple stressor impacts, with a particular focus on plankton community. Another project I worked on was on disentangle the effects of sewage pollution on riverine communities.
Scientific Researcher
Swansea University, SEACAMS group, 2020
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In this position I collaborated in several research project, including help developing accurate methods to assess biochemical and bioactive properties in macroalgae compounds and tracking herring populations using stable isotopes and eDNA tecniques.
P.h.D: Responses of freshwater zooplankton to stressors
Swansea University, Supervisors: Prof. Kam Tang, Prof.Mike Fowler and Carole Llewellyn) 2015-2019
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My PhD thesis was on the inducible defences of freshwater zooplankton communities to environmental stressors, such as light, predation and fire ash.
Keywords: global change, warming, multiple stressors, pollution, plankton, body size, aquatic communities, food webs.