Dr. Panagiotis Theodorou

Institute of Biology, General Zoology,

Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg

Halle (Saale), Germany

 

 

2019- ongoing: Research fellow at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute of Biology, General Zoology.

2018-2019: Research assistant at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute of Biology, General Zoology.

2013-2018: PhD in Biology at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, General Zoology.

2011-2012: Internship at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute of Biology, General Zoology.

​2008-2011: M.Sc. in Biology at University of Iceland, Department of Biology.

2003-2008: B.Sc. in Biology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Biology.

​

Acquired funds (PI)

​

2023-2023: iDiv Flexpool 10 000 €

2022-2024: MLU BioDivFund 98 000 €

2021-2024: German Research Foundation (DFG) 338 000 €

2021-2024: MLU BioDivFund 165 000 €

2020-2023: German Research Foundation (DFG) 81 000 €

2018​: DAAD scholarships for conferences 1 600 €

2017​: DAAD scholarships for conferences 1 000 €

2016: Junior scientist Conference grant. Genetics Society 800 €

2015: Conference grants for attendance at non-GS meetings. Genetics Society 800 €

​

​

​

 

​

 

 

Acquired funds (Co-PI)

​

2021: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Flexpool 10 000 €

2024: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Flexpool Fund10 000 €

​

Co-supervised PhD students

​

• Atilla Çelikgil "Urban bee comparative landscape genomics"

• Bilyana Stoykova "Bee trait responses to anthropogenic disturbances"

• Christopher Wild "Comparative landscape genomics"

• Lucie Baltz "Urban bee evolutionary ecology"

​

Supervised BSc and MSc students

​

• MSc Selina Friedel on going "Insect community structure along urbanisation gradients"
• BSc Lars Henzschel 2024 "The effects of urbanisation on parasitism and mortality of cavity nesting hymenoptera"
• BSc Pascal Krause 2024 "Bee pollen diet within the urban ecosystem"
• MSc Adrian Nemetschek 2023"Urban landscape effects on cavity nesting hymenoptera"
• MSc Alexandra Schmidt 2023 "Local resrouces and landscape effects on urban flying insect communities"
• BSc Jonathan Sänger 2023 "Cavity nesting hymenoptera whithin cities"
• MSc Benjamin Bischoff 2023 "The effects of cityscape on bumble bee parasite prevalence"

• BSc Julia Zelychenko 2022 "The effects of connectivity between nature conservation areas on trap nesting bees and wasps in the Günz valley"

• BSc Laura Fish 2022 "Environmental drivers of bubmle bee parasite prevalence across changing landscapes"

• MSc Atilla Çelikgil 2021 "Main environmental drivers of pathogen transmission in bumble bees"

• MSc Sophie Humpert 2021. "Main environmental drivers of bumble bee body size within the heterogeneous urban ecosystem"

• MSc Franziska Wenzel 2021. "The effects of local resources and urban land-use on bee diversity and pollination networks"

• MSc Lucie Baltz 2021. "Bombus terrestris colony health, foraging and energetic stress within the urban ecosystem"

• MSc Olga Kuehn 2021. "Bombus terrestris colony performance within the urban ecosystem"

• BSc Ozge Nase 2020. "Bee body size shifts over the last century in Saxony Anhalt, Germany

• MSc Wilhelm Osterman 2019. "Are Natura 2000 areas insect pollination hotspots?"

• MSc Janna Mrozek 2019. "Comparing plant–flower visitor networks and the ecosystem service of pollination in flowering plant rich Natura 2000 and nearby urban sites"

• MSc Christopher Wild 2018. "Evaluation of the performance of linear mixed models, ANCOVA and non-parametric statistical frameworks in the analysis of genetic diversity"

• MSc Sarah Herbst 2018. "Plant-flower visitor networks in urban habitats: a taxonomic versus a trait-based approach"

• MSc Karoline Albig 2015. "Local and landscape effects on plant-flower visitor networks in anthropogenic habitats"

​

Teaching

​

• 2015-ongoing. MSc and BSc module "Insect Evolutionary Ecology" - Pollination ecology and insect community ecology. Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

• 2022-ongoing. MSc module "Research methods in Ecology". Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

• 2021-ongoing. Laboratory course in Zoology. Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

• 2020. BSc field course in Ecology. Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

• 2013. Insect identification course. Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

​

Workshops

​

• Barcoding workshop. iBarc, Leipzig, Germany (2022)

• Pollen diversity workshop. PolDiv, Leipzig, Germany (2019)

• Urban pollination SUPER-B workshop. Leiden, Netherlands (2018)

• Synthesis in the City: Urban Evolutionary Ecology Workshop. University of Toronto, Canada (2017)

• Frontiers of Speciation Research (FroSpects) Workshop, Evolution of divergence and speciation models of specific systems. Holar University College, Holar, Iceland (2010)

​

Invited speaker

​

• University of Prague, Czechia (2024)

• University of Lund, Sweden (2023)

• University of Göttingen, Germany (2023)

• University of Leipzig, Germany (2022)

• University of Würzburg, Germany (2019)

• University of Hamburg, Germany (2019)

​

Conferences

​

• Annual meeting of the German Zoological Society (DZG), Stuttgart (2024). "Evolution in the Anthropocene: Bees and Urbanisation". Panagiotis Theodorou

• European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB), Bologna (2024). "The impact of urbanisation on diversity, performance and fitness of cavity-nesting Hymenoptera: insights from a large-scale citizen science project". Panagiotis Theodorou

• Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) conference, Leipzig (2023). Effects of local environmental and landscape-scale factors on flying insect communities.Atilla Çelikgil and Panagiotis Theodorou

• European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB), Prague (2022). "Bumble bee colony health and performance vary widely across the urban ecosystem". Panagiotis Theodorou

• European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) conference, Prague (2022). "A population genomic approach of bumble bee responses to urban ecosystems". Panagiotis Theodorou

• European Bumblebee Conference 2021. "Bombus terrestris colony performance within the urban ecosystem." Panagiotis Theodorou.

• Entomolgy congress Halle 2019. "Comparing pollinator communities, plant-flower visitor networks and the ecosystem service of pollination in flowering plant-rich Natura 2000 and nearby urban sites" Janna Mrozek, Wilhelm Osterman, Julia Osterman, Michael Beckmann, Robert Paxton, Panagiotis Theodorou.

• Entomolgy congress Halle 2019. "Body size shifts in bumblebee urban communities" Antonella Soro, Panagiotis Theodorou, Lucie Baltz, Robert Paxton

• Entomolgy congress Halle 2019. "How to bee diversity and floral diversity co-vary within the urban environment." Panagiotis Theodorou, Sarah Herbst, Lucie Baltz, Patricia Landaverde-González, Julia, Osterman, Belinda Kahnt, Robert Paxton

• EurBee 8th. Congress of Apidology Ghent 2018. "Lactic acid bacteria of the honey bee crop enhance adult longevity but do not provide specific defence against a microsporidian and a viral pathogen" Disayathanoowat T., Vásquez A., Olofsson T., Theodorou P., Natsopoulou M., Doublet V., McMahon, D., Paxton R.J.

• EurBee 8th. Congress of Apidology Ghent 2018. "Not the perfect match? Biogeography and pollinator shifts rather than cospeciation dominate the evolutionary history of Rediviva bees and their Diascia host plants in the Cape biodiversity hotspot". Kahnt B., Hattingh W.N., Theodorou P., Wieseke N., Kuhlmann M., Glennon K.L., van der Niet T., Paxton R.J., Cron G.V

• EurBee 8th. Congress of Apidology Ghent 2018."Two deformed wing virus variants, genotypes A and B, cause low pupal mortality and a high frequency of wing deformities in metamorphosing honey bees (Apis mellifera)". Tehel A., Vu Q., Theodorou P., Paxton R.J.

• II Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology – Montpellier 2018. "Adaptation to urbanisation in the red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) as suggested by a genome-wide SNP scan." Panagiotis Theodorou, Rita Radzevičiūtė, Belinda Kahnt, Antonella Soro, Ivo Grosse, Robert J. Paxton.

• XI International Symposium on Pollination 2018. "Flower-rich urban areas can act as bee pollination hotspots. Panagiotis Theodorou

• XI International Symposium on Pollination 2018. "Oilseed rape effects on pollinator biodiversity and pollination servece provision in apple orchards. " Julia Goss, Panagiotis Theodorou, Rita Radzevicuite, Robert Paxton.

• Bienen AG Tagung, GE, Koblenz 2018. "How to best control for differences in microsatellite loci variability when comparing genetic diversity across populations." Christopher Wild, Panagiotis Theodorou, Robert J. Paxton, Antonella Soro.

• Bienen AG Tagung, GE, Koblenz 2018. "Virus prevalence of sympatric field samples of Apis mellifera and Bombus species. Delphine Panziera, Panagiotis Theodorou, Robert J. Paxton. 

• European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) conference, Groningen (2017). "Genome-wide SNP scan reveals patterns of adaptation to urbanization in an important pollinator, Bombus lapidarius. Panagiotis Theodorou, Rita Radzevičiūtė, Belinda Kahnt, Antonella Soro, Ivo Grosse, Robert J. Paxton.

• British Annual meeting, UK, Liverpool (2016). Insect pollinator diversity and the ecosystem service of pollination in changing landscapes. Panagiotis Theodorou, Rita Radzevičiūtė, Guillaume Lentendu, Belinda Kahnt, Martin Husemann, Tesfaye Wubet, Josef Settele, Oliver Schweiger, Christoph Bleidorn, Ivo Grosse, Tomás E. Murray,  Robert J. Paxton.

• Ento’15: International Symposium of the Royal Entomological Society (Insect Ecosystem Services) Dublin, Ireland (2015). Interrelationship between pollinator diversity, landscape heterogeneity and pollination service provision in German apple orchards. Rita Radzevičiūtė, Martin Schlegel, Panagiotis Theodorou,Robert J. Paxton.

• Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) conference, Göttingen (2015). Plant-pollinator networks, bumblebee pathogens and pollination service provision in anthropogenic habitats.Panagiotis Theodorou, Karoline Albig, Rita Radzevičiūtė, Josef Settele, Oliver Schweiger, Tomás E. Murray, Robert J. Paxton

• European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) conference, Lausanne (2015). "Mapping genetic and species diversity of pollinators to the ecosystem service of pollination across changing landscapes". Panagiotis Theodorou, Josef Settele, Christoph Bleidorn, Oliver Schweiger,  Ivo Grosse, Tomás E. Murray, Robert J. Paxton

• Central European Meeting of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects – IUSSI, Lichtenfels ,Germany. (2015)."Interdependent parasite pressures on social bees".Dino P. McMahon, Myrsini E. Natsopoulou, Matthias A. Fürst, Vincent Doublet, Panagiotis Theodorou, John Bryden, Mark J. F. Brown, Robert J. Paxton.

• Hymenopterologen-Tagung, Stuttgart. (2014). “Insights into the systematic relationships of a European fossorial bee species complex in the subgenus Hoplandrena”.Matthias Seidel, Panagiotis Theodorou, Robert Paxton.

• Bienen AG Tagung, Marburg, GE. (2014). “The impact of lactic acid bacteria on viral (DWV) and Microsporidian (Nosema ceranae) infections in the honey bee (Apis mellifera)” T. Disayathanoowat, D. McMahon, V. Doublet, P. Theodorou, T. C. Olofsson, A. Vásquez, R. J. Paxton.

• BES Annual General Meeting, Birmingham, UK. (2012). “Pollination service provision in Co. Armagh apple orchards.” Lorraine McKendrick, Tomás E. Murray, Panagiotis Theodorou, Sean MacAntSaoir, Robert J. Paxton.

​

Graduate Courses

​

• Bayesian Biostatistics. 25-26 January, 2016. iDiv Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

• Biodiversity and Niche Theory. 7-11 December, 2015.iDiv Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

• Applications of High-Throughput Sequencing in Biodiversity Research. April 2015. iDiv Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

• Research Communication Workshop. 24-26 February, 2015. iDiv Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

• Practical course on Next Generation Sequencing for population genetics and experimental evolution. 19-26 October, 2014. Vienna graduate school of population genetics (Vetmeduni Vienna), Austria.

• Biodiversity conservation. 22-25 September 2014. iDiv Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany.

• Modelling species distributions under climate change. 25-29 August, 2014. University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

• Applied statistics and data analysis (Julia statistical language, spatial temporal data, linear and nonlinear dimensionality reduction, time series). 18-20 November, 2013. IMPRS-gBGC. MPI for biochemistry in Jena, Germany.

​

Molecular biology skills

​

• DNA/RNA extraction, quantification and purification

• PCR, real-time RT-PCR

• NGS library preparation and DNA sequencing

• Metabarcoding

​

Statistics

​

• Regression/Logistic regression

• Analysis of variance/general linear modeling

• Generalized linear modeling (GLM)

• Generalized linear mixed modeling (GLMM)

• Multivariate analysis

• Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)

​

​​Memberships

​

• Urban Eco Evo network associate

• iDiv associate member

• European Society for Evolutionary Biology

• Genetics Society

• British Ecological Society

• Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ)

​

Other scientific activities

• Member of the Topic Board of the scientific journal Insects 

• Reviewer

  • DFG (German Research Foundation)

  • Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR)

  • Molecular Ecology

  • Functional Ecology

  • BMC Ecology

  • Biodiversity and Conservation

  • Biological Conservation

  • Ecological Applications

  • Sustainability

  • Journal of Insect Conservation

  • Landscape and Urban Planning

  • Urban Forestry and Urban Greening

  • Oecologia

  • Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

  • Insects

  • Ecology and Evolutio