Thanasis (they/them) is an urban ecologist working on biodiversity and ecology of Urban Megaregions, specialising on insects and pollinators. Their interests revolve around contemporary urbanisations patterns and how they affect biodiversity composition.

More information about Athanasios Moraitis

Professional experience

Thanasis received their Diploma on Biology (BSc), from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), Greece, in 2019. They received their MSc Diploma on Conservation and Biological Resources Management with orientation Ecology and Conservation Management (AUTh, Greece), with a score of 9.84/10. In the same year they received a Certificate for the completion of professional development training for students: "Future environmentalists” (a project under the Erasmus+ programme). They have done two internships, one in 2018 at WWF Hellas offices (Athens, Greece) and another at the Forest Research Institute / Hellenic Agricultural Organization DEMETER (Thessaloniki, Greece). They have worked as a research associate at CERTH/CPERI, Greece, on EU funded projects, for three years.

They are experienced in fieldwork experiments and data collection, specialising on insects and other terrestrial arthropods. More expertise revolves around ecological theory, focusing on community structure, metacommunity dynamics, responses to urbanisation and landscape dynamics.

Research topic

Thanasis' research is focused on untangling biodiversity patterns in urban megaregions. They are particularly interested in these contemporary urban landscapes and they way human influence changes the game of community composition for many organisms. After a year of fieldwork for data collection in the Randstad area, where they recorded Butterfly, Hoverfly and Damselfly/Dragonfly communities, they are working on the spatial, temporal and ecological patterns these communities present and how they differ among single-cities and urban megaregions.