Plant & Environmental
Biotechnology Laboratory

Maria Kolovou

PhD

Maria Kolovou holds a BSc degree in Chemistry from the University of Ioannina, Greece. She completed her MSc in Toxicology at the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Thessaly, Greece. Her MSc thesis, titled “Characterization of a fungal isolate capable of rapidly degrading the fungicide imazalil,” was conducted under the supervision of Prof. D.G. Karpouzas.
Since April 2021, Maria has been pursuing her PhD at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Thessaly, under the supervision of Dr. Evangelia Papadopoulou. Her research focuses on the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms, with a particular emphasis on ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms as novel bioindicators for regulatory applications.
Maria has participated in both EU and nationally funded research projects and is currently a member of the ReAssess project, a pioneering research initiative aimed at producing the benchmarking knowledge required to comprehensively assess the soil microbial toxicity of pesticides.
She has authored two publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (h-index: 2, Citations:10).

Publications

Kolovou, M., Bachtsevani, E., Bekris, F., Pedrinho, A., Omirou, M., Nicol, G. W., Hazard, C., Papadopoulou, E. S., & Karpouzas, D. G. (2026). Using species sensitivity distributions to assess the toxicity of pesticides on nitrifiers and broader microbial groups: From single-species tests to soil amplicon sequencing. Environmental Pollution, 406, 128640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2026.128640

Bachtsevani E., Kolovou M., Papadopoulou E., Karpouzas D.G., Hazard C., Nicol G.W., (2025) Single species in vitro assays with soil nitrifying microorganisms as a first-tier tool for assessing the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms. Environmental Science and Technology 59(39):20941-20953. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.5c02995

Kolovou M., Panagiotou D., Suble L., Loiselier O., Williams S., Karpouzas D.G., Papadopoulou E.S., (2023) Assessing the activity of different plant-derived molecules and potential biological nitrification inhibitors on a range of soil ammonia- and nitrite-oxidizing strains. Applied and Environmental Microbiology https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.01380-23

Papazlatani, C. V., Kolovou, M., Gkounou, E. E., Azis, K., Mavriou, Z., Testembasis, S., Karaoglanidis, G. S., Ntougias, S., & Karpouzas, D. G. (2022). Isolation, characterization and industrial application of a Cladosporium herbarum fungal strain able to degrade the fungicide imazalil. Environmental Pollution, 301, 119030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2022.119030

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