Hello, welcome

I am a marine community and food web ecologist at the University of Helsinki, based at Tvärminne Zoological Station in southern Finland. My research seeks to understand how biodiversity underpins ecosystem functioning, stability, and resilience, with a particular focus on the role of trophic and non-trophic species interactions in shaping ecological communities.

At Tvärminne, I lead the Aquatic Network Ecology Group, where we combine empirical and theoretical approaches to investigate the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Our research integrates field surveys, mesocosm experiments, ecological network analysis, and ecosystem carbon-flow modelling to understand how environmental change alters food-web dynamics and ecosystem processes.

While our current research primarily focuses on Baltic Sea coastal ecosystems, my work has also encompassed marine food webs in the North Sea, Barents Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Southern Ocean. Across these systems, I aim to uncover the mechanisms that govern biodiversity, species interactions, and ecosystem functioning across multiple spatial and temporal scales.

In 2024, I was awarded an Academy Research Fellowship from the Research Council of Finland for the project “Heatwave-driven Rewiring of Coastal Food Webs.” This project investigates how increasingly frequent marine heatwaves reshape coastal food webs and ecosystem functioning, with the goal of improving predictions of how marine ecosystems will respond to one of the most pervasive consequences of climate change.