People

I am an ecologist interested in how human pressures reshape biodiversity across ecosystems, with a focus on patterns of taxonomic and functional turnover across terrestrial and freshwater systems. My research combines large-scale data synthesis, fieldwork, and experiments to uncover general principles of community change, integrating multiple taxa and trait dimensions to understand how species composition and functional roles respond to environmental gradients. I use quantitative approaches and advanced statistical models to link local observations to global patterns, aiming to generate and test new hypotheses about how ecological systems reorganize under anthropogenic influence and what this means for ecosystem functioning. Outside research, I play classical guitar, spend time at the gym, and enjoy exploring new places and cultures.

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Ecological Synthesis Group (ESG) at the University of Helsinki’s Lammi Biological Station. My research focuses on understanding how biodiversity changes in space and time, and how disturbances reshape biodiversity across taxonomic (TD), functional (FD), and phylogenetic (PD) dimensions. 

Currently, as part of the TRACE (Trait Responses Across Connected Ecosystems) project, I am investigating how functional traits related to tolerance, movement, and interaction structure communities across connected forest–lake ecosystems. I am particularly interested in uncovering how ecological processes propagate across "blue–green boundaries" to shape biodiversity patterns at local and regional scales. 

My previous work has involved frameworks for assessing how environmental havoc affects the functional diversity of freshwater systems (Trindade-Santos et al., 2018), quantifying shifts in the functional diversity of global fisheries catches (Trindade-Santos et al., 2020), mapping global functional rarity (Trindade-Santos et al., 2022), building a global database that provides the body size data for all marine metazoans (Marine Organismal Body Sizes – MOBS; McClain et al., 2025), and forecasting how climate change will underpin the body size of marine molluscs across the world's oceans (Trindade-Santos et al., 2026, under review).

I am a final-year PhD candidate in the ELOISA PhD programme at the University of Helsinki, based at the Viikki campus. My research focuses on how artificial light at night (ALAN) affects freshwater invertebrate communities, from individual behaviour to community-level consequences. 

During my PhD, I conducted a systematic review of ALAN effects on aquatic invertebrate behaviour (Ganguly & Candolin, 2023), contributed to experimental work showing that nocturnal light exposure carries over to disrupt daytime mating activity in the freshwater amphipod Gammarus pulex (He et al.,2024), and carried out a field study across five boreal headwater streams in southern Finland to investigate how ALAN restructures benthic macroinvertebrate communities. 

More broadly, I am interested in how sensory pollutants interact with the ecology and behaviour of freshwater organisms, and what this means for biodiversity in urbanising landscapes.

I am Liu Guohao, a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. I am interested in the large-scale patterns of aquatic biodiversity and the underlying drivers. My current research focuses on freshwater biodiversity, particularly the effects of eutrophication on α-diversity and β-diversity in freshwater communities. If you are interested in my research, please feel free to contact me.

I am a Doctoral Researcher in the Doctoral Programme in Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Sustainability in Society (ELOISA). I completed my BSc in Biology in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and then moved to Finland to attend the MSc in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Helsinki. My interest in underappreciated and overlooked organisms led me to study algae during both my BSc and MSc theses, in which I examined how marine phytoplankton diversity and abundance is affected by anthropogenic pressures and management decisions.  

For my PhD studies I am shifting my perspective towards freshwater systems and the effects of diffuse agricultural pollution on freshwater plankton communities. I work mostly in Lammi Biological Station, where I analyse long-term water quality data and collect samples for source tracking campaigns. I will also run an experiment comparing agricultural practices and their effects on plankton using agricultural plots and mesocosms. My project is partly funded by, and conducted in the context of the WaterShed Safety Plan (WSSP) project which aims to reduce the amount of diffuse pollution reaching the Baltic Sea.

I am a graduate student in Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Padova, currently working on my thesis with the WSSP project at Lammi Biological Station. I am evaluating the effects of nutrient loading from agricultural fields into nearby water streams and its impact on the phytoplankton community.

With a background in agricultural science, I am particularly interested in the intersection of farming practices, environmental sustainability, and ecosystem resilience. I aim to make research meaningful outside of academic spaces whether it’s through experimental research, or community-focused projects and connect science with real-world impact.

I am a biological oceanographer with research interests including Southern Ocean carbon cycling and biooptical sensors. I have spent the last 3 years working as a scientific data coordinator at the UK Polar Data Centre at the British Antarctic Survey, where I worked to promote open science and reproducible research. I am Director of UK Polar Network CIC, a network of early-career researchers in polar science working on providing outreach opportunities for ECRs, training and networking opportunities, and advocating for improved equality, diversity and inclusivity in polar science. I am currently working on taxonomy of freshwater algae using inverted microscopy in a project to investigate the impact of macrophyte removal on plankton community structure and functional trait assembly.

My name is Eliaz Poisson, I am French and currently studying Water and Environmental Engineering at ENGEES in Strasbourg, France. I joined the ESG team for my end‑of‑studies internship, contributing to the TRACE (Trait Responses Across Connected Ecosystems) project. My work will focus on collecting data on bird communities and their diets across several lakes. Which I will then combine with global trait databases to move on a functional composition of those communities. Through this internship, I contribute to exploring how the traits of birds communities can help predict their ecological roles and their interactions with other components of lake ecosystems.

I’m Rosa, a biologist and expert bird ringer with interest in bird research and ecology. 
Right now I am an intern in the LBS from Helsinki University (working with behavioural ecology on birds )and about to start a master in biodiversity conservation, as well as continuing my work as bird ringer and bird watching guide in Spain.

I am a Spanish biologist with a particular interest in community ecology. I graduated with a degree in biology from the University of Seville and completed a Master’s degree in Biodiversity: Conservation and Evolution at the University of Valencia. I am trained as a plant ecologist, specialising in the fields of invasion ecology, evolutionary ecology, fire ecology and global change. 
I am currently looking to develop my expertise in community ecology, particularly with regard to the importance of functional traits and environmental gradients on biological communities. In addition to studying changes in communities over time.
Right now, I’m doing an internship at the Lammi Biological Station to develop my skills and continue gaining experience in the world of research.