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My research and teaching uses mathematical modeling as a tool for describing and understanding the dynamics of aquatic ecosystems. In addition to the Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience I am affiliated with the Integrated Science Lab ("IceLab", /en/icelab/).

I am interested in how environmental factors and the presence/absence of certain organisms drive and constrain consumer-resource interactions and the resulting ecosystem dynamics. The studied environmental factors include nutrient and light supply, turbulent mixing, and water temperature in lakes, as well as physical transport processes and disturbances in streams. Study organisms include planktonic and benthic algae, bacteria, protists, planktonic microinvertebrates, benthic macroinvertebrates, fish, and water birds.

Dynamic systems behave often in unexpected ways. Where possible, I therefore translate assumptions into mathematical models from which I derive expectations. Assumptions and predictions of these models are then tested and refined in an iterative process involving field and laboratory experiments and, to a lesser extent, comparative field studies.

I hold an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Göttingen (Germany) and a PhD in animal ecology from Umeå University (1994). I did postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Santa Barabara (1994-1996) and was professor of aquatic ecology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (1996-2009) before I moved back to Umeå, where I was employed as professor of ecology for 17 years.