Freshwater Ecology

The course gives a broad introduction to freshwater ecology in lakes and river systems. The main topics are basic limnology (physical and chemical processes) and the ecology of phyto- and zooplankton, benthic plants and invertebrates, and freshwater fishes. The fish ecology part covers postglacial immigration and migrations of fishes, fish communities, ecological interactions, ecological induced speciation, analyses of fish populations and problems related to human activity in subarctic lakes and rivers.

A compulsory semester thesis is given as a small research training exercise based on own data from the field course.

The course has a 5 day field-course at Kilpis Biological Station (Finland), lectures (24 hours), lab course (10 hours), seminar and colloquium