Simon Belle

• Understanding freshwater invertebrate responses to global change.
• Learning from the past to better manage freshwater ecosystems.

My research aims to understand how freshwater invertebrates respond to environmental change across multiple biological scales, from individual traits such as body size and phenotypic plasticity to biodiversity and food web processes.

I study both natural and human-induced stressors, including climate change, wildfire, acidification and eutrophication, as well as their interactions and the effectiveness of mitigation measures such as liming and nutrient reduction. Another key aspect of my work is developing novel approaches to assess the ecological quality of freshwater lakes under multiple, interacting stressors and rapidly changing environmental conditions.

I combine laboratory experiments, field-based observations and paleolimnology to investigate these questions across different spatial and temporal scales. Paleolimnology and subfossil chironomids play a central role in my approach, as lake sediments provide natural archives that allow me to extend ecological observations beyond contemporary monitoring and investigate how freshwater ecosystems have responded to environmental changes over millennial timescales.