Freshwater System Dynamics

How do freshwater systems work? This is the basic question SFS’s research program in Freshwater System Dynamics seeks to answer. Our researchers study the physical, chemical, geological, and biological components of freshwater systems—including how these components change, cycle, and interact over timescales ranging from microseconds to millennia, and on spatial scales ranging from the molecular to the global.

SFS’s research in this area is improving our basic understanding of freshwater systems and generating the knowledge needed to manage these systems in a sustainable manner that preserves their functional integrity.

Freshwater system dynamics research draws upon many disciplines, including limnology, ecology, biology, chemistry, geology, physics, hydrology, meteorology, and mathematics.

Faculty and scientists

Aguilar, Carmen

Effects of invasive species on food web interactions and ecophysiology

Binkowski, Frederick P.

Fisheries biology, lake sturgeon biology, early life history of Great Lakes fishes, aquaculture, urban aquaculture

Bootsma, Harvey

Tropical limnology, nutrient cycling, food webs, carbon dynamics

Cuhel, Russell L.

Microbiogeochemical ecophysiology, physical-chemical-biological coupling, time series analysis, hydrothermal vents, lithotrophy, undergraduate research opportunities

Grundl, Tim

Groundwater chemistry, contaminant transport and degradation, environmental tracers

Guo, Laodong

Biogeochemistry, carbon cycle, colloids and nanoparticles, stable isotopes, radionuclides, environmental change

Janssen, John

Fisheries ecology, biological oceanography

Kaster, Jerry L.

Function and evolution of freshwater and marine invertebrates

Klaper, Rebecca

Genomics, emerging contaminants, pharmaceuticals, nanomaterials, toxicology, nanotoxicology, ecology, biomarkers, water policy

Klump, J. Val

Biogeochemistry, limnology, radiochemistry, nutrient and carbon cycling, observing systems

Roebber, Paul J.

Air-water interactions, synoptic-dynamic and mesoscale meteorology, numerical modeling, data analysis

Waples, James

Biogeochemistry, carbon cycling, radiochemistry