I’m a researcher (PhD) currently working at the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE. During 2018 and 2019 I was a postdoc in Jianjun Wang’s lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Before that, I worked for the University of Oulu and SYKE.
Geographer + ecologist = ecographer
My research focuses on freshwater biological communities. So far, I’ve studied bacteria, diatoms, fish, macroinvertebrates and macrophytes. The study settings have varied from mining-impacted systems in Finnish subarctic Lapland to pristine mountainous streams in the Tibetan Plateau.
My keywords
R (always more to learn)
Exercise
Cooking and eating
Home, Baltic Sea & Bothnian Bay and their islands ❤
Publications
Peer-reviewed scientific publications
(In order of publication)
Vilmi, A., Gibert, C., Escarguel, G., Happonen, K., Heino, J., Jamoneau, A., Passy, S.I., Picazo, F., Soininen, J., Tison-Rosebery, J., Wang, J. (2021) Dispersal–Niche Continuum Index: a new quantitative metric for assessing the relative importance of dispersal vs. niche processes in community assembly. Ecography, in press.
Mykrä, H., Kuoppala, M., Nykänen, V., Tolonen, K., Turunen, J., Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M. (2021) Assessing mining impacts: The influence of background geochemical on diatom and macroinvertebrate communities in subarctic streams. Journal of Environmental Management, 278:111532.
Heino, J., Alahuhta, J., Bini, L.M., Cai, Y., Heiskanen, A.-S., Hellsten, S., Kortelainen, P., Kotamäki, N., Tolonen, K.T., Vihervaara, P., Vilmi, A., Angeler, D.G. (2020) Lakes in the era of global change: moving beyond single-lake thinking in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. Biological Reviews, in press.
Benito, X., Vilmi, A., Luethje, M., Carrevedo M-L., Lindholm, M., Fritz S.C. (2020) Spatial and temporal ecological uniqueness of Andean diatom communities are correlated with climate, geodiversity and long-term limnological change. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8: 260.
Picazo, F., Vilmi, A., Aalto, J., Soininen, J., Casamayor, E.O., Liu, Y., Wu, Q., Ren, L., Zhou, J., Shen, J., Wang, J. 2020. Climate mediates continental scale patterns of stream microbial functional diversity. Microbiome, 8: 92.
Zou, W., Zhu, G., Cai, Y., Vilmi, A., Xu, H., Zhu, M., Gong, Z., Zhang, Y., Qin, B. 2020. Relationships between nutrient, chlorophyll a and Secchi depth in lakes of the Chinese Eastern Plain ecoregion: implications for eutrophication management. Journal of Environmental Management, 260:109923.
Vilmi, A., Zhao, W., Picazo, F., Li, M., Heino, J., Soininen, J., Wang, J. 2020. Ecological processes underlying the assembly of aquatic bacterial and macroinvertebrate communities under contrasting climates in the Tibetan Plateau. Science of the Total Environment, 702:134974.
Tolonen, K.E, Picazo, F. Vilmi, A., Datry, T., Paril, P., Perez Rocha, M., Stubbington, R., Heino, J. 2019. Parallels and contrasts between intermittently freezing and drying streams: from individual adaptations to biodiversity variation. Freshwater Biology, 64: 1679-1691.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Wang, J., Heino, J. 2019. Using traits to explain interspecific variation in diatom occupancy and abundance across lakes and streams. Journal of Biogeography, 46: 1419-1428.
Vilmi, A., Tolonen, K.T., Karjalainen, S.M., Heino, J. 2019. Niche position drives interspecific variation in occupancy and abundance in a highly-connected lake system. Ecological Indicators, 99: 159-166.
Tolonen, K.T., Cai, Y., Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Sutela, T., Heino, J. 2018. Environmental filtering and spatial effects on metacommunity organisation differ among littoral macroinvertebrate groups deconstructed by biological traits. Aquatic Ecology, 52: 119-131.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Heino, J. 2017. Ecological uniqueness of stream and lake diatom communities shows different macroecological patterns. Diversity and Distributions, 23: 1042-1053.
Cai, Y., Xu, H., Vilmi, A., Tolonen, K.T., Tang, X., Qin, B., Gong, Z., Heino, J. 2017. Relative roles of spatial processes, natural factors and anthropogenic stressors in structuring a lake macroinvertebrate metacommunity. Science of the Total Environment, 601: 1702-1711.
Tolonen, K.T., Vilmi A., Karjalainen, S.M., Hellsten, S., Heino, J. 2017. Do different facets of littoral macroinvertebrate diversity show congruent patterns in a large lake system? Community Ecology, 18: 109-116.
Vilmi, A., Alahuhta, J., Hjort, J., Kärnä, O-M., Leinonen, K., Perez Rocha, M., Tolonen, K.E., Tolonen, K.T., Heino, J. 2017. Geography of global change and species richness in the North. Environmental Reviews, doi: 10.1139/er-2016-0085.
Langenheder, S., Wang, J., Karjalainen, S.M., Laamanen, T., Tolonen, K., Vilmi, A., Heino, J. 2016. Bacterial metacommunity organization in a highly-connected aquatic system. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiw225.
Tolonen, K.T., Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Sutela, T., Hellsten, S., Heino, J. 2016. Ignoring spatial effects results in inadequate models for variation in littoral macroinvertebrate diversity. Oikos, doi: 10.1111/oik.03587.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Hellsten, S., Heino, J. 2016. Bioassessment in a metacommunity context: Are diatom communities structured solely by species sorting? Ecological Indicators 62: 86-94.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Kuoppala, M., Tolonen, K., Heino, J. 2016. Taxonomic distinctness along nutrient gradients: More diverse, less diverse or not different from random? Ecological Indicators 61: 1033-1041.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Nokela, T., Tolonen, K., Heino, J. 2016. Unravelling the drivers of aquatic communities using disparate organismal groups and different taxonomic levels. Ecological Indicators 60: 108–118.
Vilmi, A., Tolonen, K.T., Karjalainen, S.M., Heino, J. 2016. Metacommunity structuring in a highly-connected aquatic system: effects of dispersal, abiotic environment and grazing pressure on microalgal guilds. Hydrobiologia 790: 125-140.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M., Landeiro, V.L., Heino, J. 2015. Freshwater diatoms as environmental indicators: evaluating the effects of eutrophication using species morphology and biological indices. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 187: 243.
PhD thesis
Vilmi, A. 2017. Assessing freshwater biodiversity. Insights from different spatial contexts, taxonomic groups and response metrics. PhD thesis. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis, A, Scientiae rerum naturalium, 696. 76 s.
Official reports
Sutinen, V., Härkönen, M., Pasanen, A., Panttila, H., Lahtinen, T., Hellsten, S., Väisänen, T., Kolehmainen, J., Vilmi, A., Sarkkinen, M., Korhonen, A., Kaukonen, L. 2020. Dronet mittauksessa ja näytteenotossa. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis. F, Scripta academica. University of Oulu.
Koljonen, S., Sammalkorpi, I., Vilmi, A., Hellsten, S. 2020. Vesistökunnostusten seurantojen toteuttaminen. Suomen ympäristökeskuksen raportteja 13/2020.
Vilmi, A., Karjalainen, S.M. 2019. Pohjaleväyhteisöt Lapin kaivosalueiden jokivesissä. In Lapin kaivoskeskittymän kumulatiivisten ympäristövaikutusten arviointi ja hallinta Lapin Kaiku -projektin loppuraportti (Eds. Hatakka, T., Nykänen, V., Pietilä, R., Karjalainen, S.M.). GTK:n työraportti 66/2019.
Tolvanen, A., Saarimaa, M., Ahtikoski, A., Haara, A., Hotanen, J-P., Juutinen, A., Kojola, S., Kurttila, M., Nieminen, M., Nousiainen, H., Parkkari, M., Penttilä, T., Sarkkola, S., Tarvainen, O., Minkkinen, K., Ojanen, P., Hjort, J., Kotavaara, O, Rusanen, J., Sormunen, H., Aapala, K., Heikkinen, K., Karppinen, A., Martinmäki-Aulaskari, K., Sallantaus, T., Tuominen, S., Vilmi, A., Kuokkanen, P., Rehell, S., Ala-Fossi, A., Huotari, N. 2018. Metsätalouskäyttöön soveltumattomien ojitettujen soiden jatkokäyttö – Quantification and valuation of ecosystem services to optimize sustainable re-use for low-productive drained peatlands. LIFEPeatLandUse (LIFE12 ENV/FI/000150) 2013–2018, Layman’s report. Luonnonvara- ja biotalouden tutkimus 48/2018, 18 s.
Karjalainen, S.M., Vilmi, A. 2015. Rantavyöhykkeen ekologinen tila – Piilevät. In Posionjärven ja Kitkajärven tila ennen, nyt ja tulevaisuudessa (Eds. Karjalainen, S.M., Hellsten, S.). Kitka-MuHa-projektin loppuraportti. Suomen ympäristökeskuksen raportteja 20/2015, 268 s.
Biodiversity Investigators 