Julia Koricheva is an

ecologist Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

in the UK. She is professor of ecology at

Royal Holloway, University of London Royal Holloway, University of London (RH), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public university, public research university and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. It ...

and she researches

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the various benefits that humans derive from Ecosystem, ecosystems. The interconnected Biotic_material, living and Abiotic, non-living components of the natural environment offer benefits such as pollination of crops, clean ...

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s, the interactions between

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s and

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

s and is an expert in

meta-analysis Meta-analysis is a method of synthesis of quantitative data from multiple independent studies addressing a common research question. An important part of this method involves computing a combined effect size across all of the studies. As such, th ...

Education and career

Koricheva is originally from Russia and did a BSc in Zoology and Entomology at

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

and then a PhD at the

University of Turku The University of Turku (, shortened ''UTU'') is a multidisciplinary public university with eight faculties located in the city of Turku in southwestern Finland. The university also has campuses in Rauma and Pori and research stations in Kevo ...

in Finland, looking at the effects of

air pollution Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

on the interactions between

birch trees A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains ...

and

herbivore A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat ...

s. She moved to Switzerland to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

before returning to Finland. Koricheva then moved to the Swedish Agricultural University before becoming a lecturer at

in 2004, where in 2011 she was appointed professor of ecology.

Research

Koricheva has carried out research in forests throughout her career and she established a long term experiment in the

Satakunta Satakunta (in both Finnish language, Finnish and Swedish language, Swedish, ; historically ''Satacundia'') is a Regions of Finland, region ( / ) of Finland, part of the former Western Finland Province. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland ...

forest in south west

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in 1999. The experiment looks at the effects of trees

species diversity Species diversity is the number of different species that are represented in a given community (a dataset). The effective number of species refers to the number of equally abundant species needed to obtain the same mean proportional species abundan ...

, tree

species composition Relative species abundance is a component of biodiversity and is a measure of how common or rare a species is relative to other species in a defined location or community.Hubbell, S. P. 2001. ''The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeog ...

and intraspecific

genetic diversity Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It ranges widely, from the number of species to differences within species, and can be correlated to the span of survival for a species. It is d ...

on ecosystem services. Her work has shown that forests with a high diversity of tree species are able to better provide ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, than forests with few different tree species. She is an expert in meta-analysis, in 2013 she co-edited the ''Handbook of meta-analysis in ecology and evolution'' published by

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

and she has used meta-analysis techniques to show the harmful effects of

neonicotinoid Neonicotinoids (sometimes shortened to neonics ) are a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically similar to nicotine, developed by scientists at Royal Dutch Shell, Shell and Bayer in the 1980s. Neonicotinoids are among the widest-used insecti ...

insecticide Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, i ...

s on

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

References

External links

Royal Holloway Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koricheva, Julia Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Saint Petersburg State University alumni University of Turku alumni Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London Russian ecologists British women ecologists 21st-century Russian women scientists 21st-century Russian biologists 21st-century women scientists Russian expatriates in Finland Russian expatriates in the United Kingdom