My primary motivation lies in understanding and optimizing ecosystem services to support sustainable food production within the framework of the green transition. My research focuses on the development of Integrated Pest Management and biological control strategies. In this context, I study (i) interactions between insect pests and natural enemies, and (ii) the influence of agricultural practices and landscape structure on pests, natural enemies, pollinators, and agricultural biodiversity.
I am a strong advocate of interdisciplinary research as an essential approach to addressing agroecological challenges in a changing environment. My work combines agroecology, insect pathology, modelling, and statistics, supported by complementary expertise in chemical ecology (Mäkinen et al. 2025), and molecular analysis of trophic interactions (Saussure et al. 2023).
My scientific journey began with an agricultural focus on pest abundance and crop damage (Saussure et al. 2015). During my PhD, I shifted to studying biological control of pests using natural enemies, such as entomopathogenic fungi infecting aphids. This included investigating aphids’ sensitivity and resistance to these pathogens (Eilenberg et al. 2019), as well as variations in fungal virulence and temperature related performance in co-occurring isolates (Saussure et al. 2019).
Recently, I have begun integrating pollination services in my research and exploring the stacking of multiple ecosystem services to identify potential synergies and trade-offs of diversification strategies. One example is the study of intercropping faba bean and spring turnip rape to assess its impact on pest damages from flea beetles and pollen beetles, as well as its effect on abundance and diversity of natural enemies and pollinators (Saussure et al. in prep). This work also led to participating in a review on diversification strategies for ecologically intensified northern agriculture (Himanen et al. submitted).