Prof. Dr. Martin Pusch is a senior researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Berlin, who additionally lectures at two universities. He is an aquatic ecologist who is used to conduct interdisciplinary work with neighbouring disciplines. Dr. Pusch’s work focuses on the ecology and management of rivers and lake shores. Thereby he has applied a broad range of approaches in structural and functional ecology, as analysing the distribution patterns and the use of food resources by benthic invertebrates, measuring the effects of hydraulics on benthic invertebrates in rivers and at lake shores, and quantifying benthic-pelagic coupling, the metabolism of organic matter as well as the retention of nutrients in rivers (in the FP5 EU project STREAMES). Related with the management of surface waters, Dr. Pusch has worked on ecologically-based minimum flows, river training and restoration, and on human impacts on the hydromorphology of lake shores. As part of the FP7 EU project WISER, he has established a targeted assessment tool for the hydromorphological integrity of lake shores (AESHNA) for official use under the EU Water Framework Directive. Recently, he has started a large German collaborative project ‘River Ecosystem Services Index’ (RESI) focusing on ecosystem services of rivers and floodplains.