Kirill Shchapov

Freshwater ecologist

Role at Cawthron

Kirill is a freshwater ecologist with Cawthon’s River and Lake Ecology team, involved in a range of projects focused on lake biotic and abiotic conditions. His research expertise spans both quantitative methods, such as microscopy, and qualitative approaches, including fatty acid and stable isotope analyses, to evaluate lake food webs and assess the roles of seston, zooplankton, and benthos. Previously, he studied seasonal changes in ice conditions, cyanobacterial blooms, and water quality in freshwater lakes across North American small and large lakes.

Kirill has extensive experience in multi-university collaborative projects and continues this approach in New Zealand, partnering with local and international institutions to advance research on freshwater ecosystems.

Technical skills, experience and interests

• Lake biological monitoring
• Laboratory culture of diatom algae
• Applying stable isotope and fatty acid biochemistry in lake ecology assessments
• Field study organisation and management for both large and small lakes
• Metadata organisation and management
• Application of statistical tools for both large and small data sets
• Undergraduate and graduate course teaching
• Outreach activities
• Scientific article and technical report writing

Qualifications

• PhD (Limnology), University of Minnesota, USA, 2022
• Bs (Ecology), Irkutsk State University, Russia, 2011