Akshay Mohan

About & CV

Hi, I’m Akshay.

Ecologist, experimentalist and a curious observer of freshwater life.

I’m Akshay, an ecologist based in Mondsee, Austria. I’m interested in the connections that are easy to miss: between what an animal eats, the predators it encounters, and the conditions it has already lived through. These connections keep bringing me back to a simple question: what do we miss when we study one part of an organism’s life in isolation?

I began my research at IISER Thiruvananthapuram in India, studying life-history trade-offs in butterflies. During my PhD in Jyväskylä, my focus shifted to freshwater life. Working with the small detritivore Asellus aquaticus, I explored how fungicides, predators and heatwaves affect feeding, growth, behaviour and recovery.

Here in Mondsee, I work with pond snails, Lymnaea stagnalis, and ask how animals respond to predators and parasites, including when and how they use shelter. Alongside these experiments, I work on questions about ecological prediction and develop models of how species interact and evolve.

I also care about making the reasoning behind research easier to follow. That runs through my teaching and mentoring, and through Toxic Tales, where I turn studies from across biology into short visual stories. I want someone encountering a study for the first time to leave curious, understand what was tested, and know where to find the evidence.

The questions I work on Meet Toxic Tales From lake to lab

Background

Research and education

Akshay standing in a calm lake, with ripples around him and a wooded shoreline in the distance.
In the shallows.

Freshwater experiments have been central to my work, from Jyväskylä to Mondsee.

Aug 2026–present

Postdoctoral Researcher

University of Innsbruck, Austria

Predator–parasite ecology, behaviour, ecological forecasting and inference, and developing consumer–resource theory. Working with Otto Seppälä.

Feb–Aug 2026

Postdoctoral Researcher

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Collaborative conceptual work on feedbacks in multiple-stressor ecology.

Feb 2022–Feb 2026

PhD · Biological & Environmental Sciences

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Multi-stressor interactions in freshwater ecosystems: fungicide impacts on a keystone detritivore, and conceptual advances. Supervisors: Katja Räsänen and Blake Matthews.

Jul 2016–Jul 2021

Integrated BS–MS · Biology

IISER Thiruvananthapuram, India

Evolutionary ecology and life-history trade-offs in Melanitis leda. Supervisor: Ullasa Kodandaramaiah.

Lakes & fieldwork

From lake to lab.

My work has taken me from Konnevesi and Jyväsjärvi in Finland to Mondsee in Austria. These photos and short films share some of the places, field days and laboratory observations behind the research.

Pine branches frame a forest-lined Finnish lake, with clouds reflected in the water.
Finland

A lake view from my time working in Finland.

Orange sunset clouds above a rocky mountain ridge, reflected in Lake Mondsee.
Mondsee, Austria

Evening light over Mondsee, where I’m now based.

Two people collect and check a sample using a net and white tray at the shore of Lake Konnevesi, Finland.
Konnevesi, Finland

Collecting and checking samples at the lake edge during my work at Konnevesi.

Floating leaves and submerged plant stems visible through the shallow water at Mondsee.
Mondsee, Austria

Floating leaves and vegetation beneath the surface at Mondsee. Shelter is also central to my current work on snail behaviour.

Akshay with master’s students Jenni and Inka while collecting Asellus aquaticus at Lake Konnevesi, Finland, holding sampling trays and containers.
Konnevesi, Finland

Collecting Asellus at Konnevesi

Collecting Asellus aquaticus at Lake Konnevesi with master’s students Jenni and Inka.

Small moments, closer up.

Short films from the lakeshore and the lab. Choose one to watch.

Lake Konnevesi, Finland, with floating leaves, clear shallow water and a wooded shoreline.
Konnevesi, Finland

A moment by the water

Looking along the shoreline at Konnevesi during my time in Finland.

Small fish in clear shallow water beneath floating leaves at Mondsee.
Mondsee, Austria

Life in the shallows

A closer look into the shallows at Mondsee, with small fish moving below the floating leaves.

A dragonfly larva and snails in a clear laboratory container with vegetation.
In the lab · Mondsee

Snails and a dragonfly larva

Snails and a dragonfly larva in the lab—some of the animals behind my questions about predation.

Tench swimming in an aerated container in the laboratory.
In the lab · Mondsee

Tench in the lab

Tench in the lab. My snail experiments use fish-conditioned water to study responses to predation risk.

Teaching & mentoring

Learning to ask
and test questions.

  • Developed and taught the undergraduate laboratory course Research Methods in Environmental and Water Sciences, covering experimental design and R-based statistics (2024).
  • Contributed to course development and teaching for Research methods for natural resources and environment with Katja Räsänen (2022 and 2023).
  • Co-supervised three MSc projects and advised four additional BSc/MSc students on image analysis and statistical workflows (2022–2025).

How I work

Methods that serve the question

Experiments through time

Factorial designs, exposure sequences, recovery measurements, climate chambers and freshwater mesocosms.

Behaviour and performance

Image-based phenotyping with Phenopype and ImageJ; video tracking with AnimalTA; feeding, growth and survival assays; aquatic respirometry.

Analysis and modelling

Reproducible R workflows, mixed-effects and survival models, data visualisation, and developing consumer–resource and invasion analyses.

Evidence across scales

Literature synthesis, microbiome analysis and integration of microbial, chemical and invertebrate datasets.