Raymond Lindeman

Graduate research work

Lindeman completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota with his thesis work being concerned with the history and ecological dynamics of Cedar Bog Lake, which is located in the University of Minnesota's Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in central Minnesota.

While a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University with noted limnologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Lindeman submitted a chapter of his thesis for publication. His manuscript was initially rejected as being too generalized but was published after Hutchinson and others were able to convince the editor of the paper's merits. The publication appeared in the journal Ecology and establishes the ten percent law whereby only 10% of the energy consumed at one trophic level is transferred to higher trophic levels. Having suffered from chronic gastro-intestinal and liver inflammation, Lindeman died in 1942 at the age of 26, probably from hepatitis.