Olevi Kull’s lifetime contribution to ecology

1955–January 31, 2007), we draw on his writings (in English and translated) to outline his thoughts on the relationship be-tween scientists and science. We provide a brief synthesis of his most important work, give a short account of his career and, to bring the man into focus, share some personal stories of inter-actions with him. Kull considered that for a personal under-standing to become scientific knowledge it must be explained convincingly based on theory and empirical support, and then taught to others in both spoken and written words. He saw the last step as the main distinction between learning and science. Olevi Kull’s approach to science relied on two principles: first, linking theory and experiments in challenging settings, e.g., to test the generality of his ideas he often challenged them in multi-layered, mixed-species canopies. Second, he insisted on setting experiments to test assumptions used in quantitativ