I am currently a professor and researcher at the Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology (CBMA), University of Minho (Portugal). My early training was in aquatic ecotoxicology (MSc in 2000), which was later complemented with ecological aspects of freshwater ecosystems, particularly fish-zooplankton interactions (PhD in 2007). I now lead a small research group that carries out fundamental and applied research at the frontier across biological and environmental sciences, motivated by the belief that solid cross-disciplinary scientific underpinnings are needed to approach the current threats against natural ecosystems and to tackle the consequences of climate and man-induced disturbance. Using laboratory or field approaches, we investigate how organisms cope with the multiple dimensions of environmental and anthropogenic stress, considering their ecological and evolutionary context. Freshwater invertebrates have been important (but not the only!) model organisms to test our scientific hypotheses under ecologically relevant scenarios. National and international collaborative ventures have resulted in > 65 peer-reviewed publications (in internationally recognized journals in the field), the most recent ones as a leading author (last, correspondent, or first author), comprising a network of > 100 co-authors. Peer recognition of my scientific contributions has been translated into > 2000 citations (according to Scopus) and invitations to provide high-quality reviewing services for various international journals (along other evaluation services). Funding agencies are also convinced of our relevant work, as our group has been successful in various competitive calls; since 2016, we have been able to warrant uninterrupted funds to support our research activities, either in the form of individual grants/fellowships, research projects/contracts, or external consultancy services (to public and private entities). This story of success would be incomplete without recognizing the key role of the many motivated and curious young researchers (under- and post-graduates) that have adopted me as their mentor; to this day, > 30 theses/grants have been successfully concluded under my (co-)supervision, including 2 post-doctoral fellows and 6 PhD students (3 ongoing). Past work from students and myself allowed unravelling altered trophic interactions in invaded lentic systems or the potential risks of salinization and micropollutants to freshwater organisms. More recently, our team has unequivocally demonstrated the impacts of some psychoactive and antimicrobial drugs (namely fungicides) on relevant physiological, populational and ecological endpoints in Daphnia. Altogether, our work has attracted attention to the insidious effects of aquatic pollution on key cellular, physiological, behavioural, and ecological processes, which much contribute to the worrying decline of freshwater biodiversity. This accumulated experience allowed us to reflect on the use of invertebrates as bioindicators and the need to improve water quality assessments, which may serve as a roadmap to reach the ambitious aims of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the post-2030 challenges.