Raymond Laurel Lindeman (July 24, 1915 – June 29, 1942)[1][2] was an ecologist whose graduate research is credited with being a seminal study in the field of ecosystem ecology, specifically on the topic of trophic dynamics.

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.

[5] Having suffered from chronic gastro-intestinal and liver inflammation, Lindeman died in 1942 at the age of 26, probably from hepatitis.

[6] An annual award in Lindeman's honor is given by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography to the outstanding paper written that year by a young aquatic scientist.