The Haldane Prize is awarded annually by the British Ecological Society for the best paper in Functional Ecology by an early career author. We are pleased to present the shortlisted papers for the 2024 award (published in Volume 38):
⭐️ Ian Ausprey: Dispersal limitation predicts the spatial and temporal filtering of tropical bird communities in isolated forest fragments
Ian’s results (1) experimentally validate the use of morphological traits as proxies for movement ability in fragmented landscapes, (2) demonstrate that visual acuity functions as a novel dimension of dispersal limitation and (3) quantify how the spatial and temporal components of patch isolation produce a gradient in dispersal-mediated environmental filtering and extinction debt for communities inhabiting fragments.
⭐️ Julien Barrere: Forest storm resilience depends on the interplay between functional composition and climate—Insights from European-scale simulations
Julien’s research shows that climate and tree species composition interact to control the ability of forests to resist and recover from a storm disturbance through both direct and indirect effects.
⭐️ Stephanie Chia: Mechanistic understanding of how temperature and its variability shape body size composition in moth assemblages
Stephanie’s study improves the mechanistic understanding of the climatic effects on trait composition in animal assemblages and provides essential information for biodiversity conservation under climate change.
⭐️ Jihyun Kim: Heatwave-mediated decreases in phytoplankton quality negatively affect zooplankton productivity
Jihyun’s paper demonstrates that the effects of heatwaves on phytoplankton quality are clearly distinct from those caused by constant warming temperatures and that heatwave-mediated decreases in resource quality have immediate effects on consumer productivity.
⭐️ Xiangyun Li: Context-dependent impact of changes in precipitation on the stability of grassland biomass
Xiangyun’s study highlights that while the specific effects of changes in precipitation may vary depending on the context, the fundamental processes governing biomass stability are consistent. These findings elucidate the desert steppe ecosystems’ adaptive response to precipitation variations and emphasize their pivotal role in maintaining ecosystem functions under climatic perturbations.
⭐️ Tomonari Matsuo: Herbaceous species and dry forest species have more acquisitive leaf traits than woody species and wet forest species
Tomonari found that plant species showed two strategy spectra of leaf trait variation; one spectrum showing a trade-off between leaf traits that lead to either fast growth or high survival and another spectrum showing a trade-off between large leaves to capture more light vs small leaves to persist against heat and drought stress.
⭐️ Pamela Medina van Berkum: Plant geographic distribution influences chemical defences in native and introduced Plantago lanceolata populations
Pamela’s research showed that the geographic origin of the populations had a significant influence on morphological and chemical plant traits, suggesting that P. lanceolata populations are not only adapted to different environments in their native range, but also in their introduced range.
⭐️ Joaquina Romera: Ecological succession shapes size–density scaling relationships of trees and soil invertebrates
Joaquina’s results shed light on how the body size structure of tree and soil invertebrate communities spanning multiple trophic levels shift over successional time as the relative abundances of large versus small-bodied organisms increase. This study emphasises the fundamental influence of organismal traits and ecosystem succession on scaling relationships of organism body size and abundance.
⭐️ Jahangir Vajedsamiei: Predicting key ectotherm population mortality in response to dynamic marine heatwaves: A Bayesian-enhanced thermal tolerance landscape approach
Jahangir’s research extends the TTL model validation, demonstrates the resilience of subtidal Baltic Mytilus to future extreme heatwaves and offers an approach to predict heatwave-induced population mortalities, applicable to other species and sensitive systems.
⭐️ Yuguo Yang: Trade-offs in rooting strategy dimensions along an edaphic gradient in a grassland ecosystem
Yuguo’s research showed that organ-level traits alone were insufficient to capture community-level trade-offs in rooting strategies across the edaphic gradient. Instead, trait variation encompassing organ, plant and symbiosis levels revealed that consideration of whole-plant phenotypic integration is essential to defining multidimensional trade-offs shaping the functional variation of root systems.
The winner will be selected in the coming weeks, so watch this space for future announcements!🏆
