2024 HALDANE PRIZE SHORTLIST: Stephanie Chia discusses her paper “Mechanistic understanding of how temperature and its variability shape body size composition in moth assemblages“, which has been shortlisted for Functional Ecology’s 2024 Haldane Prize for Early Career Researchers:
About the paper
Have you ever watched a diverse array of moths gather around a glowing light in the mountains at night? And if you head up the road to a higher elevation the next night, shivering in the colder air, you might find a very different set of moths under the light. Even though moths can fly and disperse fairly easily, their communities seem to change noticeably across climates. How so?
To investigate, we studied moths along a 3,000-meter elevation gradient in Taiwan, examining over 5,300 individuals from 680 species. We found that temperature seasonality (i.e. how much temperatures fluctuate over the year) is a key factor shaping moth community structure. Our findings suggest that changes in temperature variability, in addition to average warming, could have profound impacts on insect communities. While just one small part of a much larger picture, insights like this contribute to our growing understanding of how ecosystems may respond to climate change and how we might support biodiversity in a changing world.
My journey in this project
I feel incredibly lucky that my first step into ecology research came through this collaborative moth project, led by the labs of Dr. Mao-Ning Tuanmu, Dr. I-Ching Chen, and Dr. Sheng-Feng Shen. During a month-long field trip in Malaysia (part of the same study framework as this paper), Dr. Shipher Wu introduced me to the amazing world of moths. I was astonished by their beauty and clever disguises, with some mimicking leaves so perfectly and others creating mind-bending three-dimensional illusions. Each morning, checking our light traps felt like a lottery. Some days, beetles ruined our samples, or a stolen battery left the light off and the trap empty. But some days, we had a spectacular catch worth celebrating.
While fieldwork was full of excitement, what fascinated me even more was trying to decipher the patterns hidden in the data. Analyzing ecological datasets felt like solving a puzzle with many missing pieces, which took thoughtful reasoning to connect the dots and see the bigger picture. This project introduced me to community ecology and macroecology, which ultimately shaped my research interests.
About the author
Growing up in Taiwan, even in a bustling city like Taipei, I was never far from the mountains. After school, I could hop on a bus or bike to the foot of a hill, hike up to enjoy the night view, and look for frogs, snakes and small mammals along the way. My love for nature took me to study biology as an undergrad at National Taiwan University, and later to pursue a master’s in sustainable innovation at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. After a couple of years working in environmental consultancy, I realized I was more drawn to research and began working as a research assistant in Dr. Tuanmu’s lab at Academia Sinica, where I worked on this moth project, among others, and developed a strong interest in quantitative ecology.
I’m now a PhD student working with Dr. Bill Fagan at the University of Maryland, where I continue to explore how organismal traits reveal ecological and evolutionary processes at a large scale. My current work includes studying the macroecology of bird nests and the macroevolution of bird morphology. Looking ahead, I hope to keep learning and exploring data-driven approaches to ecological, conservation, and environmental questions, with the ultimate goal of contributing to a world where humans and nature thrive together.
Read the full list of articles shortlisted for the 2024 Haldane Prize here.
