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William S. Cooper Award

The William Skinner Cooper Award, initiated in 1985, is given to honor an outstanding contributor to the fields of geobotany, physiographic ecology, plant succession, or the distribution of plants along environmental gradients, these being the fields in which W. S. Cooper worked. The award is for a single contribution in a scientific publication (single or multiple authored). Nominees need not be ESA members and can be of any nationality.

YearESA BulletinCitationAuthors
2022LinkSeabird establishment during regional cooling drove a terrestrial ecosystem shift 5000 years ago. Science Advances, 6(43). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb2788Dulcinea V. Groff, Kit Hamley, Trevor J. R. Lessard, Kayla E. Greenawalt, Moriaki Yasuhara, Paul Brickle, Jacquelyn Gill
2021LinkClimate and competition affect growth and survival of transplanted sugar maple seedlings along a 1700‐km gradient. Ecological Monographs, 87(1), 130-157. DOI: 10.1002/ecm.1237
Rachel C. Putnam, Peter B. Reich
2020LinkPersistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on Amazonian forest composition. Science 355(6328): 925-931. DOI: 10.1126/science.aal0157
Carolina Levis, Flavia R. C. Costa, Frans Bongers, Marielos Peña-Claros, Charles R. Clement, André B. Junqueira, Eduardo G. Neves, Eduardo K. Tamanaha, Fernando O. G. Figueiredo, Hans ter Steege
2019LinkDivergence of species responses to climate change. Sciences Advances, Vol. 3, no. 5; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.160305
Songlin Fei, Johanna M. Desprez, Kevin M. Potter, Insu Jo, Jonathan A. Knott, Christopher M. Oswalt
2018Link Disturbance is the key to plant invasions in cold environments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 113:14061–14066.Jonas J. Lembrechts, Aníbal Pauchard, Jonathan Lenoir, Martin A. Nuñez, Charly Géron, Arne Ven, Pablo Bravo‐Monasterio, Ernesto Teneb, Ivan Nijs, and Ann Milbau
2017LinkIntertidal resource use over millennia enhances forest productivity. Nature Communications 7, Article number: 12491. doi:10.1038/ncomms12491Andrew. J. Trant, Wiebe Nijland, Kira M. Hoffman, Darcy L. Mathews, Duncan McLaren, Trisalyn A. Nelson, Brian M. Starzomski
2016LinkEnvironmental filtering explains variation in plant diversity along resource gradients. Science 345: 1602–1605 (2014)Etienne Laliberté, Graham Zemunik, Benjamin L. Turner
2015LinkNon-climatic constraints on upper elevational plant range expansion under climate change. Proc. Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281:20141779Carissa D. Brown, Mark Vellend
2014LinkFloral and environmental gradients on a Late Cretaceous landscape. Ecological Monographs 82:23-47.Scott L. Wing, Caroline A. E. Strömberg; Leo J. Hickey; Fleur Tiver; Brian Willis; Robyn J. Burnham; Anna K. Behrensmeyer
2013LinkEvolution of a genetic polymorphism with climate change in a Mediterranean landscape. PNAS 110:2893–2897John Thompson, Anne Charpentier, Guillaume Bouguet, Faustine Charmasson, Stephanie Roset, Bruno Buatois, Philippe Vernet, Pierre-Henri Gouyon
2012LinkAngiosperms helped put the rain in the rainforests: The impact of plant physiological evolution on tropical biodiversity. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 97:527-540C. Kevin Boyce; Jung-Eun Lee; Taylor S. Feild; Tim J. Brodribb; Maciej A. Zwieniecki
2011LinkEvolutionary responses to changing climate. Ecology 86:1704–1714Margaret Bryan Davis, Ruth G. Shaw, Julie R. Etterson
2010LinkPleistocene megafaunal collapse, novel plant communities, and enhanced fire regimes. Science 326:1100–1103.Jacquelyn L. Gill; John W. Williams*; Stephen T. Jackson; Katherine B. Lininger; Guy S. Robinson
2009LinkHarvard Forest flora: an inventory, analysis and ecological history. Harvard Forest Paper 28, 2008.Jerry Jenkins; Glenn Motzkin; Kirsten Ward
2008LinkPhylogenies and community ecology. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 33:475–505.Campbell Webb; David Ackerly; Mark A. McPeek; Michael Donaghue
2007LinkHerbivores promote habitat specialization by trees in Amazonian forests. Science 305:663–665.Paul Fine; Italo Mesones; Phyllis D. Coley
2006LinkThe Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. Princeton University Press, 2001Stephen Philip Hubbell
2005LinkHolocene fire history of a coastal temperate rain forest based on soil charcoal radiocarbon dates. Ecology 84:186–201.Daniel Gavin; Linda Brubaker; Kenneth Lertzman
2004LinkDissimilarity analyses of Late-Quaternary vegetation and climate in eastern North America.  Ecology 82:3346-3362.John W. Williams; Bryan N. Shuman; Thompson Webb III
2003LinkLand-use history as long-term broad-scale disturbance: regional forest dynamics in central New England. Ecosystems 1:96–119.David R. Foster; Glenn Motzkin; Benjamin Slater
2002LinkDominance and distribution of tree species in upper Amazonian terra firme forests. Ecology 82:2101–2117.Nigel C. A. Pitman; J. W. Terborgh; M. R. Silman; P. V. Núñez; D. A. Neill; C. E. Cerón; W. E Palacios; M. Aulestia
2001LinkMesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climate variability in the American Southwest. Journal of Climate 11:3128–3147.Thomas Swetnam; Julio Betancourt
2000LinkTemporal and spatial scales of kelp demography: the role of oceanographic climate.  Ecological Monographs 69:219–250.Paul K. Dayton; Mia Tegner; Peter Edwards; Kristin Riser
1999LinkLandscape change following deforestation at the arctic tree line in Québec, Canada. Ecology 78:693–706.Dominique Arseneault; Serge Payette
1998LinkHolocene dynamics of treeline forests in the Sierra Nevada. Ecology 78:1199–1210.Andrea H. Lloyd; Lisa J. Graumlich
1997LinkCauses and ecosystem consequences of multiple pathways of primary succession at Glacier Bay, Alaska. Ecology 76:1899–1916.Christopher C. Fastie
1996LinkWoodland expansion in the Platte River, Nebraska: patterns and causes.  Ecological Monographs 64:45–84.W. Carter Johnson
1995LinkLandscape evolution, soil formation, and ecological patterns and processes in Sonoran Desert bajadas. Ecological Monographs 64:111–247.Joseph R. McAuliffe
1994LinkDiversity and floristic composition of lowland tropical forest in Africa and South America.  In P. Goldblatt (ed.).  Biological relationships between Africa and South America .  Chapter 17, pp. 500-547.  Yale University Press, 1993.Alwyn H. Gentry
1993LinkRiparian vegetation recovery patterns following stream channelization: a geomorphic perspective. Ecology 73:1209–1226.Cliff R. Hupp
1992LinkBiological invasion by Myrica faya in Hawaii: plant demography, nitrogen fixation, ecosystem effects. Ecological Monographs 59:247–265.Peter Morrison Vitousek
1991LinkClimate and plant distribution. Cambridge University Press, 1987F. Ian Woodward
1990LinkPostglacial vegetation of Canada. Cambridge University Press, 1987James C. Ritchie
1989LinkPlant strategies and the dynamics and structure of plant communities . Princeton University Press, 1988David Tilman
1988LinkDynamism in the barrier-beach vegetation of Great South Beach, New York. Ecological Monographs 56:97–126.James Samuel Clark
1987LinkBiogeography of two southwest American oaks in relation to atmospheric dynamics. Journal of Biogeography 10:275–297.Ronald P. Neilson; Leroy H. Wullstein
1986LinkVegetation organization and dynamics of lichen woodland communities in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Ecology 62:200–215.Edward A. Johnson
1985LinkFire and landscape diversity in subalpine forests of Yellowstone National Park. Ecological Monographs 52:199–221.William H. Romme