{"id":127,"date":"2015-06-09T13:24:45","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T13:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theoretical\/?page_id=127"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:38:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:38:56","slug":"current-award-recipients","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/awards\/current-award-recipients\/","title":{"rendered":"Current Award Recipients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lotka & Volterra Student Presentation Awards (2025)<\/h1>\n
\n
Volterra Prize for the Best Theoretical Talk:<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Alison Robey<\/span><\/strong>, Yale University<\/div>\n
Temporal autocorrelation increases temperature-driven extinction risk<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Lotka Prize for the Best Theoretical Poster:<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Jeff Mintz<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0&\u00a0Saneer Lamichhane<\/span><\/strong>,<\/span> The University of Florida<\/div>\n
Are Wild Prey Sufficient for the Top Predators in the Lowland Protected Areas of Nepal?<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Honorable Mentions:<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

Hsiang-Chih Lo <\/span><\/strong>(Volterra)<\/span>,<\/span><\/strong> National Taiwan University
\nNon-selective aggression as a competition strategy for Spodoptera frugiperda despite the negative effect on individual performance<\/em><\/p>\n

Ching-Lin Huang <\/span><\/strong>(Lotka),<\/span> U. of Minnesota
\nFrugivore-plant interactions affect plant population persistence and spreading speed, mediated by an Allee effect<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Past Years\u2019 Recipients<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

Outstanding Ecological Theory Paper Award (2025)<\/h1>\n
\n

In their paper entitled \u201cEco-evolutionary emergence of macroecological scaling in plankton communities\u201d, lead author Jonas Wickman<\/strong> and co-authors Elena Litchman<\/strong> and Chris Klausmeier<\/strong> tackle the fundamental challenge of scaling up the processes governing relationships at the individual level \u2013such as cell volume and size, respiration, or affinity for Nitrogen\u2013 to explain patterns at the population, community, and ecosystem levels \u2013e.g., between prey and predator densities, functional traits, or ecosystem function. While often invoked, this individual-to-ecosystems scaling up is rarely achieved in practice. Wickman and collaborators meaningfully accomplished this lofty goal through an eco-evolutionary model whose elegant predictions they tested with empirical data (for good measure!). In showing that meaningful scaling up across levels of biological organization requires accounting for both ecological and evolutionary processes, this paper addresses a long-standing issue in ecology, yields novel testable predictions, and stands out as a beacon that should guide new scientific inquiry by current and future scholars of theoretical ecology.<\/p>\n

At a time when our sense of wonder and awe for the natural world seems overshadowed by multiple environmental and societal challenges \u2013both real and manufactured\u2013 this paper is a testament to the enduring power of the scientific endeavor, and to our collective ability to continue addressing the most fundamental questions in biology through novel theoretical approaches, despite all odds.<\/p>\n

Congratulations!<\/p>\n

Wickman\u00a0et al.<\/em>. 2024. Eco-evolutionary emergence of macroecological scaling in plankton communities. Science <\/em>383<\/strong>,777-782.DOI:10.1126\/science.adk6901<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n

Past Years\u2019 Recipients<\/span><\/u><\/a>
\nInstruction for application to the awards can be found here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lotka & Volterra Student Presentation Awards (2025) Volterra Prize for the Best Theoretical Talk: \u00a0 Alison Robey, Yale University Temporal autocorrelation increases temperature-driven extinction risk \u00a0 Lotka Prize for the Best Theoretical Poster: \u00a0 Jeff Mintz\u00a0&\u00a0Saneer Lamichhane, The University of Florida Are Wild Prey Sufficient for the Top Predators in the Lowland Protected Areas of Nepal? \u00a0 Honorable Mentions: Hsiang-Chih…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":339,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-127","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/127\/revisions\/562"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/theory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}