Ecological Society of America announces 2026 award recipients

The Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce the winners of its 2026 awards, which recognize outstanding contributions to ecology in new discoveries, teaching, sustainability, diversity and lifelong commitment to the profession.

These awards are designed to not only reward past achievements, but also to inspire a broad audience of scientists, educators and students, opening the door to new insights and collaborations that will further the impact of ecological research.

“This year’s award recipients have each contributed something important to ecology, often in very different ways,” said ESA President Peter Groffman. “Whether through research, mentorship or service, they’ve helped strengthen the community and move the field forward. What stands out with this group is the consistency of impact over time. These are ecologists whose efforts have shaped the field, supported colleagues and created opportunities for others. I’m glad to see that kind of work acknowledged.”

ESA will formally present the awards at the Society’s upcoming Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. The awards ceremony will take place Monday, July 27, at 8 AM in the Salt Palace Convention Center’s Grand Ballroom.

Learn more about ESA awards.

 

Eminent Ecologist Award

Stephen W. Pacala, Frederick D. Petrie Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

The Eminent Ecologist Award honors a senior ecologist for an outstanding body of work or sustained contributions of extraordinary merit. This year’s Eminent Ecologist Award goes to renowned ecologist Stephen W. Pacala.

Pacala is a leader in environmental science, technology and policy whose work advances understanding of relationships among biodiversity, ecosystem function and climate. Over more than three decades, he developed innovative models that bridge ecological theory and empirical data, yielding insights into forest dynamics, global carbon cycling and biosphere-climate feedbacks.

Pacala’s research spans systems and scales, from early experimental studies of Caribbean anole lizards to global analyses of the carbon cycle. With a sustained interest in competition in ecological communities, his focus shifted to annual plant systems in the 1980s, pioneering neighborhood models that quantify how local interactions shape population dynamics. He later extended these ideas to forests, co-developing the influential SORTIE model, which simulates forest succession and disturbance.

Building on these advances, Pacala developed “minimal models of systems” that predict and explain ecological processes and can be incorporated into Earth system models, advancing understanding of carbon cycling, climate feedbacks and potential tipping points. His research showing that North America is a significant carbon sink catalyzed new inquiry into natural climate solutions, while his broader work clarified how plant diversity influences ecosystem processes like carbon storage and water exchange.

Beyond his research, Pacala connects ecological science to climate policy and practice. His widely cited 2004 Science paper with Robert Socolow introduced the concept of “stabilization wedges” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He chaired multiple National Academies studies on climate and energy, co-founded the nonprofit news organization Climate Central and was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in 2021.

Pacala’s contributions have been widely recognized, including his election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society. He received ESA’s George Mercer Award, Robert H. MacArthur Award and now the Eminent Ecologist Award, becoming the first ecologist to earn all three of the Society’s major career-stage honors.

Distinguished Lifetime Service Award

Kenneth M. Klemow, Emeritus Professor of Biology and Earth Systems Science, Wilkes University

Kenneth M. Klemow is the recipient of the 2026 Distinguished Lifetime Service Award, which recognizes long and distinguished volunteer service to ESA, the scientific community and the larger purpose of ecology in the public welfare. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Klemow made sustained and wide-ranging contributions to ecological education, professional service and public engagement with science.

At Wilkes University, Klemow taught biology, botany, ecology and energy courses for over 40 years. His research and consulting address the ecological impacts of energy development and applied environmental issues, and he served on numerous local and state advisory boards.

Within ESA, Klemow’s service is exceptional in duration and impact. Beginning in 1987, he helped establish the ESA Education Section and served as its first chair. Over decades, he served on multiple ESA committees, including Education, Publications, Fellows and Human Resources, and contributed broadly to Society governance and programming.

Klemow played a central role in advancing ESA’s education initiatives, including the EcoEd Digital Library and the Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework, both of which shape undergraduate ecology curricula. An ESA Fellow and recipient of the Eugene P. Odum Award for Ecology Education, he also co-founded the Senior and Advancing Generations of Ecologists (SAGE) section and served as Undergraduate Education Editor for the ESA Bulletin.

Beyond ESA, Klemow supports regional and national environmental initiatives, including the Pennsylvania Biodiversity Partnership and the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, as well as public outreach and advisory work on energy and environmental issues.

Through his sustained leadership, Klemow strengthened ESA and expanded its role in ecological education and literacy, leaving a lasting legacy within the Society and the broader ecological community.

Robert H. MacArthur Award for Meritorious Contributions by A Mid-Career Ecologist

Brian J. Enquist, Professor, University of Arizona

The Robert H. MacArthur Award honors an established mid-career ecologist for meritorious contributions to ecology, in expectation of continued outstanding research. Award winners generally are within 25 years of completing their Ph.D. This year’s award is given to Brian J. Enquist.

Enquist is a plant ecologist and macroecologist whose work shapes how ecologists link organismal functional traits to the structure and functioning of communities and ecosystems. His research develops quantitative and predictive frameworks integrating biodiversity, physiology and ecosystem processes, providing a mechanistic foundation for understanding ecological organization across scales. He advanced Metabolic Scaling Theory through collaborations with James Brown and Geoffrey West, unifying perspectives on ecological organization from individuals to ecosystems.

One of his major contributions is his work extending scaling theory beyond its original focus on animals to plants, drawing parallels between animal cardiovascular systems and plant vascular systems. This synthesis helped shift plant ecology toward functional trait-based approaches, improving predictions of ecological processes beyond species-centered frameworks.

Building on this research, Enquist co-developed Trait-Driver Theory, which explains variation in community structure and ecosystem dynamics through trait variation within species. His ongoing work aims to connect Trait-Driver Theory with Metabolic Scaling Theory to better understand ecosystem responses to environmental change.

Beyond theory development, Enquist plays a central role in building global collaborative infrastructure for plant functional trait research. He is a principal investigator of the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) and is committed to open science, contributing to tools like the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service and OpenTraits. He also co-leads the Plant Functional Traits Course, an international training program that builds field-based research capacity, and has trained 24 graduate students and 19 postdoctoral researchers.

Through these contributions, Enquist helped transform plant ecology into a more predictive, trait-based science and fostered an international community dedicated to integrative ecological research.

Eugene P. Odum Award for Excellence in Ecology Education

Emily G. Weigel, Senior Academic Professional, Georgia Institute of Technology

Odum Award recipients demonstrate their ability to relate basic ecological principles to human affairs through teaching, outreach and mentoring activities. This year’s Odum Award for Excellence in Ecology Education is presented to Emily G. Weigel.

Trained as an ecologist, Weigel integrates evidence-based pedagogy, quantitative skills and community engagement in her teaching and research. Her work focuses on improving biology and ecology education by examining how student backgrounds, values and instructional practices shape learning outcomes.

Weigel’s work broadens student engagement with ecology at Georgia Tech, in a department historically oriented toward pre-medical training. This shift is reflected in increased enrollment in her ecology courses and expanded undergraduate research participation.

Her teaching adopts innovations including flipped classrooms, field- and community-based research and integrating ecological concepts with societal issues. She is widely recognized for developing “Swirl” instructional materials for R programming, supporting quantitative training in undergraduate biology. Her education research is disseminated through publications, presentations and contributions to national initiatives such as the Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) platform.

Beyond teaching, Weigel mentors undergraduate and graduate instructors, supports K-12 STEM instruction and facilitates community-engaged research on stream ecology, phenology and urban bird-window collisions. She also supports faculty development through Tech to Teaching and contributes nationally through curriculum development, faculty mentoring and editorial service with The American Biology Teacher.

Across these efforts, Weigel emerged as an influential leader in ecology education, advancing student learning, instructional practice and public engagement with ecological science.

Fakhri A. Bazzaz and Steward T.A. Pickett Award for Excellence in Mentoring the Next Generation of Ecologists

Erika S. Zavaleta, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz

The newly established Bazzaz-Pickett Award for Excellence in Mentoring the Next Generation of Ecologists honors ecologists whose mentoring has fostered diversity, inclusion and belonging while inspiring new generations of scientists. Erika S. Zavaleta is the inaugural recipient of the award.

Zavaleta is a terrestrial ecologist who is deeply committed to mentoring and supporting the development of emerging scientists and conservation leaders. Since joining the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2003, she has mentored more than 150 undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, emphasizing individualized support and long-term professional development. Her trainees have gone on to careers across academia, government, museums and non-governmental organizations.

A major component of Zavaleta’s work is building transformative programs that expand access to ecological training. She founded the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars and Center to Advance Mentored, Inquiry-based Opportunities (CAMINO) programs at UC Santa Cruz, which together have provided hundreds of students from diverse backgrounds with research and leadership opportunities. In response to recognized safety challenges in field-based research for scientists from historically excluded and marginalized communities, she founded FieldFutures, which provides training in best practices for inclusive and safe fieldwork. She also co-leads CLIME, a national conservation science leadership initiative.

Her mentoring approach integrates intellectual development with personal and professional support, and her programs are widely recognized for advancing equity and inclusion in ecology. Collectively, Zavaleta’s individual mentoring and programmatic leadership have had a lasting impact on the training of future ecologists and the culture of the field.

Commitment to Human Diversity in Ecology Award

Haldre S. Rogers, Associate Professor, The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The Commitment to Human Diversity in Ecology Award recognizes long-standing contributions of an individual toward increasing the diversity of future ecologists through mentoring, teaching or outreach. Haldre S. Rogers is the winner of this year’s award.

Rogers is a community ecologist whose work integrates place-based research and conservation with sustained mentorship and capacity building. Her research focuses on species interactions, particularly seed dispersal, pollination and food web dynamics, with an emphasis on the ecological consequences of defaunation caused by the invasive brown tree snake in Guam. Through more than two decades of work in the Mariana Islands, she combines ecological research with training of local scientists and conservation practitioners.

A central feature of Rogers’ career is her commitment to building pathways into ecology for students and professionals from the region. She hired, trained and mentored numerous local interns, technicians and early-career scientists, prioritizing local leadership in a region with a history of extractive research practices. She is co-founder of the Indigenous-led nonprofit Tåno Tåsi yan Todu and helps lead the Mariana Islands Conservation Conference, which supports a regional network for ecological learning and collaboration.

Her mentorship also extends through the Ecology of Bird Loss Project, where she supported over 120 students and trainees, many advancing to graduate study and conservation careers. Beyond the Mariana Islands, she contributes to inclusive ecology training and supports student participation in professional communities such as the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).

Through sustained, place-based mentorship and community partnership, Rogers advances pathways for underrepresented groups in ecology and conservation science.

Emerging Ecologist Award for Outstanding Contributions from a Scientist from a Developing Nation

Daniel F. Zuleta, Assistant Professor, University of Gothenburg

The Emerging Ecologist Award for Outstanding Contributions from a Scientist from a Developing Nation recognizes an early- to mid-career ecologist from a developing nation for outstanding contributions to ecology. This year’s award is presented to Daniel F. Zuleta.

Zuleta is a Colombian forest ecologist whose work advances our understanding of tropical forest dynamics and the global carbon cycle. His research integrates long-term forest inventories, quantitative ecology and structural measurement tools to examine tree damage, mortality and recovery across tropical ecosystems. His major contributions involve identifying drivers of forest dynamics, including the critical role of fine-scale topography in drought-related tree mortality in the Amazon and the importance of non-lethal tree damage in tropical biomass loss.

Zuleta leads long-term research in the Colombian Amazon and Brazilian Atlantic Forest and coordinates major international forest mortality monitoring networks spanning 33 forest monitoring sites. His work significantly advances global understanding of forest vulnerability and resilience under global change. He is also a strong advocate for open science and international collaboration, supporting data sharing and capacity building across research networks.

Through his research and leadership, Zuleta exemplifies the contributions of an emerging leader in tropical forest ecology, with broad impact through international collaboration and scientific capacity building.

George Mercer Award for an Outstanding Paper by An Early-Career Researcher

Daniel L. Perret, Margaret E. K. Evans and Dov F. Sax

ESA presents the 2026 George Mercer Award to the authors of “A species’ response to spatial climatic variation does not predict its response to climate change,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences December 18, 2023.

The George Mercer Award was established in 1948 and is awarded annually for an outstanding ecological research paper published within the past two years by a younger researcher (the lead author must be 40 years of age or younger at publication).

This year’s award-winning paper addresses a foundational question in ecology: whether ecological change across spatial climate gradients can help predict how ecosystems will respond to climate change over time. The authors use a new network of tree-ring time series from ponderosa pine across the western United States to evaluate spatial versus temporal estimates of species responses to climate variation.

Their analyses reveal a striking mismatch — patterns across different climates suggest tree growth should be increasing, but long‑term records reveal that growth has actually declined in recent decades. The authors extend their analyses to historical and modeled future climate data, showing that space-for-time substitutions produce inconsistent predictions and introduce uncertainty into ecological forecasts.

The study provides a clear and compelling demonstration that widely used space-for-time substitutions may yield fundamentally misleading predictions about species responses to climate change. By rigorously testing a widely used approach for forecasting ecological responses to climate change, this work reshapes how ecologists interpret spatial data and highlights the need for long-term temporal observations for understanding ecological responses to global change.

W.S. Cooper Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Fields of Geobotany and/or Physiographic Ecology

• Jill T. Anderson, Megan L. DeMarche, Derek A. Denney, Ian Breckheimer, James Santangelo and Susana M. Wadgymar
• Nathan G. Kiel, Eileen F. Mavencamp and Monica G. Turner

William S. Cooper was a pioneer of physiographic ecology and geobotany, with a particular interest in the influence of historical factors — such as glaciations and climate history — on the pattern of contemporary plant communities. The Cooper Award thus honors the authors of an outstanding publication in the field of geobotany, physiographic ecology, plant succession or the distribution of plants along environmental gradients.

This year, ESA presents the 2026 W.S. Cooper Award to two separate contributions: Anderson et al., “Adaptation and gene flow are insufficient to rescue a montane plant under climate change,” published in Science (2025), and Kiel et al., “Sparse subalpine forest recovery pathways, plant communities, and carbon stocks 34 years after stand-replacing fire,” published in Ecological Monographs (2025).

Anderson et al. provide a large-scale empirical test of how evolutionary processes shape plant persistence under climate change. Using more than 100,000 seeds and seedlings from 115 populations of Boechera stricta transplanted across five elevational common gardens, the study quantifies fitness across the full life cycle under current and simulated future climatic conditions. The results show strong local adaptation across the species’ climatic niche, but also demonstrate that climate change has already disrupted these long-standing patterns. Natural gene flow is insufficient to rescue high-elevation populations under warming scenarios, and adaptive capacity is constrained by limited genetic variation for fitness under hotter, drier conditions. Collectively, these findings indicate that assisted migration may be necessary for persistence across elevational gradients and reveal important limits to adaptation in montane plant systems.

Kiel et al. examine long-term forest recovery following stand-replacing wildfire in subalpine forests decades after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Using detailed field measurements of tree density, age, species composition and carbon stocks across 55 forest plots, the authors identify three distinct post-fire trajectories of sparse stand development. Some forested areas remain sparsely treed or transition toward meadow-like systems after fire, while others slowly regenerate toward pre-fire conditions. Recovery is strongly influenced by seed availability and distance from live trees, highlighting the importance of landscape context and site-specific conditions in post-fire dynamics. Where trees fail to return, plant communities shift toward species typical of open habitats, reflecting broader ecological change rather than simple successional recovery. The study also shows that most aboveground carbon in these plots is stored in downed woody debris rather than live trees, with sparsely regenerated areas supporting lower live carbon stocks. Together, these results emphasize that post-fire forest resilience is variable and increasingly uncertain under changing climate and fire regimes, with long-term consequences for ecosystem structure and function.

These studies underscore how climate change and disturbance operate across scales, from limits to adaptation in plant populations to long-term changes in forest recovery and ecosystem structure following fire.

Sustainability Science Award for Scholarly Work

Harman P.K. Jaggi, Akshata Anand, Katherine A. Solari, Alejandra Echeverri, Rinchen Tobge, Tanzin Tsewang, Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi and Shripad Tuljapurkar

The Sustainability Science Award recognizes the authors of the scholarly work that makes the greatest contribution to the emerging science of ecosystem and regional sustainability through the integration of ecological and social sciences. This year’s award is given to the authors of “Biocultural vulnerability of traditional crops in the Indian Trans-Himalaya,” published in Science Advances Aug. 15, 2025, for their valuable contribution to sustainability science.

Jaggi et al. examine the ecological resilience, genetic diversity and cultural and nutritional significance of traditional high-altitude crops in the western Himalaya, focusing on black pea and barley. Through field experiments, the authors show that these traditional crops outperform the introduced cash crop green pea in survival and reproductive traits, suggesting adaptive potential under changing environmental conditions. The study also documents how shifts toward commercial crops have increased vulnerability to climate-related crop failure and contributed to erosion of agroecological diversity.

The work advances understanding of crop evolution and nutrition through the first genome sequence of black pea and comparative genomic analyses showing it to be genetically distinct from related varieties. Nutritional analyses reveal higher protein and micronutrient content than green pea, underscoring its value for climate-resilient food systems.

Importantly, the study situates these findings within a broader socio-ecological context, showing how agricultural change reflects the disruption of long-standing relationships among people, plants and place. Through collaboration with farmers across multiple villages, the authors demonstrate an integrative approach linking ecological science, genetic insight and local knowledge.

Together, this work exemplifies sustainability science, linking ecological function, genetic resources, nutrition and cultural practice in a rapidly changing region.

The Forrest Shreve Student Research Fund for Research in the Hot Deserts of North America

Arely Castillo, M.S. student, Arizona State University

Forrest Shreve was an internationally known American botanist devoted to the study of the distribution of vegetation as determined by soil and climate conditions, with a focus on desert vegetation. The Forrest Shreve Research Award supplies $1,000–2,000 to support ecological research by graduate or undergraduate student members of ESA in the hot deserts of North America (Sonora, Mohave, Chihuahua and Vizcaino).

Arely Castillo is the recipient of this year’s Forrest Shreve Student Research Award for her research on post-fire recovery in the Sonoran Desert.

Castillo studies vegetation response to low-severity wildfire following the 2020 Bush Fire in the Tonto National Forest. Using field surveys of vegetation structure, species composition and ground cover across burned and unburned sites, she tests whether low-severity fire produces lasting differences in desert plant communities. Results show that fire mainly affects vegetation structure; unburned areas have greater woody canopy cover and taller plants, while species richness and composition remain similar between burn classes.

These findings indicate strong resilience in Sonoran Desert plant communities and suggest recovery occurs without major shifts in species composition. Her work improves understanding of wildfire effects in arid ecosystems and informs management and restoration in fire-affected desert landscapes.

 

2025 ANNUAL MEETING STUDENT AWARDS:

Murray F. Buell Award for an Outstanding Student Presentation at the ESA Annual Meeting

Asia A. Kaiser, Ph.D. candidate, University of Colorado Boulder

Murray F. Buell had a long and distinguished record of service and accomplishment in the Ecological Society of America, and he ascribed great importance to the participation of students in meetings and to excellence in the presentation of papers.

This year’s Murray F. Buell Award for Excellence in Ecology, which is awarded to a student each year for an outstanding oral paper presented at the ESA Annual Meeting, goes to Asia A. Kaiser for her presentation at the 2025 ESA Annual Meeting, titled “Synthetic control methods: An alternative framework for causal inference using iNaturalist data in cities.”

Kaiser’s research focuses on urban ecology, insect biodiversity and causal inference, with an emphasis on how urbanization shapes insect communities and the ecosystem services they provide. In her presentation, she integrated methods from social policy and economics with citizen science data from iNaturalist to examine drivers of urban biodiversity. Her work stood out for its originality in applying synthetic control methods to ecological questions, using large-scale participatory datasets to strengthen inference from observational data.

Kaiser aims to improve understanding of urban insect biodiversity and support more resilient urban agroecosystems, with implications for environmental justice, pollinator conservation and equitable access to fresh produce.

E. Lucy Braun Award for an Outstanding Student Poster Presentation at the ESA Annual Meeting

Parikrama Sapkota, Ph.D. candidate, University of Texas at El Paso

Lucy Braun, an eminent plant ecologist and one of the charter members of the Society, studied and mapped the deciduous forest regions of eastern North America and described them in her classic book, The Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America. To honor her, the E. Lucy Braun Award for Excellence in Ecology is given to a student for an outstanding poster presentation at the ESA Annual Meeting. Papers and posters are judged on the significance of ideas, creativity, quality of methodology, validity of conclusions drawn from results and clarity of presentation.

Parikrama Sapkota is the recipient of the E. Lucy Braun Award for her poster presentation at the 2025 Annual Meeting titled, “Fungal, but not bacterial, communities show strong differences across dryland transition states.”

Sapkota studies soil microbial community dynamics in dryland ecosystems under global change. Her poster examined how microbial communities vary across ecosystem state transitions in the Chihuahuan Desert, using field and greenhouse experiments combined with amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomics to assess microbial assembly across plant functional groups and land degradation states.

Her research addresses assumptions of functional redundancy in microbial communities and explores how fungi contribute to ecosystem responses during dryland transition dynamics. By linking belowground microbial composition to vegetation state change in the Jornada Basin LTER, her work contributes to a deeper understanding of the biological processes underlying ecosystem transitions in arid landscapes.

 

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Learn more about the upcoming ESA Annual Meeting, July 26–31, on the meeting website. ESA invites press and institutional public information officers to attend for free. To register, please contact ESA Public Affairs Manager Mayda Nathan directly at mayda@esa.org.

The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 8,000 member Society publishes six journals and a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach, and education initiatives. The Society’s Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. Visit the ESA website at https://www.esa.org.

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