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Harper Prize
The John L Harper Young Investigator's Prize is awarded annually to the best paper in Journal of Ecology by a young author at the start of their research career. The prize winner receives £250, a year’s membership of the British Ecological Society, a year’s subscription to Journal of Ecology, and a contribution to the costs incurred in attending the BES Annual Meeting should they wish to give a presentation on their work.
First authors, when less than 30 years old or in the early stages of their research career, can nominate themselves when their manuscript is accepted for publication.
The Editors shortlist eligible candidates at the end of the year and announce the winner in the Journal of Ecology News published in the January or March issue.
Winner of the Harper Prize 2009
Dr. Nina Wurzburger
The 2009 Prize is awarded to Dr. Nina Wurzburger from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA, for her article ‘Plant litter chemistry and mycorrhizal roots promote a nitrogen feedback in a temperate forest’ (Journal of Ecology - Volume 97, Issue 3, p 528-536), published with Ronald L. Hendrick.
The Editors selected this really interesting and innovative article because it is one of the few that consider, via a field study, how feedbacks between plant species and soil organisms influence nutrient availability to plants.
Nina first became interested in plant–soil relationships and root symbioses at the University of California, Davis, USA, where she worked with Dr. Caroline Bledsoe in forests of northern California as an undergraduate and an M.S. student. She then earned a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia with Dr. Ronald Hendrick and published this paper from the work she carried out in the southern Appalachians as part of her PhD studies. Currently, Nina is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Lars Hedin’s laboratory at Princeton University and collaborates with Drs. Joe Wright and Ben Turner at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. She is exploring the limitation of soil nutrients in the diverse lowland tropical forests of Panama.
Winner of the Harper Prize 2008
Dr. Lucía Vivanco
The 2008 Prize is awarded to Dr. Lucía Vivanco from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina (now at the University of California at Irvine, USA) for her article ‘Tree species identity alters litter decomposition through long-term plant and soil interactions in a natural forest ecosystem in Patagonia’ (Journal of Ecology - Volume 96, Issue 4, p 727–736), published with Amy Austin.
The Editors selected this article because of its elegant experimental approach, but also for the importance of its findings with respect to understanding how long-term plant–soil feedbacks regulate decomposition processes and forest dynamics at the ecosystem scale.
