Vojtěch Jarošík Award for 2017
The winner of the Vojtěch Jarošík Award for an excellent student publication in ecology, which is awarded by the Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University and the Czech Society for Ecology, is announced for the fourth time this year. This award is therefore slowly becoming a traditional way to recognize the extraordinary publication achievements of students of Czech and Moravian universities.
In the last year, altogether 11 first-author student papers were submitted to the competition, which were published in respected international peer-reviewed journals in 2017. Students from four universities were represented – three came from the alma mater of Vojtěch Jarošík, from the Faculty of Science, Charles University, three were from the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University, four from the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia and one student had a joint affiliation of the Faculty of Science of Charles University and the Czech University of Life Sciences.
As in previous years, the publications were evaluated by a thirteen-member expert committee composed of representatives of Czech Society for Ecology and of the Department of Ecology of Charles University. Based on the originality of the works and their contribution to ecological knowledge, each evaluator had to shortlist three papers. It was not an easy task at all, as the entries were of very high quality and covered a wide range of topics (as is clear from their list below). In the end, however, the decision on the winner of this year was relatively simple – the best evaluated work was the publication “Network reorganization and breakdown of an plant protection mutualism with elevation“, by Nichola S. Plowman from the University of South Bohemia and the Biological Centre CAS. The work, published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is based on field research in Papuan tropical forests. The publications of Salza Palpurina from the Department of Botany and Zoology of Masaryk University and Denis Copilaș-Ciocianu from the Department of Ecology, Charles University, were also highly rated.
We are convinced that the high standard set in the first years of the competition will be maintained. We hope that in the coming years, students from universities who have not yet been represented in the competition will also appear among the applicants.
Top-rated publications nominated for the Vojtěch Jarošík Award for 2017
1. Plowman N.S., Hood A.S.C., Moses J., Redmond C., Novotny V., Klimes P. & Fayle T.M. (2017): Network reorganization and breakdown of an ant–plant protection mutualism with elevation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284: 20162564.
2. Palpurina S., Wagner V., von Wehrden H., Hájek M., Horsák M., Brinkert A., Hölzel N., Wesche K., Kamp J., Hajkova P., Danihelka J., Lustyk P., Merunkova K., Preislerova Z., Koci M., Kubesova S., Cherosov M., Ermakov N., German D., Gogoleva P., Lashchinsky N., Martynenko V. & Chytrý M. (2017): The relationship between plant species richness and soil pH vanishes with increasing aridity across Eurasian dry grasslands. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 26: 425–434.
3. Copilaș-Ciocianu D., Rutová T., Pařil P. & Petrusek A. (2017): Epigean gammarids survived millions of years of severe climatic fluctuations in high latitude refugia throughout the Western Carpathians. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 112: 218–229.
Other submitted papers (in alphabetical order)
Bauerová P., Vinklerová J., Hraníček J., Čorba V., Vojtek L., Svobodová J. & Vinkler M. (2017): Associations of urban environmental pollution with health-related physiological traits in a free-living bird species. Science of the Total Environment, 601–602: 1556–1565.
Čertner M., Fenclová E., Kúr P., Kolář F., Koutecký P., Krahulcová A. & Suda J. (2017): Evolutionary dynamics of mixed-ploidy populations in an annual herb: dispersal, local persistence and recurrent origins of polyploids. Annals of Botany, 120: 303-315.
Macek M., Wild J., Kopecký M., Červenka J., Svoboda M., Zenáhlíková J., Brůna J., Mosandl R. & Fischer A. (2017): Life and death of Picea abies after bark-beetle outbreak: ecological processes driving seedling recruitment. Ecological Applications, 27: 156–167.
Michálek O., Petráková L. & Pekár S. (2017): Capture efficiency and trophic adaptations of a specialist and generalist predator: A comparison. Ecology and Evolution, 7: 2756-2766.
Peterka T., Hájek M., Jiroušek M., Jiménez‐Alfaro B., Aunina L., Bergamini A., Dítě D., Felbaba‐Klushyna L., Graf U., Hájková P., Hettenbergerová E., Ivchenko T. G., Jansen F., Koroleva N. E., Lapshina E. D., Lazarević P. M., Moen A., Napreenko M. G., Pawlikowski P., Plesková Z., Sekulová L., Smagin V. A., Tahvanainen T., Thiele A., Biţǎ‐Nicolae C., Biurrun I., Brisse H., Ćušterevska R., De Bie E., Ewald J., FitzPatrick Ú., Font X., Jandt U., Kącki Z., Kuzemko A., Landucci F., Moeslund J. E., Pérez‐Haase A., Rašomavičius V., Rodwell J. S., Schaminée J. H., Šilc U., Stančić Z. & Chytrý M. (2017). Formalized classification of European fen vegetation at the alliance level. Applied Vegetation Science, 20: 124-142.
Šmejkal M., Ricard D., Vejřík L., Mrkvička T., Vebrová L., Baran R., Blabolil P., Sajdlová Z., Vejříková I., Prchalová M. & Kubečka J. (2017): Seasonal and daily protandry in a cyprinid fish. Scientific Reports, 7: 4737.
Szefer P., Carmona C.P., Chmel K., Konečná, M., Libra M., Molem K., Novotný V., Segar, S.T., Švamberková E. & Topliceanu T.S. (2017): Determinants of litter decomposition rates in a tropical forest: functional traits, phylogeny and ecological succession. Oikos, 126: 1101–1111.
Vejřík L., Vejříková I., Blabolil P., Eloranta A.P., Kočvara L., Peterka J., Sajdlová Z., Chung S.H.T., Šmejkal M., Kiljunen M. & Čech M. (2017): European catfish (Silurus glanis) as a freshwater apex predator drives ecosystem via its diet adaptability. Scientific Reports, 7: 15970.