The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation recognizes the exceptional research of our students and early career scientists with awards for outstanding presentations at the ATBC’s annual meeting. The Luis F. Bacardi Award for Advances in Tropical Conservation is awarded to the individual receiving their Ph.D. no more than 5 years before the meeting date who gives the best oral presentation. This award was established in 2005 with an endowment from the Lubee Bat Conservancy, an international non-profit organization based in Gainesville, Florida, that was founded in 1989 by the late Luis F. Bacardi and is dedicated to protecting biological diversity through the conservation of fruit- and nectar-feeding bats. The Alwyn Gentry Presentation Awards are in recognition of the outstanding oral and poster presentations by students at the ATBC’s annual meeting. Alwyn H. Gentry’s legacy to tropical biology was not limited to the study of the diversity and conservation of tropical plants—he was a caring and supportive mentor to students from all over the Americas. These awards are therefore in remembrance and recognition of the contributions of this singular scientist, colleague, mentor, and friend.
The New Phytologist Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of plant science, is proud to support student researchers by awarding the New Phytologist Best Presentation Prizes in Plant Biology at the ATBC Annual Meeting.
On behalf of the ATBC we would like to thank the early-career scientists that presented their work at the 2024 ATBC Meeting in Kigali, extend our gratitude to the many meeting delegates who served as judges, and congratulate the following recipients for their outstanding presentations.
Imma Oliveras and Meghna Krishnadas
Gentry and Bacardi Award Co-Chairs
2024 Luis F. Bacardi Award for Advances in Tropical Conservation
Meghna Bandyopadhyay
Wildlife Trust of India
What decides coexistence of carnivores; size or behavior?
Meghna Bandyopadhyay and Ramesh Krishnamurthy
The coexistence of sympatric and similar sized species in a given area is possible till a threshold of niche similarity as predicted by the limiting similarity theory. But when size of carnivores differ, niche segregation is generally observed. The aim of the study was to assess the coexistence between mesocarnivores like leopard cat and red fox and large carnivore like leopard. The study was conducted in western Himalaya as this is undergoing multifaceted habitat changes, where the inhabiting carnivores are often pushed towards vulnerable conditions. In this regard it necessitates to understand the current coexistence status of meso and large carnivores where resources have limited distribution. It was hypothesized that leopard cat and red fox will show no spatial, temporal and dietary overlap to leopard. To achieve this, camera trapping and opportunistic carnivore scat sampling was conducted along the elevation gradient. Generalized linear mixed-effect modelling, activity overlap and Pianka’s overlap index was used to capture the spatial, temporal, and dietary interactions respectively. Leopard cat coexisted with leopard showing segregation in all the three dimensions. Whereas, red fox showed co-occurrence in space with dietary overlap and temporal segregation. This reflects the species specific behavior and survival strategy subjected to utilization of resources like food, space and time in resource scarce landscape. It posits the fact that behavior of a species drives the coexistence pattern especially in resource scarce landscape. This study contributes to scant ecological knowledge of the coexisting carnivores and adds to the understanding of community dynamics in limited resource hahitat.
2024 Alwyn Gentry Award for Best Oral Presentation
Liam Jasperse-Sjolander
University of Colorado Boulder
Habitat and fruit availability drive forest elephant fission-fusion dynamics in a forest-savannah mosaic
Liam Jasperse-Sjolander, Amelia Meier, and Joanna Lambert
African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are an understudied species that are difficult to observe due to the dense vegetation of their forested habitat. This means that data on the demography and social behavior in this critically endangered species are unavailable for most populations. Forest elephants form fission-fusion social groups that break apart and reform in social arenas such as baïs, or mineral-rich forest clearings. However, forest elephant group behavior has not been studied in many other habitats. With this study we sought to examine the effect of habitat and other environmental variables on group size and composition to determine what factors are driving fission-fusion behavior in forest elephants, and what changes functionally when groups split apart and join back together. Understanding the drivers of forest elephant group size and social behavior will help to inform our understanding of the life history of the species and uncover the costs and benefits of group living in a fission-fusion system. We studied forest elephant groups in the Wonga Wongué Presidential Reserve, Gabon, a forest-savannah mosaic ecosystem from October 2018 to December 2019. We observed forest elephant groups opportunistically in both savannah and forest habitats using a combination of direct observation and camera trapping to evaluate the effects of habitat, season, and time of day on group size and composition. Forest elephant groups were larger in the savannah, later in the day, further from streams, and closer to the forest edge. Additionally, with increased fruit abundance groups were larger in the savannah but were smaller in the forest. Fission-fusion behavior varied by habitat – both between habitats and at a microhabitat scale, over time – on a daily and seasonal scale, and based on resource availability – both with respect to food availability and permanent water sources. This study suggests that in savannah-forest mosaic ecosystems, savannahs act as social centers where multiple groups come together to interact, establish dominance hierarchies, and socialize, similar to baïs or forest clearings in more heavily forested environments. Understanding the baseline ecological drivers of social behavior in forests elephants is critically important to the management and conservation of this elusive and highly threatened species, allowing for the protection of critical habitat, making us better able to predict their movement and behavior, as well as preventing habitat loss and highlighting areas where they may be most vulnerable to poaching.
2024 Alwyn Gentry Award for Best Poster Presentation
Simran Prasad
Centre for Wildlife Studies
An elephantine problem in the Nilgiris: Examining household wealth inequities and community attitudes towards elephants
Simran Prasad, Jennifer Solomon, Sumeet Gulati, and Krithi Karanth
Across Asia, elephant populations are facing significant threats due to human–wildlife conflict, especially within human-altered landscapes. Humans also encounter formidable challenges due to conflict, adversely impacting their wealth and further leading them into poverty traps. We conducted 507 questionnaire surveys across select regions of the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve, Western Ghats, interviewing households that lived on the forest fringes across Kerala and Karnataka in southern India. We used a mixed methods approach to ascertain the socio-economic and environmental drivers impacting household wealth and assess people’s attitudes and beliefs towards elephants. We examined multiple parameters and identified that higher education levels and higher acreage ownership were associated with higher household wealth patterns across both States. Our thematic analysis indicated that among households that had faced conflict-associated human casualties, 14.7% expressed positive appreciation for elephants, 10.7% expressed ambivalent views, and 10.3% had clear negative attitudes toward the animal. Minor notable themes that emerged included fear as an emotional response to the animal, local ecological knowledge relating to elephant habitat and ecology, and religious association of elephants. Our results indicate the need to implement targeted conflict prevention strategies, create alternate livelihood opportunities, and build comprehensive education programs that factor local and cultural values to offset economic damages, foster tolerance, and harness local knowledge within these interconnected landscapes.
2024 Alwyn Gentry Award for Best Poster Presentation
Katherine Culbertson
University of California, Berkeley
Arrested rainforest regeneration? Changing disturbance regimes and non-forest vegetation impair natural recovery in a hyperdiverse, endangered rainforest landscape
Katherine Culbertson, Fetratiana Rakotomanga, Onja Razafindratsima, and Matthew Potts
Little is known about forest recovery trajectories in Madagascar’s unique forests, where >90% of tree species are found nowhere else on earth. Yet scientists, conservation managers, and local communities alike note that rainforest recovery is often incredibly slow, and the small amount of existing scientific data seems to support these anecdotes. Could the same isolation that has led to Madagascar’s unique, rich biodiversity render Malagasy rainforests less resilient in the face of local and global change? We (1) assess recovery of biomass and tree species diversity following cultivation in lowland rainforests, and (2) elucidate patterns of and associated factors for tree seedling recruitment. In this study, we combine vegetation surveys and satellite imagery to assess forest recovery 25-50 years after agricultural abandonment in lowland rainforest at Marojejy National Park. Dominant vegetation classes are identified on satellite imagery and ground-truthed and sampled in the field. Modified Gentry transects and inset seedling recruitment plots are used to asses biomass, species diversity, and seedling recruitment levels in regenerating areas and adjacent primary forests. We find notably low biomass in secondary forests and very few tree seedlings present, especially greater than 10m from primary forest edges. Regenerating vegetation is instead dominated by thick, aggressive, herbaceous vegetation and vines. These results suggest regeneration pathways may be arrested in this forest system, indicating need for management interventions to jumpstart forest recovery in deforested areas, even those within an intact matrix of primary forests.
2024 New Phytologist Prize in Plant Biology Best Oral Presentation
Beibei Zhang
University of Bristol
Soil fertility drives large and predictable shifts in canopy dynamics in a tropical rainforest
Beibei Zhang, Toby Jackson, David Coomes, David Burslem, Reuben Nilus, and Tommaso Jucker
Tropical forest canopies can vary hugely and abruptly in their three-dimensional (3D) structure across landscapes, often mirroring variation in topography and soil nutrient availability. These local differences in 3D structure are thought to arise because of species filtering along topo-edaphic gradients, which ultimately constrain how fast and large trees can grow, and how frequently they die to form canopy gaps. However, explicitly linking landscape-scale variation in canopy 3D structure to its underlying dynamic processes – such as the formation and closure of canopy gaps – remains a major challenge for ecologists. To address this, we used repeat airborne LiDAR to track rates of canopy disturbance and recovery through time in a Bornean rainforest growing along a steep soil fertility gradient. This gives rise to three structurally and compositionally distinct forest types – alluvial, sandstone and heath forests – across which maximum canopy height decreases progressively from 70 to 40 m in step with a ten-fold decline in soil phosphorus availability. Using this unique approach, we found that rates of canopy dynamics varied predictably across the three forest types. Tall alluvial forests had both the highest rates of canopy disturbance (losses = 4000 m3 ha-1 yr-1), as well as gap recovery and intact canopy growth (gains = 2500 m3 ha-1 yr-1). Both canopy disturbance and growth rates declined progressively along the soil fertility gradient, and were lowest in nutrient-depleted heath forests (losses = 1250 m3 ha-1 yr-1; gains = 1250 m3 ha-1 yr-1). Our study sheds new light on the dynamic processes that give rise to variation in forest 3D structure across tropical landscapes, and illustrates how emerging remote sensing technologies such as LiDAR can help us better understand the ecology of these systems.
2024 New Phytologist Prize in Plant Biology Best Poster Presentation
Sarafina Masanja
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Impact of Agricultural Expansion on Tree Species Composition and Diversity along Elevation Gradients in Pangawe West Forest Reserve, Morogoro, Tanzania
Sarafina Masanja, and Pantaleo Munishi
Forest ecosystems harbor globally important biodiversity. However, Pangawe West Forest Reserve faces constant pressure from adjacent communities, primarily due to conversion into agricultural land. Studies on how the forest structure changes with conversion on this landscape are limited. This study aimed to assess the impact of agricultural expansion on tree species composition and diversity along elevation gradients in Pangawe West Forest Reserve. Vegetation data were collected from 60 sample plots established in disturbed areas affected by agriculture and 60 plots from relatively undisturbed areas, across different elevations. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering was used to identify species communities and indicator species analysis was done to determine species significantly associated with each community. Species richness, evenness and Shannon-Wiener diversity indices were calculated and compared between disturbed and undisturbed areas using Generalized Linear Models (GLMs). A total of 1576 individual trees from 64 species and 27 families were recorded. Three communities were identified and most of the species were shared across communities. Agricultural expansion significantly reduced tree species richness and altered community composition compared to undisturbed areas with varying impacts along elevation gradients. Higher elevations exhibited low species diversity and composition while mid-elevations had more diversity. At lower elevations with generally more favorable conditions, agricultural disturbance had a severe impact with relatively low diversity possibly due to increased community resilience. The findings underscore the importance of considering topographic heterogeneity in conservation planning and sustainable land management strategies, emphasizing the need for strict regulations and effective measures to mitigate agricultural encroachment in forest areas.