Murray F. Buell Award
Initiated in 1977, the Murray F. Buell Award is given annually for the outstanding paper presented orally at the Annual Meeting of the Society by an undergraduate or graduate student or a person with a doctorate who has defended their thesis within the previous nine months.
Award year terminology in the Bulletin and ESA press releases has varied over the years. In the table below the year shown is the year the paper was presented.
| Year | Full Name | Last Name | ESA Bulletin | Citation | Honorable Mentions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Sarah E. Rothman | Rothman | Link | Detritus communities representative of socioeconomically diverse urban neighborhoods affects the outcome of competition between Aedes albopictus and Culex pipiens mosquitoes | |
| 2021 | Reut Vardi | Vardi | Link | iNaturalist insights illuminate COVID-19 effects on large mammals in urban centers | |
| 2020 | Mahi Puri | Puri | Link | The balancing act: Maintaining leopard-wild prey equilibrium could offer economic benefits to people in a shared forest landscape of central India | Nicole Nova |
| 2019 | Gaurav Sunil Kandlikar | Kandlikar | Link | How microbially mediated fitness differences influence plant diversity | Anna Sjodin |
| 2018 | Sara P. Bombaci | Bombaci | Link | Restoring animal populations in fenced mammal-free sanctuaries increases bird-mediated seed dispersal in New Zealand | |
| 2017 | Benjamin J. Wilson | Wilson | Link | Biogeochemical effects of a freshwater marsh experiencing simultaneous saltwater intrusion and nutrient enrichment: A stress-subsidy experiment | |
| 2016 | Michael J. M. McTavish | McTavish | Link | Selective granivory of exotic earthworms within commercial grass seed mixes: Implications for seeding-based restoration in invaded ecosystems | |
| 2015 | Cody S. Clements | Clements | Link | Seaweeds protect corals from predatory starfish: competitors become accomplices as reefs degrade | |
| 2014 | Nina Lany | Lany | Top-down vs. bottom-up is a function of temperature for forest Lepidoptera | Michael Barber, Dustin Ranglack | |
| 2013 | No award due to significant technical problems with judging | ||||
| 2012 | Kate Boersma | Boersma | Link | Top predator extinctions in drying streams modify community structure and ecosystem functioning | Sophie McCoy |
| 2011 | Ebony Murrell | Murrell | Link | Do tradeoffs among colonization ability, competitive ability, and predation govern succession in an aquatic insect community? | |
| 2010 | Jennifer M. Talbot | Talbot | Link | Does lignin composition control litter decay rates? | |
| 2009 | Divya Uma | Uma | Link | Chemical mediation of prey recognition by spider-hunting wasps. | |
| 2008 | Elizabeth Mary Wolkovich | Wolkovich | Link | Invasive annual grasses enhance native shrubs and their arthropod communities through abiotic soil effects. | |
| 2007 | Charles A. Price | Price | Link | Allometric covariation in botanical form and function | Matthew Helmus, Shelly Lachish |
| 2006 | Carolyn Kurle | Kurle | Link | Introduced rats indirectly alter marine communities. | Meghan Duffy, Volker H. W. Rudolf, Jennifer L. Williams |
| 2005 | Sean Menke | Menke | Link | Abiotic factors control invasion by ants at the community scale. | Benjamin Houlton  |
| 2004 | Cynthia Hays | Hays | Link | Ecological consequences of gene flow in an intertidal alga. | Jennifer Lau , Jason S. McLachlan , Louie H. Yang |
| 2003 | James Vonesh | Vonesh | Link | Multi-predator effects across life-history stages: non-additivity of egg- and larval-stage predation in an African treefrog. | Nicholas S. G. Williams |
| 2002 | Jacqueline E. Mohan | Mohan | Link | Do evolutionary legacies impact ecosystem functioning? Genetic variation in decomposition responses to atmospheric CO2. | |
| 2001 | Melinda Smith | Smith | Link | Loss of subordinate species affects productivity of C4-dominated grassland. | |
| 2000 | Jennifer Klug | Klug | Link | Interactions between bacteria and phytoplankton affect algal response to nutrients and dissolved organic matter. | |
| 1999 | Lynn Adler | Adler | Link | Alkaloids increase plant fitness via reduced herbivory and increased pollination. | |
| 1998 | Valerie T. Eviner | Eviner | Link | Effects of plant species, elevated CO2, and nutrients on microbial substrate utilization patterns. | Anurag A. Agrawal , David A. Boughton |
| 1997 | Paul Grogon | Grogon | Link | Belowground CO 2 flux in Alaskan tundra: effects of climate and vegetation type with regional extrapolation. | |
| 1997 | Steven S. Perakis | Perakis | Link | Nitrogen-starved forest retain tracer-level additions of 15 N. | Rebecca Ostertag |
| 1996 | Sara C. Hotchkiss | Hotchkiss | Link | A 29,000-year record of vegetation and fire history from Kohala Mountain, Hawaii. | Gary A. Krupnick, Nora C. Underwood |
| 1995 | Sally D. Hacker | Hacker | Link | Keystone plants: community consequences of a positive plant interaction. | Carla E. Cáceres, Robert E. Espinoza, William T. Pockman |
| 1994 | Michael J. Childress | Childress | Link | The ontogenetic habitat shift of juvenile Caribbean spiny lobsters: a test of the growth-mortality trade-off. ESA Bulletin 75(Suppl):36. | Milan C. Vavrek |
| 1993 | M. Denise Dearing | Dearing | Link | The manipulation of secondary compounds by the North American pika.  ESA Bulletin 74(Suppl):210. | Ann L. Herzig , Suzanne E. Worchester, James B. Ferrari |
| 1992 | Sarah E. Hobbie | Hobbie | Link | Increased temperatures in Alaskan tussock tundra result in enhanced net ecosystem CO2 uptake. ESA Bulletin 73(Suppl):209. | Catherine E. Pake, Collette M. St. Mary, Fernando E. Vega |
| 1991 | Lisa J. Petit | Petit | Link | Habitat selection by Prothonotary Warblers: A test of the Fretwell-Lucas models.  ESA Bulletin 72(Suppl):218-219. | Erik P. Hemerlynck, Nancy Collins Johnson |
| 1990 | Robert B. Jackson | Jackson | Link | Rapid physiological adjustment of roots to localized soil enrichment.  ESA Bulletin 71(Suppl):200. | Pierre O. Berner, Reuven Josef |
| 1989 | Don R. Levitan | Levitan | Link | The effect of body size regulation on the population ecology of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum. ESA Bulletin 70(Suppl):181. | Martha E. Mather, Robert D. Podolsky |
| 1988 | Shahid Naeem | Naeem | Link | Resource-mediated interactions can structure arthropod assemblages in Heliconia wagneriana microcosms.  ESA Bulletin 69:244. | Neil Cobb, Michele Holbrook |
| 1987 | Sharon Y. Strauss | Strauss | Link | Effects of herbivory by two different herbivores on the susceptibility of smooth sumac to abiotic factors . ESA Bulletin 68:424. | Susan Mopper, Shahid Naeem |
| 1986 | Kate Lajtha | Lajtha | Link | Biogeochemistry of phosphorus cycling along a calcareous desert soil chronosequence . ESA Bulletin 67:147. | Colleen K. Kelly, Christopher F. Sacchi, Sharon Y. Strauss |
| 1985 | Deborah O. Raphael | Raphael | Link | Parent-ramet interactions: effect on water relations and ramet survival for a desert perennial. ESA Bulletin 66:252. | |
| 1984 | Stephen R. Palumbi | Palumbi | Link | Evolution of phenotypic plasticity: evidence that the jack of all trades is the master of none. ESA Bulletin 65:268. | |
| 1983 | Elaine M. Birk | Birk | Link | Nitrogen availability, N cycling and N use efficiency on the Savannah River Plant. ESA Bulletin 64:93. | |
| 1982 | Deanna J. Stouder | Stouder | Link | Effects of a severe weather disturbance on the foraging patterns by a guild of five temperate reef surf-perches. ESA Bulletin 63:124-5. | |
| 1981 | Becky J. Brown | Brown | Link | Productivity and herbivory in high and low diversity tropical successional ecosystems. ESA Bulletin 62:166. | |
| 1980 | Andrew Sih | Sih | Link | Optimal foraging and the need to avoid predators. ESA Bulletin 61:109. | |
| 1979 | John Dacey | Dacey | Link | A physical pump circulates air through the yellow waterlily. ESA Bulletin 60:95. | |
| 1978 | Paul A. Delcourt | Delcourt | Link | Goshen Springs, Alabama: Late Quaternary plant fossil record for the Gulf Coastal Plain. ESA Bulletin 59:97. | |
| 1977 | James R. Ehleringer | Ehleringer | Link | The implications of quantum yield on the distribution of C3 and C4 grasses. |