Edward S. Deevey, a founder of modern paleoecology, was a dedicated student advisor who mentored many investigators active in the field of paleoecology today. To honor his memory and to encourage high quality research by graduate students, the Paleoecology Section presents an award for the best presentation by a student in paleoecology at the ESA Annual Meeting.

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2017

The 2017 Deevey Award goes to Joseph Napier for his presentation “Rethinking glacial plant dynamics: multiple refugia and local expansion of a species complex north of the ice sheet.” Joseph received a B.S. in Biology from Wake Forest University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois. His research involves using a novel approach that integrates genomics, species niche modeling, and paleorecords to unravel past species dynamics in response to pronounced climate change. For his dissertation, Joseph is focusing on the post-glacial dynamics of an alder species complex in Alaska and adjacent Canada. His ESA talk was coauthored by Guillaume de Lafontaine, Matias Fernandez, Katy D. Heath, and Feng Sheng Hu (advisor).

 

 

 

 

The Deevey committee also recognizes two additional outstanding student talks this year. Kevin D. Burke receives Honorable Mention for his talk entitled “How novel are 21st century climates: A global assessment of future climates and their analogs back through the Eocene.” Kevin is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Environment & Resources at the University of Madison-Wisconsin. His research focuses on projected climatic and environmental change, using the lens of past climate conditions and the effects they had on plant communities to identify suitable analog conditions for the future, and to understand the mechanisms that result in novel communities. His ESA talk was co-authored by John W. Williams (advisor) and Stephen T. Jackson.

Yue Wang also receives Honorable Mention this year for her talk “Mechanistic modeling of woolly mammoth extinction in North America in the late Quaternary”.  Yue is a Ph.D. student in Dr. John W. William’s lab in the Department of Geography at the University of Madison-Wisconsin. She studies ecosystem responses to climate change during the Quaternary, and the relative impacts of climate and vegetation change on North American megafaunal extinctions. Her ESA presentation was coauthored by Warren P. Porter, Paul Miller, and John W. Williams.

 

 

 

 

 

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2016

The 2016 Deevey Award goes to Matias Fernandez for his presentation “A tale of two conifers: Genetic evidence of species dispersal and climate resilience in the Pacific Northwest.” Matias received a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Biology from Columbia University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois. He uses next-generation genomic techniques to answer paleoecological questions about refugial persistence and species dispersal under changing climate conditions. For his dissertation research, Matias is focusing on the post-glacial migration of mesic conifers across the Pacific Northwest. His talk was coauthored by Guillaume de Lafontaine, Daniel Gavin, Katy D. Heath, and Feng Sheng Hu (advisor).

 

 

 

 

 

This year, Honorable Mention has been awarded to Marco F. Raczka for his presentation “Megafauna collapse and vegetation changes in Lagoa Santa region, southeastern Brazil.” He received a B.S. in Biological Sciences and a M.S. in Geoenvironmental Analysis from Universidade Guarulhos, São Paulo, Brazil, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Biology at the Florida Institute of Technology. Marco uses a combination of pollen, charcoal,  and spores of Sporormiella to examine the causes and consequences of the Pleistocene megafaunal population collapse in the central Andes and Southeastern Brazil. He is specifically interested in determining if the megafauna population collapsed prior to, or was coincident with, human arrival, and if the reduction in megafauna densities was related to the rise of novel plant communities and altered fire regimes. His ESA talk was coauthored by Mark Bush (advisor) and Paulo E. De Oliveira.

Contributed by Melissa Chipman, 2016 Deevey Award coordinator:

 

 

 

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2015

The 2015 Edward S. Deevey Award for the best student presentation in paleoecology was awarded to Matthew Davis, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University, for his presentation “What actually happens to functional diversity during a large extinction?” Matthew’s research focuses on North American mammals through the past 50,000 years, with the goal of understanding how humans and climate have altered functional diversity on a large scale.

Deevey Award Chair: Ryan Kelly

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2014

The 2014 Deevey Award goes to Melissa L. Chipman for her presentation “Spatiotemporal trends in Alaska tundra fires over the Late Quaternary.” Melissa is a Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology at the University of Illinois, whose research involves reconstructing past fire and permafrost disturbance regimes in tundra regions to examine the link between these processes and climate change over long timescales. She received a B.S. in Environmental Geosciences and a B.A. in Geography from Concord University, and her M.S. in Geology at the University of Illinois. Her talk was coauthored by V. Hudspith, P. E. Higuera, P. A. Duffy, W. Oswald, and her advisor, F. S. Hu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year, Honorable Mention has been awarded to Kyleen Elizabeth Kelly for her presentation, “Paleoecology of a modern whitebark pine population in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.” Kyleen received a B.S. in Field and Environmental Biology from Pittsburg State University and an M.A. in Geography from Kansas State University. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Geography at Kansas State University, where she studies how historical fire and climate regimes have helped shape and maintain modern populations of whitebark pine. Her presentation was coauthored by S. A. Spaulding and her advisor, K. K. McLauchlan.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623-96.1.77/epdf

 

 

 

 

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2013

This year’s Deevey Award winner was William John Calder, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming, for his presentation: “The influence of spatial scale on detecting climatic controls of wildfire in subalpine forests for the last 2000 years in northern Colorado.” His presentation was co-authored by Dusty Parker, Cody Stopka, and Bryan Shuman. Mr. Calder completed a Masters of Science degree in Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation from Brigham Young University in 2009. His research focuses on the climatic controls on wildfire in subalpine forests and how fire and climate change interact to shape the vegetation on a landscape. The Paleoecology Section thanks students who competed for this year’s Deevey Award, and we encourage them and others to participate in the 2014 competition.

Contributed by Kendra McLauchlan, 2013 Deevey Award coordinator:

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623-94.4.310/epdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2012

Ryan Kelly, PhD candidate in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois, is the winner of the 2012 Deevey Award for his presentation titled “Pushing the limits of the boreal-forest fire regimes: recent changes in a 10,000 year context.” His presentation was co-authored by Melissa Chipman, Philip E. Higuera, Linda B. Brubaker, and Feng Sheng Hu. Ryan’s research reconstructed 10,000 years of boreal forest fire history from analysis of macroscopic charcoal accumulation in sediment cores from Alaska. He presented evidence that the boreal fire regime has been changing through fuel depletion. Mr. Kelly completed a BS in Integrative Biology from the University of Illinois in 2005.

 

 

 

This year the Deevey Committee awarded a second place prize to Carolyn Barrett, a Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology at the University of Illinois, for her presentation: “How many lake sediment cores do we need to characterize regional fire regime changes using macro-charcoal records?” This presentation was co-authored with Feng Sheng Hu. Ms. Barrett conducted a statistical analysis of charcoal accumulation rate (CHAR) records for lakes from two Alaskan ecoregions. Her research focuses on the interactions of landscape, vegetation, and climate in controlling boreal forest fires.

 

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623-94.1.35/epdf

 

 

 

 

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2011

Alex W. Ireland, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lehigh University, is the winner of the 2011 Deevey Award for his presentation: “Hydroclimatic variability and basin morphology control terrestrialization in glacial kettles.” His presentation was co-authored by Robert Booth. His research investigated the sensitivity of kettlehole ecosystems in northern Wisconsin to abrupt drought-induced transformation, and he presented evidence contrary to prevailing paradigms of terrestrialization. Mr. Ireland completed a Bachelor of Science from Clarion University in 2007. The Paleoecology Section thanks students who competed for this year’s Deevey Award.

Contributed by Kendra McLauchlan, 2013 Deevey Award coordinator:

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623-92.4.330/epdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2010

Shelley Crausbay, a Ph.D. candidate in the Botany Department at the University of Wisconsin, is the 2010 Deevey Award winner, for her talk titled “Species assemblage and fire dynamics over the past 3000 years in an upper montane cloud forest in Hawai’i,” coauthored with Sarah Hotchkiss.

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2009

Emily Coffey won the 2009 Deevey award for her presentation: “Determination of baseline ecological conditions in the Galápagos Islands.”

Shawn (Fred) Whiteman earned runner-up status for her presentation: “A tale of two continents: ecology, phylogeny, and body size in the great American biotic interchange.

Deevey Award Chair:  Jason Lynch

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2008

Larisa DeSantis, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, is the winner of the 2008 Deevey award for her talk: “Effects of global warming on ancient mammalian communities and their environments.” Her presentation was co-authored by Robert S. Ferenec and Bruce J. MacFadden. Ms. DeSantis used stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen in mammal fossils in two well-dated Florida sites to reconstruct niche shifts between glacial and interglacial environments. The stable isotope evidence showed that interglacial warming resulted in dramatic vegetation and dietary changes. The stable isotope analysis suggests an expansion of C4 grasses during interglacial periods and an increase in mammalian use of these grasses. Ms. DeSantis is completing her doctoral research at the Florida Museum of Natural History which was Edward S. Deevey’s home institution at the time of his death. Ms. DeSantis received her B.S. in Resource Management from the University of California, Berkeley and her M.E.M in Conservation Biology from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She has strong interests in science outreach to K-12 teachers and is developing teaching materials for use in schools. Many thanks to all the students who competed for this year’s Deevey Award, and to the judges as well.

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2007

Leila M. Zajac, a Ph.D.candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the winner of the 2007 Deevey award for her talk “Modeling late-glacial no-analog climates with expanded response surfaces.”  Her presentation was co-authored by Jack W. Williams, and Rick Nordheim.  Ms. Zajac’s Ph.D. research focuses on modeling the late glacial climate and vegetation at Crystal Lake in north-eastern Illinois, a period where the climatic conditions and plant communities don’t co-exist today.  In order to model these “non-analog” late-glacial climatic conditions, she developed a new innovative statistical modeling approach called expanded response surfaces.  This approach allows her to infer pollen-climate relationships for climatic conditions that are outside of the modern climate domain.  The committee was particularly impressed with the innovative approach employed to reconstruct non-analog climatic conditions.  She completed a M.S. in Geophysical Science from the University of Chicago in 2004 and a B.S. and B.A. in Mathematics and Spanish in 1995 from Regis University.  The Paleoecology Section thanks students who competed for this year’s Deevey Award and we encourage others to participate in the 2008 competition, to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The Section appreciates the efforts of the 2007 Deevey Award Selection

Contributed by Jason Lynch, 2007 Deevey Award coordinator.

Committee:  Jason Lynch (chair), Philip Higuera, Sarah Finkelstein, and Richard Brugam.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2008)89[16:ESDAWL]2.0.CO;2/full

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2006

Michael Tweiten, PhD candidate in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, won the 2006 Deevey Award for his presentation titled “Reconstructing historical patterns of jack pine budworm outbreaks in forest hollows from Wisconsin.” Coauthor Sara Hotchkiss assisted him with his research. His award winning presentation explored the interaction between jack pine trees, population outbreaks of caterpillars that feed on them, and wild fire frequency during different periods of climatic change. The committee was particularly impressed with the quality and clarity of his presentation and the novel methods he developed for estimating insect outbreak intensities and vegetation changes across pre- and post-settlement times. Mr. Tweiten completed his Bachelor of Science in Botany from the University of Washington. Before entering graduate school at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, he examined successional changes following the Mt. St. Helens eruption and responses of plant community to prescribed burning in Northern Arizona. The Paleoecology Section thanks students who competed for this year’s Deevey Award and encourages others to participate in the 2007 competition, to be held at the Annual Meeting in San Jose, CA on August 5-10. The Section also appreciates the efforts of the 2006 Deevey Award Selection

Committee: Jason Lynch (Chair), Bob Booth, Richard Brugam, Steve Jackson and Mark Bush.

 

 

 

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 2005

Zoe Finkel, recent PhD from Rutgers University and at the Mount Allison University in New Brunswick in 2005. Her presentation was entitled “Climatically driven macroevolutionary change in the size of marine planktonic diatoms.” Her research considered multiple hypotheses and demonstrated long-term evolutionary change in diatom size with potential links to global carbon and nutrient cycles. The presentation synthesized results recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The judges committee was particularly impressed with her careful consideration of alternate hypotheses and the important implication of her research for carbon cycling.

Philip Higuera received honorable mention for his presentation entitled “The relative importance of vegetational vs. climatic controls on post-glacial fire regimes in the southern Brooks Range, AK.” Mr. Higuera is a Ph.D candidate in the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington. Coauthors Linda B. Brubaker, Patricia Anderson, Feng Sheng Hu, Ben Clegg, and Tom Brown, assisted him with this research.

Committee: Jason Lynch (Chair), Jason McLachlan, Bob Booth, Dan Gavin, and Jack Williams.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2006)87%5B84:ESDA%5D2.0.CO;2/epdf

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 2004

The 2004 Deevey award winner is Jason McLachlan, recent PhD from the Biology Department of Duke University. His presentation was entitled “The importance of small populations in the post glacial dynamics of eastern forests,” and was coauthored by James S. Clark and Paul S. Manos. Jason and his coauthors used patterns of genetic variation in modern tree populations and fossil pollen data to reconstruct temporal and spatial patterns of postglacial migration in eastern North America.

Committee: Jason Lynch (Chair), Lisa Carlson, Allen Solomon, Bob Booth, Don Falk, and Bryan Shuman.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2005)86%5B20:ESDA%5D2.0.CO;2/epdf

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2003

Don Falk of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona was awarded the 2003 Edward S. Deevey Award for an Outstanding Student Presentation in Paleoecology. His presentation was entitled “The event–area relationship: scale dependence in the fire regime of a New Mexico ponderosa pine forest.” Don used a novel statistical approach to describe how parameters that describe the forest fire regime are scale dependent.

Deevey Award Selection Committee: Jason Lynch (Chair), Dan Gavin, Andrea Lloyd, and Phil Townsend.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2004)85%5B19a:PSNESD%5D2.0.CO;2/epdf

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 2002

Lynn L. Anderson, a graduate student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Illinois, won the 2002 Deevey award for her talk “A molecular-genetic approach to understanding the migration history of Picea (spruce) in North America,” which she co-authored with F. S. Hu and K. N. Paige. Ms. Anderson is testing several hypotheses about the late Quaternary migration history of spruce by analyzing noncoding genetic markers from the chloroplast, mitochondrial, and nuclear genomes of modern spruce needles. The committee was particularly impressed with the careful construction of the hypotheses and the innovative techniques used to test them, as well as the clarity of Ms. Anderson’s presentation.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2003)84%5B3a:ESDALL%5D2.0.CO;2/epdf

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 2001

Robert K. Booth, a graduate student in botany at the University of Wyoming, is the winner of the 2001 Deevey Award for his talk, “A high resolution record of late Holocene surface-moisture changes from a Michigan raised bog,” co-authored with Stephen T. Jackson. Mr. Booth used testate amoebae to infer centennial- scale changes in the past surface moisture of an ombrotrophic peatland and related these to other paleoindicators of water-level fluctuations in the western Great Lakes.

Philip Higuera received honorable mention for his poster, “Identifying disturbance signatures in small-hollow sediments: the potential for long term, high-resolution forest history records,” co-authored with Linda Brubaker and Douglas Sprugel.

Selection Committee: Richard B. Brugam (Chair), Grace Brush, Virginia Card, Holly Ewing, and Tim Parshall.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2002)083%5B0004:N%5D2.0.CO;2/epdf

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2000

The 2000 winner of the Deevey Award is Holly Ewing, a graduate student in Ecology at the University of Minnesota. Her talk was entitled, “The influence of substrate on long-term ecosystem development and its paleoecological record.” Ms. Ewing used sediment cores from lakes on outwash and on glacial till to show that soil development is very different depending on geological substrate. Ms. Ewing received her B.A. in Geology from Carleton College and is completing her Ph.D with Margaret Davis. She plans to continue her research as a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Peter Groffman at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

Receiving honorable mention was Bryan Shuman, whose paper, “Vegetation response to lake-glacial and early Holocene climate change in New England,” was coauthored with P. C. Newby and T. Webb III. R. K. Booth also received honorable mention. His paper, “Testate amoebae as wetland paleoenvironmental indicators: a modern study of testate amoeba assemblages in Lake Superior coastal wetlands,” was coauthored with S. J. Scholl and S. T. Jackson.

Selection Committee: Richard B. Brugam, Randy Calcote, Virginia Card, Tim Parshall

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2001)082[0004:N]2.0.CO;2/epdf

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1999

Daniel Gavin is the winner of the 1999 Deevey Award for the poster, “Holocene fire history in a coastal temperate rain forest, Vancou-ver Island.” In this project, Gavin used soil, sediment, and tree ring records to reconstruct the fire history of a temperate rain forest, demonstrating large variation in fire frequency within the watershed, including many moist sites that have not burned since the early Holocene. Daniel Gavin received his bachelor’s degree in biology in 1992 from Dartmouth College and his master’s degree from the College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, in 1997. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of Washington, working with Professor Linda Brubaker.

Honorable Mention from the Paleoecological Section goes to Holly Ewing for her talk, “A history of soil development in northern Wisconsin inferred from new geochemical techniques.”

Selection Committee: V. Card (Chair), R. Brugam, K. Cole, T. Parshall

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/0012-9623(2000)086%5B0082:SACN%5D2.0.CO;2/epdf

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1998

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1997

Lisa Carlson is the winner of the 1997 Deevey Award for her talk on “Evidence for spruce migration and full glacial vegetation from Jan Lake, Alaska.” In this project Lisa is using pollen records to reconstruct the history of the spruce migration into Alaska at the end of the last glaciation. Her records indicate that spruce arrived relatively early in the area, at the time of the Populus subzone (11,000 to 8,000 years ago), and that the herb tundra varied spatially across Alaska, forming a vegetation mosaic at the full-glacial time. Lisa is a doctoral student at the University of Washington, working with Linda Brubaker. She received her master’s degree from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and her bachelor’s degree from Macalester College, Minnesota.

Honorable mentions for the 1997 Deevey Award go to Wyatt Oswald for his poster, co-authored by L. Brubaker and P. Anderson, “Late Quaternary vegetation history of the Alaskan North Slope: an interpretation using indicator taxa”; Laura Luecking for her poster, co-authored by R. Brugam, “Presettlement vegetation of Macoupin County”; and Tim Parshall for his talk, co-authored by R. Calcote, “Interpreting fossil pollen from forest hollows using modem analogs: The ‘background’ of the problem.”

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20168211/pdf

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1996

Sarah Hotchkiss is the winner of the 1996 Deevey Award for her talk, “A 29,000-year record of vegetation and fire history from Kohala Mountain, Hawaii.” In this project, Sarah has used pollen records to reconstruct the climatic and vegetation history of Hawaii. In particular this study addressed the question of how the tropics responded to climatic forcing during the last glacial-interglacial cycle, an area for which few data are available. Sarah received her bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and is currently a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, working with Margaret Davis.

Honorable mention goes to Dirk Verschuren for his talk, “Patterns and mechanism of change in the invertebrate community of fluctuating tropical lake basins (lakes Naivasha and Sonachi Kenya)”; and to Zicheng Yu for his poster, “Responses of vegetation and lake to late glacial climate changes in southern Ontario: a multi-proxy paleoecological investigation.”

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20168211/pdf

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1994

William H. Petty was selected from authors of a number of excellent student papers and posters to receive the Edward S. Deevey Award for the best graduate student presentation in paleoecology. His outstanding presentation was entitled “Holocene vegetation history and Lake Michigan lake-level fluctuations on the southern shore of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” He is a student in the Graduate Program in Ecology at the University of Tennessee.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20167978/pdf

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1992

** No award. It was this year Deevey Award bylaw was officially proposed. Steve T. Jackson, section chair. Section members approved the Bylaw at the 1993 Annual Meeting in Madison.**

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20167430/pdf and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20167778/pdf

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1991

**The first recipient of the “Edward S. Deevey Student Award in Paleoecology.**

The award was presented to Dr. Shinya Sugita for his poster at the 1991 ESA meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The poster, “Palynological records of forest disturbance and development on Mount Rainier, Washington” is part of Dr. Sugita’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Washington. Dr. Sugita is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota.

ESA Bulletin: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/20167401/pdf