The Haldane Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Functional Ecology written by an early career author.

Today, we are pleased to present the shortlisted papers for this year’s award (from the 2019 volume of Functional Ecology).

This year’s shortlisted candidates are:

• A trait-based framework for understanding predator-prey relationships: trait matching between a specialist snake and its insect prey – Edvárd Mizsei
• Aquatic and terrestrial resources are not nutritionally reciprocal for consumers – Cornelia Twining
• Breadth of the thermal response captures individual and geographic variation in temperature-dependent sex determination – A Carter
• Cryptic petal colouration decreases floral apparency and herbivory in nocturnally closing daisies – Jurene Kemp – Listen to a podcast with Jurene here!
• Earlier plant growth helps compensate for reduced carbon fixation after 13 years of warming – Daniel Winkler
• More than iso/anisohydry: Hydroscapes integrate plant water use and drought tolerance traits in 10 eucalypt species from contrasting climates – Ximeng Li
• Periphytic algae decouple fungal activity from leaf litter decomposition via negative priming – Halvor Halvorson – Listen to a podcast with Hal here!
• Phenotypic plasticity or evolutionary change? An examination of the phenological response of an arctic seabird to climate change – Drew Sauve
• Phylogenetic structure of wildlife assemblages shapes patterns of infectious livestock diseases in Africa – Yingying Wang
• Spider webs, stable isotopes and molecular gut content analysis: Multiple lines of evidence support trophic niche differentiation in a community of Hawaiian spiders – Susan Kennedy
• The mechanics of predator-prey interactions: first principles of physics predict predator-prey size ratios –
• Why does noise reduce response to alarm calls? Experimental assessment of masking, distraction and greater vigilance in wild birds – You Zhou

The winner will be selected in the coming weeks so watch this space for future announcements – including blogs and podcasts with the shortlisted authors.