The Harper Prize 2016 for the best paper published in Journal of Ecology by an early career researcher has been awarded to Martina Treurnicht. 

Martina and colleagues collected 3454 population-level records from across the global range of these species in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa. The findings of her paper entitled ‘Environmental drivers of demographic variation across the global geographical range of 26 plant species’, provides new insights into demographic research by highlighting how rates of fecundity, recruitment and adult fire survival respond to climate, population density, fire interval, and soil nutrients.

Rob Salguero-Gómez, the Associate Editor who handled the paper and led the Special Feature ‘Demography Beyond the Population’ in which the paper was included, conducted an interview with Martina (below) to discuss and share with you the results of her research. 

Pierre Mariotte, Blog Editor, Journal of Ecology