American Society of Naturalists

A membership society whose goal is to advance and to diffuse knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles so as to enhance the conceptual unification of the biological sciences.

Awards

Posted on

The American Society of Naturalists confers several awards each year to honor scientists of great distinction. The membership of the awards committees can be found here.

ASN Honorary Lifetime Membership

Honorary lifetime membership in the American Society of Naturalists is intended to recognize scientists whose research careers epitomize the mission of the society, which is the conceptual unification of the biological sciences. The society limits the number of honorary lifetime memberships to twelve.

Links in the table below lead to the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award announcement for that honoree.

Past honorary lifetime members have included:

  • Charles E. Allen
  • Liberty Hyde Bailey
  • William Bateson
  • Albert F. Blakeslee
  • Hampton L. Carson
  • Joseph Connell
  • James D. Dana
  • Bradley Moore Davis
  • Margaret Davis
  • Hugo De Vries
  • Theodosius Dobzhansky
  • Henry Herbert Donaldson
  • Benjamin Minge Duggar
  • Leslie C. Dunn
  • Simon H. Gage
  • Richard Benedict Goldschmidt
  • Asa Gray
  • William D. Hamilton
  • Ross Granville Harrison
  • Samuel Henshaw
  • Samuel Jackson Holmes
  • G. Evelyn Hutchinson
  • Wilhelm L. Johannsen
  • Joseph Leidy
  • Joseph P. Lesley
  • Richard Lewontin
  • Othniel Charles Marsh
  • John Maynard Smith
  • Ernst Mayr
  • Barbara McClintock
  • James Playfair McMurrich
  • Clinton Hart Merriam
  • John Alexander Moore
  • Thomas Hunt Morgan
  • Henry Fairfield Osborn
  • George Howard Parker
  • Robert Paine
  • Ruth Patrick
  • John Thomas Patterson
  • Linus C. Pauling
  • Fernandus Payne
  • Wilhelm Roux
  • Elizabeth B. Russell
  • Karl Sax
  • William Berryman Scott
  • George Harrison Shull
  • Aaron Franklin Shull
  • Robert Sokal
  • George Gaylord Simpson
  • G. Ledyard Stebbins
  • Cornelius Bernardus N. van Niel
  • George C. Williams
  • Edmund B. Wilson
  • E. O. Wilson
  • Sewall Wright
  • Robert M. Yerkes

ASN Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences

The ASN Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences, established in 1991, is given annually and honors a senior but still active investigator who is making fundamental contributions to the Society's goals, namely, promoting the conceptual unification of the biological sciences. The award includes an honorarium of $2,000.

Information on how to nominate someone for the Conceptual Unification award

Links in the table below lead to the award announcement for that winner.

2024 Anurag Agrawal
2023 Judith L. Bronstein
2022 Laurent Keller
2021 Susan Alberts
2020 Sharon Strauss
2019 Jonathan B. Losos
2018 John McNamara
2017 Ruth Shaw
2016 Mark Rausher
2015 Sally Otto
2014 Mark Kirkpatrick
2013 Jeanne Altmann
2012 Richard E. Lenski
2011 Robert D. Holt
2010 William R. Rice
2009 Michael J. Wade
2008 Spencer Barrett
2007 Dolph Schluter
2006 Brian Charlesworth
2005 Robert E. Ricklefs
2004 Rudolf Raff
2003 Mary Jane West-Eberhard
2002 Linda Partridge
2001 Illkka A. Hanski
2000 Montgomery Slatkin
1999 Janis Antonovics
1998 William D. Hamilton
1997 Douglas J. Futuyma
1996 Robert T. Paine
1995 John Maynard Smith
1994 Richard C. Lewontin
1993 Joseph Felsenstein
1992 Russell Lande

NB: Starting with the 2022 award year, this award was renamed the ASN Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences. Previously it was known as the Sewall Wright Award.

ASN Distinguished Naturalist Award

The Distinguished Naturalist Award, established in the year of Professor E. O. Wilson's retirement from Harvard University, is given to an active investigator in mid-career who has made significant contributions to the knowledge of a particular ecosystem or group of organisms. Individuals whose research and writing illuminate principles of evolutionary biology and an enhanced aesthetic appreciation of natural history will merit special consideration. The award includes an honorarium of $2,000.

Information on how to nominate someone for the ASN Distinguished Naturalist Award

Links in the table below lead to the award announcement for that winner.

2024 Rachel A. Page
2023 Daniel I. Bolnick
2022 Tadashi Fukami
2021 Toby Kiers
2020 Tia Lynn Ashman
2019 Anurag Agrawal
2018 Ben Sheldon
2017 Edmund D. Brodie III
2016 Naomi Pierce
2015 Marlene Zuk
2014 Craig Benkman
2013 Douglas J. Emlen
2012 Keith A. Crandall
2011 Joseph Travis
2010 Michael J. Ryan
2009 Jonathan B. Losos
2008 Ulrich Mueller
2007 Trevor Price
2006 John T. Longino
2005 Laurent Keller
2004 Paul Dayton
2003 David Reznick
2002 Douglas Schemske
2001 Bernard J. Crespi
2000 Harry W. Greene & Richard Shine
1999 May R. Berenbaum
1998 B. Rosemary Grant & Peter R. Grant

NB: Starting with the 2022 award year, this award was named the ASN Distinguished Naturalist Award. Previously, it was known as the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award.

ASN Presidential Award

This award is for the best paper published in The American Naturalist during the calendar year preceding the President's term of office. The President of the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) makes this award, which includes an honorarium of $1,000.

2024 Hillery C. Metz, Alexandra K. Miller, Janet You, Jewelna Akorli, Frank W. Avila, Eva A. Buckner, Philomina Kane, Samson Otoo, Alongkot Ponlawat, Omar Triana-Chávez, Katie F. Williams, and Carolyn S. McBride. 2023. “Evolution of a Mosquito’s Hatching Behavior to Match Its Human-Provided Habitat.” 201:200-214.
2023 Lucas Weaver, Henry Fulghum, David Grossnickle, William Brightly, Zoe Kulik, Gregory Wilson Mantilla, and Megan Whitney. 2022. “Multituberculate Mammals Show Evidence of a Life History Strategy Similar to That of Placentals, Not Marsupials” 200: 383–400.
2022 Jessica Clark, Luke McNally, and Tom Little. 2021. “Pathogen Dynamics Across the Diversity of Aging” 197: 203–215.
2021 Philip Erm and Ben L. Phillips. 2020. “Evolution Transforms Pushed Waves into Pulled Waves” 195: E87–E99.
2020 Beatriz Willink, M. Catherine Duryea, and Erik Svensson. 2019. “Macroevolutionary Origin and Adaptive Function of a Polymorphic Female Signal Involved in Sexual Conflict” 194:707-724.
2019 Meike J. Wittmann and Tadashi Fukami, 2018. “Eco-Evolutionary Buffering: Rapid Evolution Facilitates Regional Species Coexistence despite Local Priority Effects.” 191:E171-E184.
2018 Jahnavi Joshi, Anupama Prakash, and Krushnamegh Kunte, 2017. “Evolutionary Assembly of Communities in Butterfly Mimicry Rings.” 189:E58–E76.
2017 Robin E. Snyder and Stephen P. Ellner, 2016. “We happy few: Using structured population models to identity the decisive events in the lives of exceptional individuals.” 188:E28-E45 (announcement)
2016 Mark C. Urban and Jonathan L. Richardson. 2015. "The evolution of foraging rate across local and geographic gradients in predation risk and competition" 186:E16–E32.
2015 Lyndon Alexander Jordan, Hanna Kokko, and Michael Kasumovic. 2014. "Reproductive Foragers: Male Spiders Choose Mates by Selecting among Competitive Environments" 183:638–649.
2014 Caroline E. Farrior, Ray Dybzinski, Simon A. Levin, and Stephen W. Pacala. 2013. "Competition for Water and Light in Closed-Canopy Forests: A Tractable Model of Carbon Allocation with Implications for Carbon Sinks." 181:314–330.
2013 Evan P. Economo and Eli M. Sarnat. 2012. “Revisiting the ants of Melanesia and the taxon cycle: historical and human-mediated invasions of a tropical archipelago.” 180:E1–E16.
2012 Michael Barfield, Richard Gomulkiewicz, and Robert D. Holt. 2011. “Evolution in stage-structured populations.” 177:397–409.
2011 Kenneth H. Kozak and John J. Wiens. 2010. “Niche conservatism drives elevational diversity patterns in Appalachian salamanders.” 176:40–54.
2010 Margaret E. K. Evans, Stephen A. Smith, Rachel S. Flynn, and Michael J. Donoghue. 2009. “Climate, Niche Evolution, and Diversification of the "Bird-Cage" Evening Primroses (Oenothera, Sections Anogra and Kleinia).” 173:225–240.
2009 Ruth Shaw, Charles Geyer, Stuart Wagenius, Helen Hangelbroek, and Julie Etterson. 2008. “Unifying life-history analyses for inference of fitness and population growth.” 172:E35–E47.
2008 Nathan J. B. Kraft, William K. Cornwell, Campbell O. Webb, and David D. Ackerly. 2007. “Trait evolution, community assembly, and the phylogenetic structure of ecological communities.” 170:271–283.
2007 Cristian A. Solari, John O. Kessler, and Richard E. Michod. 2006. “A hydrodynamics approach to the evolution of multicellularity: flagellar motility and germ-soma differentiation in volvocaleangreen.” 167:537–554.
2006 William F. Fagan, Mark Lewis, Michael G. Neubert, Craig Aumann, Jennifer L. Apple, and John G. Bishop. 2005. “When can herbivores reverse the spread of an invading plant? A test case from Mount St. Helens.” 166:669–686.
2005 Barney Luttbeg and Tom A. Langen. 2004. “Comparing alternative models to empirical data: cognitive models of Western scrub-jay foraging behavior.” 163:263–276.
2004 Raymond B. Huey, Paul E. Hertz, and Barry Sinervo. 2003. “Behavioral Drive versus Behavioral Inertia in Evolution: A Null Model Approach.” 161:357–366.
2003 Eva Grotkopp, Marcel Rejmánek, and Thomas L. Root. 2002. “Towards a causal explanation of plant invasiveness: seedling growth and life-history strategies of 29 Pine (Pinus) species.” 159:396–419.
2002 Aneil F. Agrawal, Edmund D. Brodie III, and Michael J. Wade. 2001. “On indirect genetic effects in structured populations.” 158:308–323.
2001 Robert K. Colwell. 2000. “Rensch's rule crosses the line: convergent allometry of sexual size dimorphism in hummingbirds and flower mites.” 156:495–510.
2000 Sergey Gavrilets. 1999. “A dynamical theory of speciation on holey adaptive landscapes.” 154:1–22.
1999 Not awarded.
1998 Robert E. Ricklefs. “Rate of aging in birds and mammals: confirmation of a fundamental prediction, with implications for the genetic basis and evolution of life span.” 152:24–44.
1997 Mark Kirkpatrick and N. H. Barton. “Evolution of a species' range.” 150:1–23.
1996 Dolph Schluter. “Ecological causes of adaptive radiation.” 148:S40–S64.
1995 Not awarded.
1994 Not awarded.
1993 Kenneth G. Ross. “The breeding system of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta: effects on colony genetic structure.” 141:554–576.
1992 Carlos M. Herrera. “Historical effects and sorting processes as explanations for contemporary ecological patterns: character syndromes in Mediterranean woody plants.” 140:421–446.
1991 Richard E. Lenski, Michael R. Rose, Suzanne C. Simpson, and Scott C. Tadler. “Long-term experimental evolution in Escheria coli. I. Adaptation and divergence during 2000 generations.” 138:1315–1341.
1990 Robert B. Srygley and Peng Chai. “Predation and the flight, morphology, and temperature of Neotropical rain-forest butterflies.” 135:748–765.
1989 Deborah Rabinowitz, Jody K. Rapp, Sara Cairns and Marilyn Mayer. “The persistence of rare prairie grasses in Missouri: environmental variation buffered by reproductive output of sparse species.” 134:525–544.
1988 Nancy A. Moran. “The evolution of host-plant alteration in aphids: evidence for specialization as a dead end.” 132:681–706.
1987 Kermit Ritland and Michael T. Clegg. “Evolutionary analyses of plant DNA sequences.” 130:S74–S100.
1986 Thomas Mitchell-Olds and J. J. Rutledge. “Quantitative genetics in natural plant populations: a review of the theory.” 127:379–402.
1985 Richard E. Lenski and Bruce R. Levin. “Constraints on the coevolution of bacteria and virulent phage: a model, some experiments, and predictions for natural communities.” 125:585–602.
1984 William W. Murdoch, John D. Reeve, Carl B. Huffaker and C. E. Kennett. “Biological control of olive scale and its relevance to ecological theory.” 123:371–392.

ASN Early Career Investigator Award

The ASN Early Career Investigator Award was established in 1984 to recognize outstanding and promising work by investigators who received their doctorates in the three years preceding the application deadline or who are in their final year of graduate school. (Time since PhD degree can be extended by 1 year for each child born or adopted during this period if the applicant has been a primary care giver. Other forms of exceptional caregiving responsibility [e.g., partner, spouse, aged parent, etc]. or extenuating circumstances will be considered on a case-by-case basis.)

This award was established in memory of Jasper Loftus-Hills (1946–1974), an Australian biologist of exceptional promise, whose career was cut short just three years after receiving his degree when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver while tape-recording frog calls along a Texas highway. The award includes presentation of a research paper at the annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, an award of $700, a travel allowance of $700, the cost of registration at the meetings, and a supplement of $500 in case of intercontinental travel.

Information on how to apply/nominate for the ASN Early Career Investigator Award

For YouTube video of past Early Career Investigator Awards presentations, see the ASN YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8FDICm2TYLT-y1FB8gcQlA

2024 Stepfanie M. Aguillon, Kyle David, Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Chloé Schmidt, and Sheela P. Turbek
2023 Heng Huang, Julia Kreiner, Dakota McCoy, and Thomas Scott
2022 Laura Melissa Guzman, Kim Hoang, Rachel Moran, Pavitra Muralidhar, and Chuliang Song
2021 Rebecca T. Batstone, Tess N. Grainger, James T. Stroud, Benton N. Taylor, and Ken A. Thompson
2020 Stephen De Lisle, Moises Exposito-Alonso, María Natalia Umaña Medina, and Diana Rennison
2019 Eleanor Caves, Jean Philippe Gibert, Ambika Kamath, and Stilianos Louca
2018 Rachael Bay, Aaron Comeault, Rachel Germain, and Gijsbert Werner
2017 Sarah Fitzpatrick, Anna Hargreaves, Martha Muñoz, and Alison Wright
2016 Lucy Aplin, Susan Bailey, Matthew Pennell, Nathaniel Sharp
2015 Jesse Lasky, Stephen Montgomery, Mary Caswell Stoddard, Marjorie Weber
2014 Travis Ingram, Romain Libbrecht, Malin Pinsky, Michael Sheehan
2013 Robin Hopkins, Kayla C. King, A. Carla Staver, Ian J. Wang
2012 Rowan Barrett, Liam J. Revell, Jennifer C. Perry, and Matthew R. Walsh
2011 Michael Kasumovic, Robert Pringle, Nathan Swenson, and Daniel Warner
2010 Stephanie Carlson, Marc Johnson, Joel McGlothlin, and Daniel Rabosky
2009 Brian Langerhans, Luke Harmon, Renee Duckworth, and Jason Kolbe
2008 Jennifer Lau, Judith Mank, Volker Rudolf, and Mark Urban
2007 Andy Gardner, Maurine Neiman, Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos, G. Sander van Doorn
2006 Rebecca Fuller, Ryan Gregory, Patrik Nosil, and Brian Silliman
2005 Dan Bolnick, Alison Galvani, Jeff Townsend, and Mark Vellend
2004 Aneil Agrawal, Doris Bachtrog, Armin Moczek, and Diego Vázquez
2003 Hopi Hoekstra and Jonathan Levine
2002 Sylvain Gandon, Jean M. L. Richardson, Ophélie Ronce, and Howard D. Rundle
2001 Andrew Hendry, Ole Seehausen, Priyanga Amarasekare, Anna Qvarnström, and George Weiblen
2000 Jef Huisman, Thomas Lenormand, Maria Servedio, Jennifer Thaler, and Jason Wolf
1999 Anurag Agrawal, Johnathan Chase, Troy Day, P. Ingvarsson, and Lukas F. Keller
1998 Hiroshi Akashi, Rodney Mauricio, Mohammed Noor, Kevin Omland, and Peter Waddell
1997 Hong-Wen Deng, Douglas J. Emlen, Sally Hacker, John Kelley, and Leslie Pray
1996 Rufus A. Johnstone, Christian P. Klingenberg, David L. Stern, and John P. Swaddle
1995 Göran Arnqvist, David Begun, Sally P. Otto, and Zhao Yang
1994 Elena R. Alvarez-Buylla, Keith A. Crandall, Frederick J. Janzen, Douglas R. Taylor, and Peter H. Thrall
1993 Joy Bergelson, Lee Dugatkin, Lock Rowe, and Geoff Hill
1992 Leticia Avilés, Edmund D. Brodie III, Eric D. Fajer, H. Allen Orr, and J. Timothy Wootton
1991 Alexandra Basolo, H. Lisle Gibbs, Andrew Read, and Ken Spitze
1990 Tamar Dayan, James Marden, Axel Meyer, and Sharon Strauss
1989 Anne Houde, Allen J. Moore, Barry Sinervo, and David F. Westneat
1988 David E. Cowley, Marlene Zuk, Carole L. Hom, and Kirk A. Moloney
1987 Steven A. Frank, C. Drew Harvell, Steven E. Kelley, and Mark Kirkpatrick
1986 Ary A. Hoffmann, Carl D. Schlichting, Brian A. Maurer, and Steve Orzack
1985 Gayle Muenchow, Mary Power, Trevor D. Price, David C. Queller, and Dolph Schluter

NB: Starting with the 2022 award year, this award was renamed the ASN Early Career Investigator Award. Previously it was known as the Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award, the Young Investigator Prize, and the Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Prize.

JOINT SOCIETY IDEA AWARD

The Inclusiveness, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Award was created in 2019 by the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). The IDEA Award is given to a person or group at any career stage who has strengthened the ecology and evolutionary biology community by promoting inclusiveness and diversity in our fields. The recipient will receive a plaque at the annual meeting of the joint societies and a $1000 honorarium.

2023 Corey Welch For his wide range of work to broaden participation including the STEM Scholars Program at Iowa State University, extensive service with SACNAS, and founding the Sharon Farr Welch Northern Cheyenne Tribal Scholarship program
2022 Diversity of Nature and its co-founders, Melanie Massey and Suchinta Arif For their discovery-based programming to engage BIPOC students at multiple educational stages in evolution and ecology; funding to provide scholarships to BIPOC youth pursuing post-secondary education in STEM and to sustain Diversity of Nature long-term; publications on actionable guidance for supporting and retaining underrepresented students in evolution and ecology; and additional teaching, outreach, and DEI-related activities
2021 Adriana Briscoe For advocacy for BIPOC and Latinos at all levels of professional development in ecology and evolutionary biology including advocating for increased funding for BIPOC teacher training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
2020 Scott Edwards and Richard Kliman For their work with the Undergraduate Diversity at Evolution (UDE) program

American Naturalist Student Paper Award

The American Society of Naturalists created the American Naturalist Student Paper Award to honor student work published in the American Naturalist that best represents the goals of the society. To be eligible for the award, the work presented in the paper must have been performed primarily by the first author and primarily while she/he was an undergraduate or graduate student. The editors of the American Naturalist form the committee to consider the papers published in the year before. The recipient of the American Naturalist Student Paper Award receives $500.

2024 Gregor-Fausto Siegmund
for the paper, “Bet Hedging Is Not Sufficient to Explain Germination Patterns of a Winter Annual Plant.” 202:767–784 (with David A. Moeller, Vincent M. Eckhart, and Monica A. Geber)

Honorable mention:
Noah S. B. Houpt
for the paper, “On the de novo emergence of ecological interactions during evolutionary diversification: A conceptual framework and experimental test.” 202:800–817 (with Rees Kassen)
2023 Meredith A. Zettlemoyer
for her paper, “Monitoring demography of resurrected populations of locally extinct and extant species to investigate drivers of species loss.” 200:E36–E51.

Honorable mention: Karen Bisschop
for her paper, “The demographic consequences of adaptation: evidence from experimental evolution.” 199:729–742 (with Adriana Alzate, Dries Bonte, and Rampal S. Etienne)
2022 Paul Bendiks Walberg
for his paper, Paul Bendiks Walberg and Edwin J. Green (2021), “Warming Rates Alter Sequence of Disassembly in Experimental Communities,” 198:610–624.

Honorable mentions:
• Ken Thompson (Stanford University) for “Patterns, Predictors, and Consequences of Dominance in Hybrids” (with Mackenzie Urquhart-Cronish, Kenneth Whitney, Loren Riesberg, and Dolph Schluter)
• Kora Klein (University of Zurich) for “Disentangling Verbal Arguments: Intralocus Sexual Conflict in Haplodiploids” (with Hanna Kokko and Hanna ten Brink)
• Veronica Zepeda (UNAM, Mexico) for “Effects of Phylogenetic Relatedness on Fluctuation-Dependent and Fluctuation-Independent Coexistence Mechanisms in Multispecies Communities” (with Carlos Martorell)
2021 Matthew R. Jones
for his paper, Matthew R. Jones, L. Scott Mills, Jeffrey D. Jensen, and Jeffrey M. Good (2020), “The origin and spread of locally adaptive seasonal camouflage in snowshoe hares” (196:316-332).
2020 Chuliang Song
for his paper, Chuliang Song, György Barabás and Serguei Saavedra, "On the Consequences of the Interdependence of Stabilizing and Equalizing Mechanisms," 194: 627–639.

Honorable Mention: Silas B. Tittes
for his paper, Silas B. Tittes, Joseph F. Walker, Lorena Torres-Martíez, and Nancy C. Emery, "Grow Where You Thrive, or Where Only You Can Survive? An Analysis of Performance Curve Evaluation in a Clade with Diverse Habitat Affinities," 193: 530–544.
2019 Marta Strecker Shocket
for her paper, Marta S. Shocket, Alexander T. Strauss, Jessica L. Hite, Maja Šljivar, David J. Civitello, Meghan A. Duffy, Carla E. Cáceres, and Spencer R. Hall, "Temperature Drives Epidemics in a Zooplankton-Fungus Disease System: A Trait-Driven Approach Points to Transmission via Host Foraging," 191: 435–451.
2018 Meredith Cenzer
for her paper, Meredith L. Cenzer, "Maladaptive Plasticity Masks the Effects of Natural Selection in the Red-Shouldered Soapberry Bug," 190:521–533.
2017 Seema Sheth
for her paper, Seema Sheth and Amy Angert, "Artificial selection reveals high genetic variation in phenology at the trailing edge of a species range", 187:182-193
2016 James Rainford
for his paper, James Rainford and Peter Mayhew, "Diet Evolution and Clade Richness in Hexapoda: a Phylogenetic Study of Higher Taxa", 186:777-791.
2015 Francesco Carrara
for his paper, F. Carrara, A. Rinaldo, A. Giometto, and F. Altermatt, Complex interactions of dendritic connectivity and hierarchical patch size on biodiversity in river-like landscapes, 183:13–25.

Honorable Mention: James L. Maino
for his paper, J. L. Maino and M. R. Kearney, Ontogenetic and interspecific metabolic scaling in insects, 184:695–701.
2014 Jordan Okie
for his paper, J. Okie, General models for the spectra of surface area scaling strategies of cells and organisms: fractality, geometric dissimilitude, and internalization, 181:421–439.
2013 Erik Verbruggen
for his paper, E. Verbruggen, C. El Mouden, J. Jansa, G. Akkermans, H. Bucking, S. A. West, and E. T. Kiers. Spatial structure and interspecific cooperation: theory and an empirical test using the mycorrhizal mutualism, 179:E133–E146.

Honorable Mention: Jeff Clune
for his paper, J. Clune, R. T. Pennock, C. E. Ofria, and R. E. Lenski, Ontogeny tends to recapitulate phylogeny in digital organisms, 180:E54–E63.
2012 Julia Saltz
for her paper, J. B. Saltz and B. R. Foley, Natural genetic variation in social niche construction: social effects of aggression drive disruptive sexual selection in Drosophila melanogaster, 177:645–654.
2011 Casey P. terHorst
for his paper, C. P. terHorst, Evolution in response to direct and indirect ecological effects in pitcher plant inquiline communities, 176:675–685.
2010 Deepa Agashe
for her paper, D. Agashe, The stabilizing effect of intraspecific genetic variation on population dynamics in novel and ancestral habitats, 174:255–267.
2009 Thomas E. X. Miller
for his paper, T. E. X. Miller, B. Tenhumberg and S. M. Louda. 2008. Herbivore-mediated ecological costs of reproduction shape the life history of an iteroparous plant. 171:141–149.

ASN Student Research Award

The ASN Student Research Award goes to student members of the American Society of Naturalists, who hold a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. have passed to candidacy in a Ph.D. program (or equivalent), must be at least one year from completing the Ph.D., and who have not received this award previously. The recipients of the award receive $2,000 and an announcement in the American Naturalist. They will be asked to send a brief report on how the money helped to sponsor their research.

Information on how to apply for the Student Research Award.

2024 Zuania Colón-Piñeiro, Yue Deng, Tristram Dodge, Kirstin Gaffney, Ximena Leon, Laura Leventhal, Audrey Miller, Biswajit Shit, Gabrielle Welsh, Andressa Viol
2023 Hannah Assour, Megan Barkdull, Rachel Prokopius, Erik Iverson, Ratna Karatgi, Valerie Martin, Krish Sanghvi, Mia Waters, Lydia Wong, Hengxing Zou
2022 Nick Dorian, Julia Harencár, Matthew Kustra, Anastasia Madsen, Cheyenne Payne, Nitin Ravikanthachari, Courtney Reed, Kelly Robinson, Matthew Schumm, Mackenzie Urquhart-Cronish, and Taylor Zallek
2021 Shannon Meadley Dunphy, Takuji Usui, Isabela Borges, David Murray-Stoker, Liam Taylor, Lucia Weinman, Santiago Herrera, Anna Orteu, Thomas Radomski, and Jeremy Summers
2020 Amanda Benoit, Regan Cross, Austin Garner, Lucas Nell, Brandie Quarles, Angel Rivera-Colón, Sébastien Rivest, Young Ha Suh, Amy Waananen, Yingtong Wu
2019 William Booker, Katherine Holmes, Gaurav Kandlikar, Kara Million, Andre Moncrieff, Jessie Mutz, Ken Thompson, Sheela Turbek, Suad Yoon, Linyi Zhang
2018 Shannon Carter, Jay Falk, Nicole Forrester, Ryan Greenway, Marie-Pier Hebert, Anna Hiller, Rachel Moran, Timothy O’Connor, Larry Taylor, Michael Yuan
2017 Christopher K. Akcali, Sara Berk, Rebecca Moss, Amanda Hund, Audrey Kelly, Phred Benham, Jennifer Cocciardi, James Stroud, Therese Lamperty, Elizabeth Lange
2016 Mikus Abolins-Abols, Cari Ficken, David Fryxell, Melissa Graham, Emily Hudson, Aubrie James, Marisa Lim, Marshall McMunn, Nikisha Patel, Natalie Pilakouta, Samuel Slowinski, Kelsey Yule, David Zonana
2015 Jennifer Coughlan, Jesse Delia, Nicholas DiRienzo, Brennan Forester, Allison Fritts-Penniman, Matthew Holding, Devin Leopold, Nicholas Mason, Rene Petipas, Mark Phuong
2014 Karin Burghardt, Dean Castillo, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Spencer Ingley, Sara Jackrel, Deidra Jacobsen-Castillo, Russell Ligon, Karan Odom, Alison Ravenscraft, and Gijsbert D. A. Werner
2013 Malcolm E. Augat, Carolyn M. Beans, Brandon S. Cooper, Amanda K. Gibson, Catherine A. Rushworth, and Marjorie G. Weber
2012 Andrea Bailey, Chris Dalton, George A. Meindl, Maria W. Pil, Katherine Stryjewski, and Corlett Wolfe Wood

ASN Presidential Award for Outstanding Service to the Community

In 2022, the ASN awarded its inaugural Presidential Award for Outstanding Service to the Community to Todd Vision (University of North Carolina) for his leading role in the creation of the Dryad Digital Repository. As the result of his work, it is now the norm that the foundational products of science—our data—are archived for later examination and use by other scientists. This honor comes with a plaque, an award of $2,000, and support for travel to the annual ASN meeting to receive the award.

2022 Todd Vision

ASN Outstanding Student Poster Award

The ASN Outstanding Student Poster Award was established in 2012 to recognize a student who has presented an outstanding poster at the annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists. The winner of the award receives $400.

Applications for the ASN Outstanding Student Poster Award

The senior author and presenter of the poster must be enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at the time of the annual meeting, or have received her or his degree within twelve months, and must be a member of the ASN. Students must indicate their desire to be considered for the Award by selecting the appropriate box at the time that they register online for the meeting.

2024 Evolution Phoebe Cunningham (Queen Mary University of London), “Roles and regulations: nutrient provision and host regulation of symbionts in three distinct lineages of ants”

Honorable Mentions: Steven Casey, Sophia Haase Cox
2023 Evolution María Paula Toro-Gómez (Universidad del Quindio–EECO), “The hidden risk of carrying tadpoles”

Honorable Mentions: Allen Xue, Asia Timaria Hightower
2023 ASN Kenneth Gee (UC Santa Cruz)

Honorable Mention: Victoria Feist (U of Virginia)
2022 Evolution Jay Gallagher, “Newly evolved crickets use novel morphology to attract mates while evading eavesdroppers”

Honorable Mentions: Carla Bautista, Kaede Hirabayashi
2021 ASN /
Evolution		 (not awarded at remote meetings)
2020 ASN Ben Gerstner
2019 Evolution Silu Wang, "Stable selection on a pleiotropic locus underlying divergent plumage traits between two warbler species" (co-authored with Sievert Rohwer and Darren Irwin)
2018 ASN Aubrie James, "Specialist bee pollinators phenologically matched with Clarkiai blooming at the community level"
2017 Evolution Gil Henriques, "Worker ovicide can drive the evolution of social polymorphism and split sex ratios"

Honorable Mentions: Emily Behrman, William Gearty
2016 Evolution Rafael Marcondes, "Interspecific variation in plumage brightness in relation to light environment among antbirds"

Honorable Mentions: Su’ad Yoon, Jasmin Templin
2016 ASN Emily Schultz, "The importance of within-patch heterogeneity for metapopulation dynamics: applying scale transition theory to a size-structured metapopulation model"

Honorable Mention: Rachel Steward
2015 Evolution David Ocampo, “Evolution of avian eggshell structure: Evidence for adaptation across elevational gradients?”

Honorable Mention: Lívia Peluso
2014 Evolution Stephen De Lisle, “Ecological character displacement between the sexes”

Honorable Mentions: Kira Delmore and Andy Kulikowski
  ASN David Harris, “Generating realistic species assemblies with a partially observed Markov random field”
2013 Evolution Amanda K. Gibson, "A phylogenetic test of the Red Queen Hypothesis: the evolution of mating system and parasitism in the Nematoda"

Honorable Mentions: Paul Eskridge and Patrick Fuller 

NB: Starting with the 2022 award year, this award was renamed the ASN Outstanding Student Poster Award. Previously it was known as the Ruth Patrick Student Poster Award. Ruth Patrick was a renowned limnologist, past president of the ASN (1975), and a Lifetime Honorary Member of the society.

ASN STAND-ALONE MEETING AWARDS

 

ASN Outstanding Postdoctoral Presentation Award

The ASN Outstanding Postdoctoral Presentation Award was established for the American Society of Naturalists stand-alone meetings, which have been held at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California. The winner of the award receives $400.

2023 Jacob Francis (UC Davis)

Honorable mentions: Caroline Amoroso (University of Virginia), Chang-Yu Chang (University of Pennsylvania)
2021 (not awarded at remote meeting)
2020 Amanda Hund
2018 Benjamin Toscano, "Long-term dynamics of life-history intraguild predation" (recipient of the Don Abbott Postdoc Presentation Award)

Eliot Miller, "Macroevolutionary drivers of plumage convergence: quantitative tests and new insights"
2016 Scott Taylor, "Natural selection and the maintenance of reproductive isolation in hybridizing chickadees" (recipient of the Don Abbott Postdoc Presentation Award)
2014 Carl Boettiger, “Ecological management for an uncertain world: robust decision theory in face of regime shifts” (recipient of the Don Abbott Postdoc Presentation Award)

Honorable Mentions: Alex Jordan and Benjamin Callahan

NB: In 2022, this award was renamed the ASN Outstanding Postdoctoral Presentation Award. Previously it was known as the Don Abbott Postdoc Presentation Award and as the Julia Platt Postdoc Presentation Award. To quote from Judith L. Bronstein and Daniel I. Bolnick, “‘Her Joyous Enthusiasm for Her Life-Work …’: Early Women Authors in The American Naturalist” 192:655–663: 

Julia B. Platt (1857–1935) had credentials to impress. She studied embryology at Harvard in 1887 and then conducted research at Woods Hole, Bryn Mawr, the University of Chicago, Radcliffe, Hopkins Marine Laboratory, and at several German universities. She received her PhD in developmental biology in 1898 and then published 12 articles in just 10 years, including one in The American Naturalist in 1899. Most notably, she showed that neural crest cells formed the jaw cartilage and tooth dentine in salamanders. This conclusion was rejected by her contemporaries, who believed that only mesoderm formed bones and cartilage. It took 50 years for her hypothesis to be confirmed. Despite her depth of training and her productivity, she landed none of the academic positions for which she applied. Platt then wrote, “Without work, life is not worth living. If I cannot obtain the work I wish, then I must take up the next best” (quoted in Zottoli and Seyfarth 1994). She moved to Pacific Grove, California (where the American Society of Naturalists has recently held its stand-alone conferences), and became its first female mayor. She is noted for initiating marine protected reserves that were crucial for the survival of the California sea otter (Palumbi and Sotka 2012).

 

ASN Outstanding Student Presentation

The ASN Outstanding Student Presentation was established for American Society of Naturalists stand-alone meetings, which occur every few years, to recognize an outstanding student presentation made at the meeting. The winner of the award receives $400.

2023 Julia Harenčár and Callie Chappell

Honorable mention: Sarah Goodnight
2021 (not awarded at remote meeting)
2020 Sheela Turbek
2018 Katherine Eisen, "The effects of community context and wet-year vs. dry-year dynamics on pollinator-mediated selection in Clarkia (Onagraceae) in the southern Sierra foothills (Kern County, CA)"

Honorable Mentions: James Peniston, Shane DuBay, Theodora Block
2016 Amanda Hund, "Parasite mediated sexual selection and speciation in the barn swallow species complex"
2014 Marjorie Weber, “Merging phylogenetic and experimental methods to test hypotheses about the evolution of mutualistic defensive traits in plants”

Honorable Mentions: Jason Shapiro and Rachael Bay

NB: Starting with the 2022 award year, this award was renamed the ASN Outstanding Student Presentation. Previously it was known as the Ed Ricketts Student Presentation Award and the Ed Ricketts Student Talk Award.