2025 Julie S. Denslow and Peter Ashton Prizes for the Outstanding Articles Published in <i>Biotropica</i>

Every year Biotropica's Editorial Board selects papers in our journal as the recipients of the Julie S. Denslow and Peter Ashton Prizes, with which we honor the outstanding articles published in our journal in the previous calendar year. Criteria for selecting the papers to receive these awards include clarity of presentation, a strong basis in natural history, well-planned experimental or sampling design, and the novel insights gained into critical processes that influence the structure, functioning, or conservation of tropical systems. Below, the authors of the award-winning articles describe what motivated their studies and how they hope the work will inspire other researchers. We hope you enjoy these insights into the process that led to their discoveries and ask that you join the Editorial Board of Biotropica and The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in congratulating the 2025 recipients, whose articles appeared in the 2024 issues. Tara Joy Massad Tara Joy Massad, Osvaldo Jacinto Abrão, Hermínio António, Acácio Chechene, Beto Soares C. Tenente, Arquimedes André, Diolinda Félix Mundoza, Marc E. Stalmans, Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, Luís Junior Comissario Mandlate, Mark-Oliver Rödel, and Piotr Naskrecki. (2024) Ecosystem-wide responses to fire and large mammal herbivores in an African savanna Biotropica, e13338, https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.13338. We are honored to be the recipients of Biotropica's Denslow Prize, and we are grateful to share the rather unique story of how our study came to be. Gorongosa National Park, where our work took place, was the home of the only master's program run entirely in a national park. This program was created to train Mozambican students to be leaders in Conservation Biology in their country and was made possible by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Every 2 years, a cohort of students entered our program and took all their classes in the park—faculty from all over the world volunteered their time to teach these courses. In the second year of the program, students began their thesis research, and supporting their research was the genesis of the Gorongosa Savanna Ecology Experiment (GSEE), the focus of our recent paper. We recognized the benefit of creating a ‘research playground’ of sorts in which our master's students could build a long-term dataset with a robust experimental framework and at the same time focus on questions of their own design. As fire and savannas are the major drivers of savanna ecology in Africa, the GSEE manipulates these two variables by excluding large mammals and applying cold and hot burns across replicate blocks. Our paper is the result of the work of the first cohort of students' thesis research in the experiment (Figures 1 and 2). Osvaldo was interested in large mammals, so he set up camera traps in the open plots to evaluate the response of large mammals to the different fire regimes. Hermínio wanted to understand how small mammals respond to the presence of large mammals and fire, so he set up Sherman traps across all our plots. Acácio wanted to learn more about reptiles and amphibians, so he conducted regular surveys of the plots. Beto loves insects, so he used crickets as an indicator taxon to document the response of insects to fire and large mammals. Together, we all measured responses of the vegetation to try to describe the detailed ecology of our system—how fire and large herbivores change vegetation and how these changes then influence the students' focal taxa. The students' diverse interests highlight another important goal of the GSEE experiment. We aim to document the responses of as many components of savanna biodiversity as possible in our work. We want to leverage our experiment to learn not just about vegetation and the more charismatic fauna but to understand how fire management and mammal conservation affect all players in the ecosystem. Our research group formed a very supportive, collaborative team, and the four students who contributed to this paper are now working in other protected areas or for conservation NGOs or studying for their PhDs. We couldn't be prouder to have them as colleagues. Since their work, two other cohorts of master's students have conducted their own research questions in the experiment on topics ranging from avian ecology to plant chemistry. Our fantastic technicians, who were also authors on this paper, help ensure regular data collection and continuity in the experiment. Unfortunately, our master's program is drawing to a close as funding doesn't last forever. Nonetheless, we plan to maintain the GSEE far into the future, and we hope to host many more Mozambican graduate students who will surely add to the growing dataset the experiment is generating. José Eduardo Falcon Falcon, J. E., Schoereder, J. H., Ribeiro, V. S., Christianini, A. V., Camargo, P. H., and Paolucci, L. N. (2024). How do birds and ants contribute to the recruitment of a tropical tree? Biotropica, e13372. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.13372. When I enrolled in my master's program in 2015, I was a recent biology graduate with experience acquired only in my former ornithology laboratory. Saying “only” gives the impression that there were few experiences, but that is not true! I had countless formative experiences! I visited incredible places and studied fascinating bird communities, completely immersing myself in the Atlantic Forest. I traveled from coastal restingas to Campos de Altitude, passing through primary Tabuleiro forests to degraded areas. Observing the birds in these locations, I constantly wondered about their ecological interactions and their roles in the ecosystem. From there, my interest in ecosystem functions was born and began to grow—specifically, seed dispersal caught my attention. During my master's, I joined an ant ecology laboratory, and to align my expertise with that of my advisor at the time, Dr. José Henrique Schoereder (Zhé), an exceptional myrmecologist and incredible advisor, we began thinking about a project that could integrate birds and ants. The ideas were still preliminary and needed much refinement. That changed when Zhé attended a lecture by Dr. Alexander Christianini about diplochorous seed dispersal systems and how they influenced plant recruitment. That lecture provided the insight we needed to move forward with the project. Alexander joined the team as my co-advisor and brought a wealth of experience. From that moment on, the project gained a challenging direction: investigating how birds and ants could influence the recruitment of a pioneer tree (Xylopia sericea) in the Atlantic Forest. Then we went to the field to collect data, and difficulties began to emerge. I was already quite familiar with bird research methods, but everything else was new, and I needed help. My lab colleagues were essential in this part, from collecting data on the “endless” hills of our study area several times a day—following ants transporting seeds in clumps of grasses with sharp leaves—to sorting and identifying ants in the laboratory. Dr. Paulo Camargo, Alexander's former master's student who had already worked with diplochorous systems, was also very helpful, giving me valuable tips on field procedures. The collections extended throughout the plant's reproductive season that year, and we also monitored seed recruitment, supplementing the data in the following season. The fieldwork was somewhat exhausting, but observing in situ how such different organisms interacted in a complex system, yielding such interesting results, was rewarding. Our results revealed something fascinating: birds and ants work together, but in different ways, for the success of X. sericea recruitment. Birds function as long-distance dispersers, carrying seeds away from parent trees, 20 times farther than ants, a distance where seedlings that germinate far from the parent plant have a better chance of survival. Ants, despite transporting seeds over much shorter distances, act more intensively, removing more than twice the number of seeds that birds do (Figure 3). Ants take seeds near their nests, nutrient-rich locations where seedlings have better conditions to germinate and establish. We found that this dispersal system, in two phases, increased plant recruitment by nearly 29% compared to what would be achieved by birds alone. This showed us that X. sericea depends on both dispersal phases—birds spread seeds through space and ants place them in the right microsites. Seeing these patterns emerge from the data was an exciting confirmation that the exhaustion from fieldwork had been worthwhile. I defended my master's thesis in 2017, and even though I was very happy with the results, I confess that I shelved this data for a few years until I started my PhD. My PhD advisor, Dr. Lucas Paolucci, had participated in my master's defense and always believed in the project's potential. It was Lucas who encouraged me to write this article, and together we shaped the first versions of the manuscript. During this process, Dr. Vanessa Ribeiro, then Lucas's postdoc, provided many good ideas and suggestions. After that, there were months of email exchanges with coauthors debating, discussing, and adjusting various aspects until we reached the final version. To tell the story of this article, I could explore more what the fieldwork was like, recall more results, or discuss suggestions for future research. However, I believe that a significant part of it lies in the various collaborations and partnerships built throughout its conception, development, and publication. From the beginning, when we were thinking about objectives and designing the experiment, through field collections, data sorting, and analysis, to its final elaboration, this article comes from multiple interactions, from multiple hands and minds that, just like trees, birds, and ants, interact to tell a complete story.