The Journal of Ecology Editors are delighted to announce that Fernando Maestre is our Eminent Ecologist award winner for 2024!
In recognition of his work, we asked Fernando to put together a virtual issue of some of his favourite contributions to the journal. Fernando has also written this blog series, and was interviewed by Richard Bardgett about about how he started his career in ecology, how he uses his work to inform decision making, and the advice he’d give to someone about to embark on a career in ecology. Fernando’s full blog series can be found here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 👇
As I mentioned in the introductory post, selecting the 12 articles for this virtual issue has not been an easy task. Other PhD students and postdocs, such as Pablo García-Palacios (García-Palacios et al. 2010, 2012), Laura García (García-Velázquez et al. 2022), or Hugo Saiz (Saiz et al. 2018, 2019), have published their work in Journal of Ecology over the years, and these articles are also very special and important for me.
As long-term lab technician Victoria Ochoa said to me after the publication of an important paper, we often celebrate the moment of the publication but what we should rather celebrate is the journey leading to this publication (she is certainly right, and this is something that we should do more often!). The journey leading to the different articles in this virtual issue has been a wonderful one, full of effort and difficult times, but also full of joy, friendship, learning, and memorable moments. In these busy and hectic times, the opportunity to revisit the papers published in the journal, to re-read them, and to remember the journey that led to their publication has been a real gift. Creating this virtual issue and writing the blog posts about its articles has also given me the chance to reflect on key topics that have guided my career, such as the need to create collaborative laboratories, the value of mentorship, and the importance of international collaboration and cooperation to better understand dryland ecosystems and to effectively address the main environmental issues they face, to name a few (interested readers can find more about my views and thoughts on these issues in Maestre 2019 and Maestre & Eisenhauer 2019).
While publishing articles such as those forming this virtual issue is fundamental to continue advancing science, to disseminate the results of our work, and to promote our careers, there is something very important that I have learned over the years. If you get sick or need assistance, your papers (even those published in very prestigious outlets such as Journal of Ecology) will not take care of you – people will! Thus, remember always to be nice to others and be mindful of (and use!) the power we have as scientists to make this world a better place. Actively collaborating and training colleagues from developing countries and underrepresented groups, being polite and constructive when reviewing their papers (as well as those from early career scientists), and contributing to capacity building where it is needed the most, can make a big positive difference (and make us better and more impactful scientists along the way).
To end, I would like to thank the Editors of Journal of Ecology for this Award, and for the opportunity of being here today writing these lines. In these uncertain times it is difficult to predict what the future will be, but there is one thing that is sure for me. We will continue submitting results from our research to Journal of Ecology in the years to come, and I will continue learning and being amazed and inspired by the work published on its pages.
Fernando T. Maestre, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Literature cited
García-Palacios, P., Maestre, F. T., Bardgett, R. D., & de Kroon, H. (2012). Plant responses to soil heterogeneity and global environmental change. Journal of Ecology, 100, 1303–1314.
García-Palacios, P., Maestre, F. T., & Gallardo, A. (2011). Soil nutrient heterogeneity modulates ecosystem responses to changes in the identity and richness of plant functional groups. Journal of Ecology, 99, 551–562.
García-Velázquez, L., Gallardo, A., Ochoa, V., Gozalo, B., Lázaro, R., & Maestre, F. T. (2022). Biocrusts increase the resistance to warming-induced increases in topsoil P pools. Journal of Ecology, 110, 2074–2087.
Maestre, F. T. (2019). Ten simple rules towards healthier research labs. PLOS Computational Biology, 15, e1006914.
Maestre, F. T., & Eisenhauer, N. (2019). Recommendations for establishing global collaborative networks in soil ecology. Soil Organisms, 91, 73–85.
Saiz, H., Gómez-Gardeñes, J., Borda, J. P., & Maestre, F. T. (2018). The structure of plant spatial association networks is linked to plant diversity in global drylands. Journal of Ecology, 106, 1443–1453. Saiz, H., Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Y., Gross, N., & Maestre, F. T. (2019). Intransitivity increases plant functional diversity by limiting dominance in drylands worldwide. Journal of Ecology, 107, 240–252.