Vojtěch Jarošík Award

The Award (accompanied by the reward of 10,000 CZK) is given to a student of any Czech university for an outstanding first-author peer-reviewed paper in ecology

UNTIL APRIL 2022, YOU CAN NOMINATE PAPERS PUBLISHED IN THEIR FINAL FORM IN 2021

How to apply:

send requested materials by e-mail to ecology@natur.cuni.cz with the subject “Vojtěch Jarošík Award” (or “Cena Vojtěcha Jarošíka”). Application deadline: 30 April 2022

Who is eligible:

• a student or recent graduate of any Czech university (regardless of nationality / citizenship) who published a great paper as the first author
• no older than 35 years at the date of first publication (incl. early online) of the nominated paper

Award conditions:

• the award is given for an excellent first-author paper by undergraduate of doctoral student published (in a final form) in a respected peer-reviewed journal in the given year
• the presented research must have been performed at a Czech academic institution or under its auspices (fieldwork may be conducted anywhere in the world and the international collaboration is welcome but the work must have clear links to the “mother” institution in Czechia)
• the paper must have been accepted for publication either before the defence of the candidate’s thesis or within a year after the defence (in the latter case, the corresponding manuscript must have been already part of the student’s thesis)
• if the paper ranks at 1^st to 3^rd place, the laureate agrees to present the publication in the form of an invited lecture at the ČSPE conference, unless serious circumstances prevent it (e.g., long-term stay abroad). ČSPE will pay for the transportation (bus, train, low-cost flight...; always in agreement with the society board), accommodation and conference fee.
• if the paper ranks at 1^st to 3^rd place, the applicant further undertakes to write a summary of the paper (in Czech or English) in a style understandable for ecologists from other fields, which will be published in the Bulletin of the Czech Society for Ecology. The scope of the summary should be ca one standard page, ideally with an image or photograph summarizing the results or illustrating the work on the project.

What should you provide:

• PDF of the nominated paper (final version, not early online)
• brief explanation of the excellence of the study (up to 100 words) + its full reference
• summary of the contribution of the first author
• brief CV of the candidate (including dates of birth, start of the study and, if relevant, date of the thesis defence)

The expert committee, composed of representatives of the Department of Ecology of Charles University and the Czech Society for Ecology, will choose the awardee. The committee will assess the originality of the work and its contribution to the field of ecology. (Ecology in this context is understood as a biological discipline dealing with various aspects of the relationships between organisms and their environment. Contributions, even excellent, that are only relevant for environmental sciences will not be considered.)

The Award is associated with a financial reward of 10,000 CZK and is awarded annually. The committee reserves the right not to award the prize in the given year in case the quality of the submitted papers is deemed insufficient. The award ceremony will take place during the conference of the Czech Society for Ecology, which is held biannually in even years. Laureates from the last two years (those who ranked 1^st to 3^rd) will always be invited to present the content of their awarded papers at this conference. Out of these, the best speaker will be eligible for a travel grant to attend a selected European ecological conference to represent the Award and ČSPE.

Vojtěch Jarošík (1958–2013)

Who won last years:

• 2020 award: Jiří Tůma, (Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia & Biology Centre CAS) for the publication: Tuma J., Eggleton P., Fayle T.M. (2020): Ant-termite interactions: an important but under-explored ecological linkage. Biological Reviews 95: 555-572. DOI: 10.1111/brv.12577
• 2019 award: Michael Mikát (Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University) for the publication: Mikát M., Janošík L., Černá K., Matoušková E., Hadrava J., Bureš V., Straka J. (2019) Polyandrous bee provides extended offspring care biparentally as an alternative to monandry based eusociality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116: 6238-6243.  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1810092116
• 2018 award was split between Vojtěch Kubelka (Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University) for publication: Kubelka V., Šálek M., Tomkovich P., Végvári Z., Freckleton R.P. & Székely T. (2018): Global pattern of nest predation is disrupted by climate change in shorebirds. Science 362(6415): 680-683, DOI: 10.1126/science.aat8695 and Lucie Vančurová (Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University) for publication: Vančurová L., Muggia L., Peksa O., Řídká T. & Škaloud P. (2018): The complexity of symbiotic interactions influences the ecological amplitude of the host: a case study in Stereocaulon (lichenized Ascomycota). Molecular Ecology 27: 3016–3033, DOI: 10.1111/mec.14764.
• 2017 award: Nichola S. Plowman (Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice and Institute of Entomology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) for publication:
  Plowman N.S., Hood A.S.C., Moses J., Redmond C., Novotny V., Klimes P. & Fayle T.M. (2017): Network reorganization and breakdown of an ant–plant protection mutualism with elevation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284: 20162564, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2564.
• 2016 award was split between two laureates: Ivana Vejříková (Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice and Institute of Hydrobiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) for the publication: 
  Vejříková I., Vejřík L., Syväranta J., Kiljunen M., Čech M., Vašek M., Sajdlová Z., Chung S.H.T., Šmejkal M., Blabolil P., Frouzová J. & Peterka J. (2016): Distribution of herbivorous fish is frozen by low temperature. Scientific Reports 6, 39600. DOI 10.1038/srep39600
  and Petr Čapek (Department of Ecosystem Biology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice) for the publication:  
  Čapek P., Kotas P., Manzoni S. & Šantrůčková H. (2016): Drivers of phosphorus limitation across soil microbial communities. Functional Ecology 30, 1705–1713. DOI 10.1111/1365-2435.12650
• 2015 award: Martin Weiser (Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University) for the publication:
  Weiser M. & Smyčka J. (2015): A simple model for the influence of habitat resource availability on lateral clonal spread. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 282: 20150327. DOI 10.1098/rspb.2015.0327
• 2013-14 award: Veronika Kalusová (Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University) for the publication:
  Kalusová V., Chytrý M., Peet R.K. & Wentworth T.R. (2014): Alien species pool influences the level of habitat invasion in intercontinental exchange of alien species. Global Ecology and Biogeography 23: 1366–1375. DOI 10.1111/geb.12209