NEWS Hélène Prouillet-Leplat, Umeå phd-student, won the award for best poster presentation at the international 11th INTECOL Congress was held in London as part of the centenary celebrations of the British Ecological Society. The theme of the Congress was “Advancing ecology and making it count”.
- I am very honored to be the winner! Especially because the competition was tight with over 250 posters to be judged by a committee of international ecologists, says Hélène Prouillet-Leplat, French PhD student at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science at Umeå University.
-It was really exiting to present my work and I had long and very simulating discussing around my poster. Long weeks of field and laboratory work have been rewarded by this prize and it has given me motivation and energy to complete the last year of my PhD.
Judging took place throughout the poster sessions based on categories including: visual style, scientific content, originality of research, and effectiveness of communication. Why do you think that your poster won?
- I think that my research area is new, exciting and challenging and I love sharing my passion of the tundra ecosystems with other ecologists. Little text was present in my poster as I think that a good picture or a nice graph is worth 100 words! Maybe this made the difference with the other students in competition for this award.
Hélène Prouillet-Leplat´s poster at INTECOL presented the effect of reindeer grazing on soil properties and plant nutrient uptake in a subocenaic tundra vegetation with contrasting grazing regimes.
Her research is about understanding the indirect effects of herbivores on arctic plant communities and her main research area is located Norway but she is also working in Northern Sweden (Abisko) and in West-Greenland. Herbivores are known to have strong effects on tundra ecosystems by influencing plant biomass, primary production, composition and diversity of these plant communities as well as their response to climate change. Earlier studies show that the indirect effects via nutrient cycling might be even more important than direct effects via consumption in northern ecosystems.
Besides receiving a prize check, Hélène Prouillet-Leplat will be featured in the British Ecological Society Bulletin.
Hélène Prouillet-Leplat, the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science at Umeå University Telephone: +4690-786 67 12, +46 73-849 11 14
E-mail: helene.prouillet@emg.umu.se
Editor: Ingrid Söderbergh