Frans and Liu receive outstanding paper in landscape ecology award
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EmailLandscape ecologists recognize a paper that promises to redefine the understanding of species distribution modeling considering human activity.
The North American Regional Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE-NA) has selected the paper by Veronica Frans and Jianguo "Jack" Liu, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution in 2024, as the recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology Award.
The award was announced at the annual meeting of IALE-NA in Raleigh, NC, in April. Members of IALE-NA are encouraged to nominate candidate papers on the topic of landscape ecology, published in any journal.
The Frans and Liu paper, “Gaps and opportunities in modeling human influence on species distributions in the Anthropocene” addresses a central topic in the field of landscape ecology – human impacts on landscape extent patterns of biodiversity. By conducting a comprehensive literature review of over 12,800 research articles from the last two decades, Frans and Liu determined that only 11% of the studies incorporated human-related factors, which raises fundamental questions on the effectiveness of current landscape practices in addressing anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems. Furthermore, the authors discovered that over 80% of the 2,307 unique identified human predictors in the analysis only occurred once, suggesting a lack of consistency and geographic bias in the application of human predictors which may lead to ineffective conservation strategies and policies.
Not only do Frans and Liu provide 15 thought-provoking questions to address these knowledge gaps and set a clear itinerary for future research, but they also provide a roadmap for the expansion of landscape ecological theory. This paper represents a significant advancement in understanding the ecology of landscapes by highlighting critical gaps in species distribution modeling and underlying methods of ecological theories. This innovative work provides a substantial contribution to understanding the ecology of landscapes in the Anthropocene.
Frans, who received her PhD from Michigan State University, is a Stanford Science Fellow and NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University. Liu holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability, is a University Distinguished Professor at MSU, and serves as a founding director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. Liu is a core faculty member of the MSU'S Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, of which Frans is an alumna.
