CITATION (EXCERPT)
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category goes, in the sixteenth edition, to Gerardo Ceballos and Rodolfo Dirzo for their work linking empirical and theoretical ecological research in some of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth.
Their work has documented high rates of species loss across Latin America and Africa, establishing that current species extinction rates in many groups of organisms are much higher than throughout the preceding two million years. They have thus helped describe the sixth global extinction crisis, an especially rapid period of species loss occurring globally and across all groups of organisms, and the first to be tied directly to the impacts of a single species; namely, us. Their efforts extend beyond research to influencing conservation policy and practice.
Professors Ceballos and Dirzo have effectively extended previous experimental work with small food webs to highly diverse tropical ecosystems. Their results revealed cascading effects through which the loss of a single species could lead to the loss of many others mediated by interactions among organisms. For example, they showed how overhunting can jeopardize the natural regeneration of rainforest trees, and how the loss of a few key species can adversely affect human wellbeing via reductions in ecosystem goods and services. This original research has prompted studies on the importance of ecological interactions in sustaining the integrity of the biosphere.
