The work done by Janzen (Milwaukee, United States, 1939) has moved us on from a merely descriptive knowledge of tropical ecosystems to an understanding of their function. “Daniel Janzen is a supreme example of the complete ecological scientist,” in the words of the citation, “combining expertise in natural history with scientific rigor and innovative thinking.”

“He has applied his knowledge to the practical question of biodiversity conservation, and in the process shaped tropical ecology as we know it today,” the jury continues. Through a research enterprise that ranges from the study of how seeds and leaves evolve in tandem with the animals that feed off them through to the role of herbivores in structuring complex communities, he has contributed vitally to our understanding of the ecological interactions between animals and plants.

Janzen’s efforts have also been crucial for conservation. Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, United States), he has spent much of the last 40 years in Costa Rica, where he was a driving force in the creation of the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, one of the world’s most successful tropical forest reserves.

His campaign to get the people of Guanacaste directly involved in the management of the reserve launched the concept of “biodiversity-based development”. As a result of these initiatives, the local population have acquired a detailed knowledge of their environment and transformed the forest into a source of wealth for the community.

Among his most inspirational ideas, in the jury’s opinion, was the recruitment of local residents as “parataxonomists”. Janzen, in effect, has trained the inhabitants of these areas to recognize a wide variety of species, and to participate in large-scale biodiversity inventories based on DNA barcoding techniques.

Janzen, the citation affirms, is “among the pioneers of the science of restoration ecology; (…) has guided the restoration and conservation of thousands of hectares of a formerly degraded landscape, (…) and continues to lead an innovative research program with an emphasis on the conservation of tropical biodiversity through its integration with local cultures.”

“This award helps me and my wife [ecologist Winnie Hallwachs] to feel that some part of the greater community of scientists and non-damaging users of biodiversity do appreciate what we are trying to do, and have been trying to do since 1985,” was his first reaction on hearing of the award. “We will use the prize money to finance multiple research projects in taxonomy, ecology, and biodiversity development that other members of the team have not been able to finance for themselves; projects that are integral parts of our efforts to conserve wildlands in the tropics.”

'The tropics contain the great bulk of the unread biological books on the planet, and also a huge portion of the carbon that we have pushed into the atmosphere to give us the catastrophic climate change into which we have thrust ourselves'.

TUITEAR

The new laureate also had words to say about the current state of tropical ecosystems, which he describes as “very endangered” and “already badly destroyed, and getting more so.” “The tropics contain the great bulk of the unread biological books on the planet, and also a huge portion of the carbon that we have pushed into the atmosphere to give us the catastrophic climate change into which we have thrust ourselves.”

Área de Conservación Guanacaste

The Área de Conservación Guanacaste is a vast tract of protected forest in Costa Rica, that Janzen himself helped get turned into a reserve 25 years ago. The jury’s citation indicates the scale of the achievement: “It started as 10,000 hectares of degraded land and was expanded to 130,000 hectares of a restored, functional forest ecosystem. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ACG is the working model for the entire Costa Rica national park system.”

Internationally recognized as an outstanding example of “biodiversity-based conservation”, ACG is also the world’s largest forest restoration project. A model, in short, of how to conserve a large complex tropical ecosystem that has been “inspirational to tropical biology and conservation initiatives throughout the world.”

From caterpillars and their parasites to the “barcode” of life

In the early stages of his career, between the 1960s and 1980s, Janzen was a key figure in the design and execution of model field experiments in tropical ecology, focusing mainly on Costa Rica, but extending to Africa, Asia and Australia. “My research pursues a ‘total’ understanding of the trophic web of a large conserved tropical wildland,” he explains. “This means finding and documenting at least 30,000 species of food plants, caterpillars and parasitoids in an area the size of Madrid and its suburbs, and doing it with Costa Rican residents.”

Janzen’s own particular specialty is the study of caterpillars and the parasites that live off them, with a body of work which is among the most exhaustive of its kind. “Learning which caterpillar eats which plant, and which parasitoid eats each caterpillar, and why, and how, and when, is learning how to read wild biodiversity.”

And reading biodiversity, as he puts it, is what teaches you the importance of its conservation. “At present, humanity largely treats biodiversity the way an illiterate treats literature – as firewood, toilet paper and shipping cartons. I do caterpillars, plants and parasitoids because I am curious about them, and because they taught me to read.”

Janzen is also one of the pioneers, and principal promoters, of the use of genetic techniques to classify species. In particular, he is among the forces behind the International Barcode of Life project, which aspires to DNA barcode 5% of the world’s species over the next five years. As part of this effort, Janzen himself has embarked on the DNA barcoding of the Lepidoptera fauna of Guanacaste.

International jury

The jury in this category was chaired by Daniel Pauly, Professor of Fisheries at the University of British Columbia (Canada), with Gary Meffe, Consulting Editor of Conservation Biology and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation of the University of Florida (United States) acting as secretary. Remaining members were Wilhelm Boland, Director in the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Germany); Joanna Burger, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Rutgers University (United States); Pedro Jordano, Research Professor at Doñana Biological Station, CSIC (Spain); and Andrew Sudgen, Deputy Editor of Science and International Managing Editor for AAAS Science International’s European headquarters in Cambridge (United Kingdom).