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Humboldt Research Award to Prof Guy Midgley
Author: Media & Communication, Faculty of Science
Published: 10/06/2019

Prof Guy Midgley, a leading expert in the field of biodiversity and global change science at Stellenbosch University, has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.

The award is granted in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date and to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.

The award is valued at €60 000 and supports a stay of up to one year in Germany to enable the researcher to cooperate on a long-term research project with specialist colleagues. Prof Midgley's main host will be Prof Steven Higgins, an ecologist at Bayreuth University, while he will also work with specialists at the University of Frankfurt and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center (SBiK-F) in Frankfurt.

Prof Midgley says this is an incredible opportunity to spend focused research time at several world-leading institutions in Europe: “I will primarily work on novel species and ecosystem modelling methods with Prof Higgins, who has been a long term collaborator. Over the past four years we have been involved in a joint effort between Germany and South Africa to build and expand a network of sites in South Africa where both the ecosystem as a whole, and its individual component species, are being monitored with respect to productivity, carbon uptake and water loss.

“The data obtained will allow us to test theories about links between biodiversity and ecosystem function and the future resilience of these ecosystems under climate change. This will be the first time that this methodology will be used in such a way," he explains.

So far the work has been funded by the SPACES program of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany, and the National Research Foundation's Global Change Grand Challenge program in South Africa. SPACES is the acronym for “Science Partnerships for the Assessment of Complex Earth System Processes" and involves close collaboration with the South African Earth Observation Network (SAEON).

He says the research award also opens up new opportunities for future postgraduate students to engage in this and related research programs, to link with international colleagues and benefit from a broader range of expertise.

Prof Midgley is in the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University - http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/science/botany-zoology/Pages/default.aspx.

Photo credit: Stefan Els