Stefan Schnitzer has received National Science Foundation's most prestigious grant for younger researchers.

Stefan Schnitzer, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), has received an Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The $890,000 award will support Schnitzer’s investigation into the mechanisms that control plant abundance and distribution in tropical forests.

Distributed over five years, the amount of the award is unusually large for such NSF funding in ecology research. It also is the first CAREER Award for a faculty member in biological sciences at UWM.

CAREER Awards are the NSF’s most prestigious grants for younger researchers. They support the professional development of teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of this century.

Schnitzer, an associate professor, will use the funding to test what he calls “the dry season advantage hypothesis,” which holds that many plants in tropical forests thrive during seasonal droughts because they keep growing, while trees and competing plant species suspend their growth and lose their leaves.

“We contrast this with the tolerance hypothesis,” says Schnitzer, “which states that organisms are abundant in seasonal forests because of their ability to tolerate a stressful environment. But we contend they gain no additional growth advantage in this scenario.”

This research primarily will be done in forest plots along a steep rainfall gradient across the Isthmus of Panama. The tropical forests Schnitzer studies have distinct wet and dry seasons, which is typical of most of the lowland tropical forests throughout the world.

Schnitzer believes the dry season advantage is best exhibited by lianas – woody vines that concentrate their energy on extending high and wide, and by plunging their roots deep into the earth.

These vines are more prevalent in forests that have less rainfall and there is growing evidence that they are becoming more populous in seasonal forests. By tapping deep sources of water, lianas can capitalize on available dry-season resources, particularly light.

This study, however, is not limited to lianas, says Schnitzer, and may also explain the dominance of particular tree species in seasonal forests.

Schnitzer joined the UWM faculty in 2003. He earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution at the University of Pittsburgh in 2001, after which he was appointed a research associate at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Hear Schnitzer explain his work with lianas on this video produced by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where he also is a research associate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIJi0VuISWY