OUP author wins 2009 Marsh Ecology Book of the Year

The British Ecological Society in partnership with the Marsh Christian Trust today announced that the 2009 Marsh Ecology Book of the Year award will be presented to Dr Beverley Glover of the University of Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences.

This award - presented for the best written work on ecology – is for Dr Glover's book Understanding Flowers and Flowering. Described by the judges as "ambitious and lucid", the book covers the subject from ecological and evolutionary perspectives, and in relation to recent molecular genetic work on floral initiation and development, and plant physiological processes.

Commenting on the award, Dr Glover said: "I am really delighted to receive the award. Flowers are such fascinating structures, and I hope that my book will encourage interest in the intricate ways that they work."

"I wanted the book to bring together different areas of plant biology so that students and researchers could see how flowers really work. It was a real challenge to pull such a lot of material together, and you're always aware that you’re not going into as much detail in each area as the true specialists would like. So it's a great pleasure to receive an award like this, and to hear that people are finding the book a useful tool to help integrate the field."

Announcing the winner of this year’s award, Professor Mike Begon, chair of the British Ecological Society grants committee, said: “This book is a very brave - and really the first - attempt to synthesise a huge area of research and present it in digestible form. ‘Understanding Flowers and Flowering' Pollination biology, as with all scientific disciplines, is in danger of becoming overly fragmented, with students and researchers in different sub-disciplines unable to communicate effectively or even unaware of the work that is going on outside of their own domains. It is ambitious, lucid, well written books such as this which will hold disciplines together and help to encourage dialogue between disparate biological traditions.”

The Marsh Ecology Book of the Year Award will be presented at the BES AGM on Wednesday 9 September 2009 at 17:00. The AGM is taking place at the University of Hertfordshire.

Notes for Editors

1. For more information, please contact Becky Allen, Press Officer, British Ecological Society, tel: 01223 570016, email: beckyallen@ntlworld.com.

2. Dr Beverley Glover came to Cambridge in 1996 following a PhD at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Her main area of interest has always been the evolution and development of floral features which attract pollinating animals. Her lab studies a variety of plant species, focusing on the development of petal surface structures and their adaptive significance for pollinating insects.

3. Understanding Flowers and Flowering by Beverley Glover is published by Oxford University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0-19-856596-3.

4. Books can have a major impact in ecology but academic publishing of books brings relatively little financial reward to authors. The Marsh Book of the Year Award acknowledges the important role that books have in ecology and its development. This prize is funded by the Marsh Christian Trust. It is awarded to the book published in the last two years that has had the greatest influence on the science of ecology or its application. The prize is an honorarium of Ł1,000 plus a certificate and is open to books published anywhere in the world.

5. The British Ecological Society is a learned society, a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. Established in 1913 by academics to promote and foster the study of ecology in its widest sense, the Society has 4,000 members in the UK and abroad. Further information is available at http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org.