Contest Highlights Stunning Photos of Nature and Fieldwork

By the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology

Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) has announced the winners of its annual photo contest, which celebrates the research done by the E3B community and the beauty of their hard work.

The photo contest was established in the 2017–18 academic year by members of E3B Graduate Resource Association of Student Scientists and E3B administration. Photos are submitted by all E3B students, faculty, postdocs, affiliates and administration. First, second and third place prizes are awarded for the top choices in three categories: Biodiversity, Humans in Nature, and Ecosystems & Landscapes. The three categories are department-wide but the faculty, staff and postdocs are judged separately. All in the E3B community are eligible to vote.

First place winners get a $50 gift card to REI. Second place winners get a society subscription of their choice up to $40, and third place winners get a Yeti brand water bottle. Congrats, winners!

Click through the slideshow below to see this year’s contest winners in each category, as well as information about the photographers and their work. To see all the submissions, visit the E3B Facebook page.

A puffin sits on a grassy hill. — Biodiversity 1st place: “Melancholy” by Pedro Ribeiro Piffer. Atlantic Puffin (*Fratercula arctica*) from Reynisfjara, Iceland. These birds are found in the northern Atlantic nesting on cliffs during the summer. The photo shows an adult bringing food (sand eels in its mouth) for its offspring.

A bluish green anemone with spiky tendrils, wet from the changing tide. — Biodiversity 2nd place: “Changing tides” by Nicolas Shogo Locatelli. A sunburst anemone at Cabrillo National Monument becomes exposed at low tide. These charismatic tidepool creatures hold symbiotic algae much like corals.

An perfectly camouflaged cheetah stalks through the tall grass. — Biodiversity 3rd place: “Cheetah” by Shailee Saumil Shah. During the Princeton/Columbia course “Biology of African Mammals and Ecosystems,” PhD student Shailee Shah took this picture of a cheetah out for a stroll in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Kenya.

Snow-capped mountains lit up with the orange light of sunset. — Ecosystems & Landscapes 1st place: “Alpenglow at Crown Point” by Nicolas Shogo Locatelli. An early summer sunset paints Crown Point a bright orange. Taken from Barney Lake in Hoover Wilderness, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, California.

Shades of grey: sky, clouds, snow, and reflective water. — Ecosystems & Landscapes 2nd place: “Spring thaw at Toolik Lake,” by Stephanie Christine Schmiege. Taken at Toolik Field Station in Alaska while researching the physiology of white spruce at the Arctic boreal treeline.

A rocky formation jutts out of a green hill, ocean and clouds in the background. — Ecosystems & Landscapes 3rd place: “Scottish Highlands” by Pedro Ribeiro Piffer. The unique rock formation, named Old Man of Storr, can be seen from miles around on the Isle of Skye in northwestern Scotland.

Geometric patchwork fields are cut through by a river. — Humans in Nature 1st place: “Patchwork” by Nicolas Shogo Locatelli. A flight over the northern US shows land-use in the northern plains that gives the landscape a patchwork appearance.

Small thatched houses stretch along a waterfront. — Humans in Nature 2nd place: “Floating homes” by Pedro Ribeiro Piffer. Floating islands built by the Uru people that live in Lake Titicaca, Peru. The Uru use bundles of dried totora reeds to build the islands themselves and also their boats and houses.

Two people look tiny under the canopy of huge trees. — Humans in Nature 3rd place: “Dwarfed by nature,” by Stephanie Christine Schmiege. Taken in China Muerta National Reserve in Chile, where PhD student Stephanie Schmiege examines the effect of fire on the respiration of the conifer *Araucaria araucana*, also known as the “Monkey Puzzle Tree.”

A trianglular mountain top with traces of snow, and a valley beneath it. — Faculty, Postdocs & Staff 1st place: “Glaciers live on even when they’re gone,” by Duncan Menge. Taken in Glacier National Park, Montana.

Pinkish purple flowers in a green field. — Faculty, Postocs, & Staff 2nd place: “Pedicularis integrifolia in an alpine meadow,” by Deren Eaton. The concentrated diversity of *Pedicularis* flowers in the Hengduan mountains of China are helping the Eaton Lab to understand the role that gene flow and reproductive interference play in shaping *Pedicularis* evolution.

E3B’s mission is to educate a new generation of scientists and practitioners in the theory and methods of ecology, evolution, and environmental biology. Our educational programs emphasize a multi-disciplinary perspective to understand life on Earth from the level of organisms to global processes that sustain humanity and all life.