We are very pleased to announce Dr Eamonn Wooster as the 2025 Next Generation Ecologist Award winner!

Dr Eamonn Wooster holds an independent fellowship at Charles Sturt University. His work spans behavioural ecology, invasion biology and macroecology, combining field research with meta-analytic and macroecological methods. He works to link individual-level animal behaviour to population-level interactions and leverage this information to conserve the natural world.

Plenary presentation prize

Winning this important award provides Eamonn with a plenary presentation opportunity at ESA2025 in Adelaide – and to support that ESA will fund his travel costs, accommodation and registration.

We look forward to learning more about his award-winning research that focused on the way predator-prey interactions define the form and function of ecosystems.

In the Anthropocene, he wrote in his abstract, humans are reshaping the risks and opportunities available to animals, altering animal behaviour and decision making, with consequences for ecological interactions.

Eamonn will discuss how animals navigate recognising and responding to risk in the environment with a focus on animal cognition and will detail a case study that explores how animals altering their behaviour in response to human-induced risk cascades to alter predator-prey interactions.

Collaboration and networking

‘I make the case that species interactions in the Anthropocene differ greatly from those of the recent past, taking place between novel species (e.g., introduced species), with novel behaviors (e.g., temporal activity patterns), on novel stages (e.g., cities).’

Eamonn says that ‘being recognised as the 2025 “Next Generation Ecologist” is very encouraging and I hope I can use the opportunity to expand my collaborative network and move my career forward’.

‘It’s a huge honour to receive this award. Past awardees are ecologists I’ve drawn inspiration from and looked up to,’ he says. ‘I’m very thankful for the opportunity to present at ESA2025 and for the funding that will fund pilot work for my research program.’

Eamonn told E-News that the ‘opportunity to present a plenary at Australia’s premier ecology conference is exciting’.

‘I very much look forward to sharing the last few years of my research program and where it is going next. $3000 will allow me to test some ideas about animal cognition, predator-prey interactions, and the conservation potential of the overlap between the two.’

Congratulations, Eamonn! See you at ESA2025.