Two distinguished professors from the Florida Museum of Natural History and UF received the 2016 Darwin-Wallace Medal from the Linnean Society of London last Tuesday for outstanding advances in the fields of evolutionary biology, according to a press release from the Florida Museum.
The society’s president, Paul Brakefield, presented the award at the Burlington House in London to Pam Soltis, a curator at the museum, and Doug Soltis, a professor in the UF Department of Biology. The Burlington House serves as the Linnean Society’s headquarters.
Matt Gitzendanner, an associate scientist at the Florida Museum’s Soltis Lab and a colleague of the professors, said the award was given for not just one particular breakthrough, but also for a number of projects that contributed to “a long career of pushing the frontiers of plant systematics and evolutionary genetics.”
The lab’s contributions to the Tree of Life have put them in the spotlight as dedicated researchers, Gitzendanner said.
The Tree of Life is a research effort that provides information about the diversity of organisms, according to the project’s website.
“We are happiest about our help in building the Tree of Life,” Doug Soltis said. “Helping to build the plant part of that is something Pam and I have worked on.”
According to the Linnean Society’s website, the Darwin-Wallace Medal was originally awarded to recognize the 50th, 100th and 150th anniversaries of the reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s paper, “On the Tendency of Species to form varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.”
According to the website, the paper was first published by the Linnean Society and read on July 1, 1858. Participants must be nominated by Nov. 30 each year, and nominations can be made by submitting a form on the society’s website.
The Linnean Society announced in 2008, as of 2010, the medal would be awarded on an annual basis to recognize the continuing importance of research in the field of evolutionary biology, according to the society’s website.
“When you go to London to get the award and realize Darwin and Wallace have walked through the same building, and this is where the ‘Origin of Species’ came to be… it’s a humbling experience,” Soltis said.
