VCS Editors’ Award for 2024

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Prepared by Jürgen Dengler (on behalf of all VCS Chief Editor)

Field work in a Calicorema capitata–Rhigozum trichotomum dwarf shrub savanna in Namibia (Photo credit:: L. Naftal)

As in every year, we selected one of the Editors’ Choice papers of the four quarters for the annual award. The Editors’ Award 2024 goes to Naftal et al. (2024). This paper was the Editors’ Choice for the second quarter of 2024 and is part of the Special Section “African vegetation studies” (Gurooh et al. 2024), published in collaboration with the IAVS Regional Section for Africa. It is noteworthy that this is already the second time that a VCS Editors’ Award has gone to Namibia, after Strohbach & Strohbach (2023).

Modelled current and future distribution of zonal vegetation types along a 1400 km transect in Namibia. Source: Naftal et al. (2024)

Leena Naftal and her colleagues developed a numerical high-level classification of the (near) natural vegetation along a 1400 km long and 30 km wide transect in Namibia based on nearly 2,000 plots of 1,000 m2. They described the vegetation units and determined their diagnostic species. This alone would be a fantastic achievement in Africa, where modern broadscale vegetation classifications are very scarce. However, the authors did not stop at that point, but then used random forests to model the current distribution of these zonal vegetation types and project them into the future under different global change scenarios. They found that likely the Combretum collinum-Terminalia seriacea broad-leaved savannas will expand a lot, while several other zonal vegetation types might go extinct by 2080 under high CO2 emission paths.

Combretum collinum-Terminalia seriacea broad-leaved savanna in Namibia, a vegetation type that likely will expand under climate change conditions (Photo credit: L. Naftal)

We selected this paper as it demonstrates in an exemplary manner how modern vegetation classification based on a large and consistent dataset can make a substantial contribution to global change research. It is very impressive that Leena Naftal conducted this research as her Master’s thesis in Natural Resource Management at the Namibian University of Science & Technology. It was part of a bigger project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the “Support for SASSCAL Science Services – Module B: SASSCAL Biodiversity Monitoring 2.0 – Harvesting the products of 17 years of biodiversity observation combined with capacity development and transfer to African partners”. Congratulations to Leena for this outstanding Master’s thesis! Leena is continuing in science and is currently working on her PhD on carbon stocks in the Kalahari and Mopane woodlands of Namibia and Angola under the supervision of Vera De Cauwer (Namibian University of Science & Technology) and Kyle Dexter (Universities of Edinburgh and Turin).

The recipient of the VCS Editors’ Award for 2024, Leena Naftal

References

  • Guuroh, R.T., Brown, L.R., Alvarez, M., Finckh, M., Schmiedel, U., Tsheboeng, G. & Dengler, J. (2024) African vegetation studies: introduction to a Special Collection. Vegetation Classification and Survey 5: 279–288. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.143360
  • Naftal, L., De Cauwer, V. & Strohbach, B.J. (2024) Potential distribution of major plant units under climate change scenarios along an aridity gradient in Namibia. Vegetation Classification and Survey 5: 127–151. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.99050
  • Strohbach, B.J. & Strohbach, M.M. (2023) A first syntaxonomic description of the vegetation of the Karstveld in Namibia. Vegetation Classification and Survey 4: 241–284. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.99045