The winners of Capturing Ecology, a photography competition launched by the British Ecological Society, have been announced, with a stunning shot of a bearded dragon clinching best photo of the year.
The overall winning image, The Dragon and the Sun, captures a bearded dragon basking under the hot Canberra sun in its eucalyptus woodland habitat. Damien Esquerre, a biologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, snapped the basking dragon while he was out for a walk, using a fish-eye lens to bring the sun and the lizard’s woodland habitat into the frame.
Capturing Ecology was founded by the British Ecological Society (BES) to celebrate the diversity of ecology, capturing flora and fauna from across the globe. The competition receives entries from international ecologists, photographers and students. This year's winning images span 12 countries and 6 continents.
Through its categories the competition aims to highlight the breadth of life on Earth and capture its many joys and intricacies, as you can see in the gallery of winning images below.
Winners of Capturing Ecology photography competition 2024
"The relationship between Arctic Terns and Sand eels is incredibly close. As part of my work as a warden at the RSPB reserve on the Skerries Islands, I have been monitoring which species of fish the Arctic terns bring in from the sea. The data is collected every season and can give a deep insight into the state of fish stocks. This season, the tern's main food source were sand eels, but later on they switched to fish from the Clupeidae family." Credit: Filip JarzyńskiA biodiverse meadow is a beautiful sight, but the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s. Overgrazing and excessive fertilisation degrade the ecosystem. In Switzerland, this meadow is cut only once a year for hay, giving the plants time to flower and spread their seeds. Credit: Juliet TurnerVillage communities in Indonesia are enhancing cover of multi-purpose tree species in cleared areas to improve ecosystem health and function whilst also providing nutritional and economic benefits to local people. The picture shows an impromptu harvest of some rambutan fruits to accompany lunch in a social forestry area in Sumatra. Credit: Lindsay BaninIn the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark, a Flammulina sp. slowly begins to thaw after a crisp November night. Credit: Jenn RoseIt is shown here one of the “teenagers” of the critically endangered western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) that the Chimpanzee Conservation Center have rescued from poachers in the Republic of Guinea. This is the only organisation worldwide with a current release project of western chimpanzees into the wild. Nevertheless, this program is in danger because suitable habitats where to release chimpanzees in nature are rapidly disappearing. Sadly, young individuals like the one in the image – his name is Simon – wait in captivity for a future where, if the trend does not change, they will struggle to know freedom again. Credit: Roberto Garcia-RoaThis photo was captured on a sunny summer day in Canberra. Bearded dragons (Pogona barbata) love to bask under the sun in their eucalypt woodland habitat. I used fish-eye lens to capture the habitat and the sun in the composition to have a detailed portrayal of the lizards ecology. Credit: Damien EsquerreThe frenetic combat between the pompilid wasp and the spider suddenly stopped. A tense calm invaded the scene: “the calm after the storm”, I thought. At that point, a subtle but crucial behaviour for both contenders had begun. The wasp needed to confirm if its sting had paralyzed its dangerous prey before bringing it to her nest. Wasps of the family Pompilidae are called “spider wasps” because females are sophisticated hunters of spiders, which are used as a living food by their offspring. An arm race between two groups of iconic hunters in the tropical forests of Peru. Credit: Roberto García-RoaA Signal Crayfish photographed at an abandoned trout farm building on a freezing New Year's Eve. Credit: Filip Jarzyński"Drones have become transformative tools for surveying large areas of shallow water, but don’t have the range of crewed aircraft. Here we kayaked to a small cay with our drones to expand our search area for critically endangered smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata) in Andros, The Bahamas." Credit: Tim Jackson Bue"A researcher surveys a reef flat in the central Red Sea, with near 100% bleaching. As the central Red Sea experienced record temperatures in 2023, a severe bleaching event unfolded, leading to the death of the majority of shallow corals like those shown in this photo." Credit: Viktor Peinemann
