The New Phytologist Tansley Medal 2014.

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Each year, the New Phytologist Trust awards the Tansley Medal to scientists that have made an outstanding contribution to plant science within five years of receiving their PhD. Since its foundation in 2009, the Tansley Medal has been awarded to researchers with broad research interests that encompass the whole breadth of plant science (Woodward & Hetherington, 2010, 2011; Dolan, 2012, 2013, 2014). We are delighted to award the 2014 Tansley Medal to William Anderegg of Princeton University, NJ, USA (Box 1). William's PhD entitled ‘Physiological pathways and consequences of widespread, climate-induced forest die-off’ was conducted with Christopher Field at Stanford University and he is currently a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate and Global Change Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University. William did his PhD with Dr Christopher Field in the Department of Biology at Stanford University and the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC, USA. His research examined the consequences and physiological mechanisms of widespread, drought-induced forest die-off, using Populus tremuloides in the western United States as a model system. His research illuminated the hydraulic underpinnings of plant death, discovered hydraulic deterioration, where accumulated damage to the plant hydraulic system leads to death multiple years after the inciting drought stress, and culminated in a predictive model of tree mortality. As a post-doctoral fellow, William is examining the legacy effects of drought and drought recovery, evolutionary trade-offs in plant hydraulics, and carbon cycle variability at the regional and global scale. For more information on William, visit http://wrlanderegg.com or contact William at [email protected]. William will receive a £2000 prize in association with the Tansley Medal award http://www.newphytologist.org/tansleymedal.htm William's Minireview entitled ‘Spatial and temporal variation in plant hydraulic traits and their relevance for climate change impacts on vegetation’ is published in this issue of New Phytologist (Anderegg, pp. 1008–1014), and explores the variability of cavitation resistance in the context of climate change. The calibre of shortlisted candidates for the 2014 competition was exceptionally high and this is reflected in the minireviews published in this issue of New Phytologist: Well done to this year's finalists on their achievements. All at New Phytologist offer our warmest congratulations and we wish them well in their future careers.