His works demonstrate an innovative interdisciplinary research approach: "Movement Ecology"
Prof. Ran Natan from the Hebrew University will today receive the President's Award for Outstanding Young Researcher for 2005. The award will be given to him for his innovative and interdisciplinary research on the distribution of plant seeds, an approach that he is currently seeking to expand into a new field of science that he calls "Movement Ecology". The award is given in memory of the late Prof. Yoram Ben Porat, former president and rector of the Hebrew University.
Prof. Ran Natan has gained wide international recognition in the field of ecology of distribution, specializing in the field of seed distribution over long distances. This field is of great importance to many aspects of the ecology and evolution of plants and animals, as well as practical importance in understanding mechanisms of distribution expansion due to climate changes, existence in a fragmented environment and "invasion" of foreign species. His work, which was the first to show quantitatively the mechanisms that dictate the long-range dispersal of seeds by wind, broke the previously existing conventions that these rare events were completely random and therefore unpredictable.
According to the president of the Hebrew University Prof. Menachem Magidor, the award was given to Prof. Natan "due to the original aspects of his scientific work".
Prof. Natan published selected parts of his research in leading journals, was invited to lecture at international scientific conferences and received many research grants and awards. Today, Natan serves as a sub-editor in two international journals and serves as a reviewer in these journals and many others, as well as in various publishing houses and research foundations.
Natan, born in 1962, was born in Eilat and began his academic career at the Hebrew University, where he received a bachelor's degree in biology (1992), a master's degree (1994) and a doctorate (1999) in ASA (evolution, systematics and ecology). At the end of his studies, he continued for a post-doctorate at Princeton University (USA), served as a visiting scientist at Duke University (USA) and a research fellow at the Smithsonian Center for Tropical Research (Panama). He currently teaches at the Hebrew University, in the ASA department at the Alexander Silverman Institute of Life Sciences.
In recent years, he has expanded his field of research, which until now mainly focused on the processes of seed distribution by the wind, with the aim of developing a more comprehensive perspective on the movement of animals and plants. Today he is working to consolidate an innovative interdisciplinary field of research which he calls, as mentioned, "movement ecology". This field will provide for the first time a coherent conceptual and practical framework for the study of the patterns and mechanisms of the movement of organisms and its consequences. This innovative approach is expected to lead to new insights into the factors influencing the distribution and diversity of life on Earth.
