BMC Ecologytalks to Dr Moritz Muschick, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield (UK), about his winning image in the journal’s firstEcology Image Competition。您可以在伴随的Editorial。

What is the background story to this image, and how did you come to take it?

这张照片是去年去加利福尼亚的一次实地考察拍摄的。帕特里克·诺西尔（Patrik Nosil）和我自己正在收集蒂玛将昆虫用于我的博士后项目。为了记录我们捕获的不同物种以及发现它们的寄主植物，我将相机带走了。这是我第一次看到这些小动物活着，在自然界中，我只从从中收集数据的标准化照片中知道它们。我没想到它们会如此伪装。用相机捕获这并不容易 - 它们被称为手杖是有原因的 - 但有些人仍然足够长的时间来拍照。

How did you first become interested in ecology and evolutionary biology?

Ever since I found my first fossil I wanted to become a scientist. Luckily, my family and friends were very supportive, so I did end up as one. Even the head of my school allowed me to skip some weeks so I could go on field work. I think that was what fascinated me most in the beginning, the field work involved in studying ecology and evolutionary biology, and it still is my favorite part of my job.

What is your background as a research scientist, and what you are currently working on?

我在康斯坦茨大学研究,德国,I joined Axel Meyer’s lab, where I started to work on cichlid fishes. I stuck with cichlids for my PhD in Walter Salzburger’s lab at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Both projects were concerned with ecomorphological evolution in adaptive radiation. In my current postdoc project with Patrik Nosil in Sheffield I’m focussing on the genomic basis of adaptive radiation in蒂玛stick insects. I will correlate genomic divergence between different species and populations with their ecological adaptions, for example to their host plant or to the local climate.

您会偶尔作为摄影师还是敏锐的业余爱好者归类？为什么？

到现在为止，我将自己描述为一个敏锐的业余爱好者。我十几岁的第一张相机，从那时起，我真的很热衷于拍照。不幸的是，这是相当昂贵的，无论如何设备也回到了电影和处理，所以我无法做到尽可能多的事情。现在，一切都是数字化的，实验的自由是很棒的。尝试不同的照明情况或相机设置确实很有趣，而且也非常有生产力，因为您会立即看到结果并可以立即调整内容。

What do you think is the key to capturing a good ecological image?

这是相当明显的，但是手头有相机很重要。这意味着我经常随身携带设备而没有实际拍摄很多照片。在某些现场工作情况下，人们也有可能损害它。但是我想这就是如果机会出现，为了拍摄好照片，必须忍受。为了说明生态互动，我认为减少是有帮助的。仅显示最重要的“演员”。在这里的图像中，一种食草昆虫及其宿主在其上非常伪装。模仿，伪装或座席显然可以减少这种减少。

对未来的计划？

我发现自适应辐射中的生态形态和基因组进化是非常引人入胜的主题，我将继续研究它们。幸运的是，这通常涉及非常上镜的物种，因此我也希望能扩大我的摄影作品。

您还可以在他们的个人博客上找到更多有关比赛中其他获奖者的信息：

亚军本杰明·布隆德（Benjamin Blonder）keep his excellent weekly ecological photoblog “自然的好奇心定期更新；而保护生物学家艺术家Hara Woltz保持美丽自然风格的艺术品的作品集her website，，，，which includes the winning image for the保护生态和生物多样性category prize.

我们敦促您看看！