Danny Haelewaters won the Lumina quaeruntur prize

Danny Haelewaters (in the middle) with the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences Eva Zažímalová (left) and the Director of the Biology Centre CAS Libor Grubhoffer. Photo: CAS

How can we effectively protect the environment and the organisms in it if we don't know what all is present? It all starts with naming and understanding diversity, says Danny Haelewaters. His research combines knowledge of evolutionary relationships between organisms (phylogenetics), relationships and interactions between organisms (community ecology), experimental ecology and conservation.

The Lumina quaeruntur Prize is aimed at scientists and scholars on the threshold of middle age and serves to establish the laureate's own research group. The support amounts to up to four million crowns per calendar year for a maximum of five years. At least 20 % of the budget is covered by the institution where the scientist is based. Danny Haelewaters will focus on the topic of multitrophic symbiosis, which involves interactions at multiple levels of the food chain.

With his new team the young scientist will focus on monitoring biodiversity, but also on how to build a complete "tree of life" of fungi, i.e. to describe the system of evolution and branching of each fungal species over time.

Danny Haelewaters holds a PhD in organic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University, USA. He studied biology at Ghent University, where he is also a visiting professor. He is very active in publishing, being one of the top 2% of the world's most cited authors in 2022. In addition, his text on the rules of helicopter research has had a wide response in the academic community.

Photo: CAS