2025 Cushing Prize

The annual Cushing Prize honors the memory of David Cushing, the Founding Editor of Journal of Plankton Research. The Cushing Prize distinguishes the best paper by an early career stage scientist (aged 30 or younger) published in the Journal of Plankton Research in the past year. The four active Editors of the Journal of Plankton Research in 2024 selected the winning paper, from among the 24 published eligible submissions last year. The prize spotlights, and we hope helps to foster, interesting and high-quality papers by young scientists that David Cushing so actively supported. The 2025 David Cushing Prize for the best paper by an early career scientist published in 2024 has been awarded to Dr Ashley Tripp for her paper, “Evidence for adaptive strategies in larval capelin on the northeastern coast of Newfoundland, Canada” with co-authors Hannah Murphy and Gail K. Davoren. Their study focuses on Newfoundland capelin, an important forage fish species that funnels energy through a narrow food web based on its central trophic position. Capelin stocks collapsed in the early 1990s in several north Atlantic locations, including the Newfoundland and Labrador shelf off eastern Canada. However, in this latter location, the population has not shown recovery. The goal of Dr Tripp’s research was to examine which adaptive life history strategies this capelin population has used to respond to environmental variability. The authors compare the “match-mismatch” hypothesis with a bet-hedging strategy involving extending spawning and hatching periods to spread risk. They collected samples of eggs, larval fish, invertebrate predators and zooplankton prey over four summers. Dr Tripp’s study found some support for the “match-mismatch” hypothesis at their intertidal site based on prey availability. However, larval densities were not always well coordinated with low predator biomass, especially jellyfish; nor with ideal temperatures. Most results supported the bet-hedging strategy because of high variability in larval emergence timing and sizes. The authors did not note any significant differences in larval condition between the intertidal habitat and a deeper subtidal zone where capelin go when waters are warmer. This observation is important if climate warming entices Newfoundland capelin to spawn more often in the subtidal zone. Dr Tripp’s study is not only an interesting read of life history strategies and adaptations in unpredictable environments, but also provides observations critical for an eventual recovery of these important planktonic fish stocks. Dr Ashley Tripp completed her B.Sc. at the University of Guelph, Canada, majoring in marine and freshwater biology. From there she moved to the Canadian prairies to complete her M.Sc. at the University of Manitoba with a focus on physiology and molecular biology of freshwater crustaceans. Returning to her ecology roots, Dr Tripp then began a PhD program with Drs. Gail Davoren (University of Manitoba) and Hannah Murphy (Fisheries and Oceans, Canada), which she completed in November 2023. Her thesis examined factors impacting larval capelin abundance and distribution in coastal Newfoundland and her Cushing Prize-winning paper was one of her thesis chapters. Ashley’s research focus continues to be fish early life history, inspired by Dr Cushing’s own work, and exploring the use of novel tools, such as otolith chemistry, to answer large scale questions that continue to impede adequate management and conservation efforts. These interests have transitioned Dr Tripp well into her current post-doc position with Dr Gail Davoren at the University of Manitoba where she has been conducting work on the habitat suitability and connectivity of forage fish in coastal Newfoundland incorporating fishers’ knowledge with field-based sampling. The winning article was published online on March 3, 2025, and appeared on pages 126–140 of volume 46 of the Journal of Plankton Research. It is available here: https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/fbad052.

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