DURHAM, NC – Two Nicholas School of the Environment students have been named co-winners of the 2012 Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD Student Manuscript and two other students have been awarded honorable mentions, Dean William L. Chameides has announced.

German Forero-Medina was named a recipient of the award for his paper, “Elevational Ranges of Birds on a Tropical Montane Gradient Lag behind Warming Temperatures,” which was published in December 2011 in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.

By comparing current and historic data on species’ distribution, Forero-Medina’s study finds that tropical bird species in the remote Cerros del Sira mountains of central Peru are moving to higher elevations because of climate change, but they may not be moving fast enough to keep up.

Kai Zhu was also named a recipient of the Deans Award for his paper, “Failure to Migrate: Lack of Tree Range Expansion in Response to Climate Change,” which was published in October 2011 in the peer-reviewed journal Global  Change Biology.

Zhu’s study finds that more than half of eastern U.S. tree species aren’t responding as predicted to climate change. Many models have predicted that trees will migrate rapidly to higher latitudes and elevations in response to warming temperatures, but Zhu and his colleagues’ large-scale analysis finds no evidence that a consistent, climate-driven northward migration is occurring.

In past years, only one winner has been selected, but Chameides was so impressed with the quality of this year’s submissions that he selected Forero-Medina and Zhu as co-recipients.

Two manuscripts were selected for honorable mentions.

They are Allan Bacon’s paper, “Coupling Meteoric Be with Pedogenic Losses of Be to Improve Soil Residence Time Estimates on an Ancient North American Interfluve,” which has been accepted for future publication in the peer-reviewed journal Geology; and Myriah Cornwell’s paper, “Co-producing Conservation and Knowledge: Citizen-based Sea Turtle Monitoring in North Carolina, USA,” which was published in February in the peer-reviewed journal Social Studies of Science.

All four students will be acknowledged at the Nicholas School Recognition Ceremony on May 12. Forero-Medina and Zhu will each receive a check for $1,500.  Bacon and Cornwell will each receive a check for $100.