The stunning variety and beauty of life around us is on display in this year's BioMed Central's Ecology Image Competition. The contest was open to any scientist affiliated with a research institution.
"It struck me that professional ecologists might view the natural world differently to wildlife photographers or amateur naturalists," Simon Harold, editor of the journals, which cover all sorts of biology and life sciences, said in a press release.
"This competition was a means for these researchers to show off what they find so compelling about the research to which they have dedicated their working lives — from the world of lowly arctic bacteria, to richly biodiverse tropics," he said.
We've rounded up the winners and some honorable mentions from the competition.
A stick insect (Timema poppensis) almost completely blends into a coast redwood tree (Sequoia sempervirens). The eye behind the winning image is Moritz Muschick from the University of Sheffield.
Laetitia Kernaleguen won the Behavioral and Physiological Ecology category for her photo of two male Southern elephant seals in bloody battle over a harem of females.
First place in the Community, Population and Macroecology category went to Michael Siva-Jothy for his shot of a Scarce swallowtail and a Polistine wasp converging on a Scabius flower.
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