Finnish Society of Forest Science awards annually prizes for excellent doctoral and Master’s theses accepted during the preceding year. The awards are made among the theses proposed by the Department of Forest Sciences at the University of Helsinki and the School of Forest Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland. The number of awards is not fixed but depends on the quality of the theses proposed in each year. Typically, the Society awards 1-2 prizes for excellent doctoral dissertations and 1-3 prices for excellent M.Sc. theses.
The prizes have been published in the Spring meeting of the Society, and 1-2 awardees have given a talk on their theses. Because of the special arrangements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we publish this year’s prizes on our website.
Prize for an excellent doctoral dissertation:
Maija Lampela, University of Helsinki. Ecological prerequisites for successful reforestation of degraded tropical peatlands. https://doi.org/10.14214/df.263
Dr Maija Lampela studied the characteristics of the peat layer of Indonesian tropical peat swamp forests as a substrate for restoration planting of trees. Tropical peat swamp forest are large carbon reservoirs and biodiversity hotspot but they are threatened by large-scale land conversion to other uses. In her dissertation research, Dr Lampela questioned old perceptions on tropical peat swamp forests and came to interesting conclusions that have also practical implications for restoring these fragile ecosystems using native tree species.
The dissertation summary article of Dr Lampela’s work was published in Dissertationes Forestales, which is a dissertation monograph series published by the Finnish Society of Forest Science, the University of Helsinki, and the University of Eastern Finland. It is open access with CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.
Prize for an excellent M.Sc. thesis:
Ilmeini Lasarov, University of Eastern Finland. Kirjanpainajan (Ips typographus) foreettisten punkkien kuljettama sinistäjäsieni- ja hiivalajisto Itä-Suomessa. [Blue stain fungi and yeast transported by the foretic ticks of spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) in Eastern Finland].
M.Sc. Lasarov’s thesis provides new information on the yeasts and blue stain fungi associated with spruce bark beetle. M.Sc. Lasarov conducted the work independently and used modern methods of molecular biology for identifying the microbes associated with spruce bark beetles.