The 2016 Julius von Haast Fellowship Award of the Royal Society of New Zealand has been awarded to Sebastian Schmidtlein. The funds will be used for a collaborative project with Landcare Research Lincoln (Dr. Susan Wiser and Dr. Sarah Richardson) that adopts a remote sensing method to map the impacts of soil fertility gradients and long-term soil development on natural forests and shrublands via the relationship between soil resources and plant traits.New Zealand features relatively undisturbed sequences of soils and vegetation in different development stages. [Photo: Satori Kikuchi, CC Attribution 2.0 Generic]