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]