The Ecological Society of America recognized Rick Osman and his colleagues with the Mercer Award for an outstanding ecological research paper published by one or more "younger" researchers (under 40 years). The paper is "Biodiversity, invasion resistance, and marine ecosystem function: Recognizing pattern and process”, by John J. Stachowicz, Hether Fried, Richard W. Osman, and Robert B. Whitlatch; Ecology 83:2575-2590. With due credit to the younger authors (Stachowicz and Fried) and the older ones (Osman and Whitlatch), the award recognizes the paper as a "seminal contribution” that is "one of the very few studies in marine environments that explicitly test the effects of diversity on ecosystem function…testing the an issue of key practical importance – the degree to which diversity per se affects invasion resistance.”

Read more about Rick Osman's studies at SERC.