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Liliana Davalos

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Fanny M. Cornejo. Photo from SBU

Stony Brook University graduate student Fanny M. Cornejo has been named the winner of the newly-created “Emerging Conservationist Award” presented by the Indianapolis Prize. This award recognizes professional wildlife conservationists, biologists and scientists under 40-years of age who are working to make strides in saving animal species from extinction.

Cornejo, a Peruvian primatologist, anthropologist and the executive director of Yunkawasi, an organization that works with Amazonian and Andean communities for the conservation of threatened species through sustainable economic development and protected area management approach, was selected from among 10 finalists. She will receive $50,000 provided by the Kobe Foundation to continue the conservation work of Yunkawasi.

Cornejo is being recognized for her more than 15 years dedicated to the conservation and research of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, a primate species that only inhabits the montane forests of Peru and is critically endangered due to human unsustainable activities that have generated the loss of over 80% of its population.

Cornejo is a member of the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences (IDPAS) at Stony Brook University and works in the Pat Wright Lab, where she focuses on the study of primates and big mammals, focusing on diversity, ecological studies as well as conservation activities to protect forests and improve the livelihoods of local and indigenous communities. Cornejo has also conducted research on the black and white ruffed lemurs in Ranomafana National Park in Madagascar. Her graduate mentors are Professors Patricia C. Wright and Liliana Dávalos.

“Fanny lives and breathes conservation. Her energy, her motivation and her success are part of her very being. What a joy to hear that her talents and hard work have been recognized with this inaugural Emerging Conservationist Prize. What an honor for Stony Brook and an honor for Peru!” said Professor Patricia Wright, Distinguished Service Professor and Herrnstein Professor of Conservation Biology.

“Fanny was always a stand-out and it’s fantastic, but not surprising, that her talents and contributions continue to go above and beyond and to be recognized,” said Professor Carl Safina, Holder of the Endowed Chair for Nature and Humanity.

“Fanny is leading the next generation of conservationists to protect nature and inspire people to care for our world. The depth of accomplishments set her apart from the other nominees. I can’t wait to see the impact of her career in conservation,” added Indianapolis Zoological Society President and CEO Dr. Rob Shumaker.

Cornejo will be formally recognized as the 2023 Emerging Conservationist at the Indianapolis Prize Gala presented by Cummins Inc. in downtown Indianapolis on Sept. 30, 2023.

“I am very honored and grateful for this recognition that is not only for me, but also for my entire team, the people we work with, our partners in local communities, governments and our donors. Undoubtedly, being the first winner of the Emerging Conservationist Award and from an organization as important as the Indianapolis Prize is a great recognition for our work in Peru,” said Cornejo.

The Emerging Conservationist finalists were selected through a two-stage selection process, where a review committee evaluated and narrowed the application pool to 10 finalists. Those finalists were then evaluated by a selection committee who chose Cornejo the winner.

The Indianapolis Prize recognizes the world’s leading conservationists whose work provides future generations with replicable and actionable conservation practices. The finalists of the Emerging Conservationists represent the people we can rely on to save species worldwide. Stony Brook University Professors Patricia Wright (2014) and Russ Mittermeier (2018) have both been awarded the Indianapolis Prize.

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About the Indianapolis Prize

The Indianapolis Prize recognizes and rewards conservationists who have achieved major victories in advancing the sustainability of an animal species or group of species. Since 2006, the Indianapolis Prize has given more than $5.6 million in unrestricted cash awards. The Indianapolis Prize is administered by the Indianapolis Zoological Society, Inc.

About Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University — New York’s flagship university and No. 1 public university — is going far beyond the expectations of today’s public universities. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. With more than 24,000 students, more than 2,800 faculty members, more than 200,000 alumni, a premier academic healthcare system and 18 NCAA Division I athletic programs, Stony Brook is a research-intensive distinguished center of innovation dedicated to addressing the world’s biggest challenges. The university embraces its mission to provide comprehensive undergraduate, graduate and professional education of the highest quality, and is ranked among the top 35 public universities by Forbes and one of the top 80 universities in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges listing. Fostering a commitment to academic research and intellectual endeavors, Stony Brook’s membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU) places it among the top 65 research institutions in North America. The university’s distinguished faculty have earned esteemed awards such as the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Abel Prize and the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. Stony Brook has the responsibility of co-managing Brookhaven National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy — one of only eight universities with a role in running a national laboratory. Providing economic growth for neighboring communities and the wider geographic region, the university totals an impressive $7.23 billion in increased economic output on Long Island. Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/stonybrooku/) and Twitter(@stonybrooku).

About Yunkawasi

Yunkawasi is a Peruvian non-profit, dedicated to the sustainable development of the territory and the conservation of its biodiversity to achieve the well-being of different human groups. They have more than 16 years of experience working hand in hand with state, civil and private partners for the design and implementation of conservation projects in key ecosystems. Yunkawasi works in various ecosystems, from coastal to Amazonian landscapes, with a focus on conservation and management of protected natural areas, sustainable socioeconomic development, participatory research, and communication and environmental education. They promote an inclusive society that sustainably manages its natural resources, values the benefits they provide, and defend their natural and cultural heritage.

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Liliana Davalos, right in blue and white shirt, in La Victoria, Colombia with the paleo team from Grand Valley State University during a fossil dig last year. Photo courtesy of Siobhán Cooke

By Daniel Dunaief 

It’s like that old bus riddle. The bus starts out with 20 people. Six people get off, then eight get on, two more get off, 12 enter, eight exit, and so on until, lo and behold, the bus has either the same number of people or someone asks the identity of the driver.

In this case, though, the bus is a collection of Caribbean islands called the Greater Antilles, which includes the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Hispaniola, Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. The passengers are not people; they are species of bats.

Working with Luis Valente, a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum of Berlin, Liliana Davalos, an associate professor of conservation biology/ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University, recently determined that the number of species of bats, like the people entering and leaving the bus, remained in relative equilibrium for millions of years over many generations.

Liliana Davalos at La Venta site in Colombia with a rainbow in the background.Photo courtesy of Siobhán Cooke

While several species of bats will colonize the islands and new species will also form over that long time scale, the rate of natural extinction in that time balances out the islands’ diversity gains, leaving the metaphorical bus with about the same number of species.

Famous biologists Edward O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur came up with the theory of island biogeography in 1967, which might help explain how the number of species of bats remained in equilibrium for millions of years. The theory proposes an equilibrium between colonization and extinction.

For bats, however, that balance changed. About 20,000 years ago, fossils of extinct species made their final appearance, while other species died off about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. So, what happened to the bat bus?

The last ice age accounts for some of the declines about 20,000 years ago. More recently, the arrival of people altered conditions on the islands. At least two other waves of colonization occurred before the arrival of Europeans, with people changing the landscape through agriculture. While hunting of other mammals is evident from the archeological record, it is less certain how changes on the land affected bats. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact time when each species went extinct, although many of those events happened after people arrived on the islands, changing the region’s equilibrium.

Davalos’ previous work had found that the number of species lost was as predicted if the losses occurred because of the rising sea levels at the end of the last glaciation. If that were the case, many of those species would have disappeared around that time. Some of her colleagues, however, dated the remains of bats and found that these species became extinct more recently, over the last few thousand years.

“While we cannot be certain that all bat extinctions were caused by humans, evidence increasingly seems to suggest so,” explained Valente in an email. “All over the world, colonization of islands by humans has led to many extinctions of local species, because islands have very unique species that are very prone to any disturbances.”

The researchers used computer simulations to calculate that it would take nature eight million years to restore bat biodiversity. “Some people argue that if we leave nature alone it will quickly return to its original state,” Valente explained. “However, the finding that it would take eight million years to recover lost diversity suggests that is clearly not the case.” Valente, who described Davalos as a “wonderful collaborator” who was “actively involved in the project at all stages,” wrote that this study “raises awareness for conservation of the unique bat species of the Caribbean.”

While there is still work ahead, the “nations of the Greater Antilles have amazing natural parks to protect their biodiversity,” Davalos explained. In the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, Puerto Rico is the “number one example of a forest growing back,” Davalos said. “Puerto Rico is one of the places in the world that has had more of a resurgence of the forest.”

The preservation of biodiversity remains threatened even now as at least three bat populations on the Greater Antilles are threatened with extinction and two might already be extinct. Still, the effort is not “hopeless,” she said, as there are some large populations of bats thriving on these islands. Davalos and her colleagues were able to make these discoveries by examining the bat in detail.

A resident of Setauket, Davalos has been at Stony Brook University for eight years. She enjoys kayaking on Long Island and visiting local and state parks. Over the last few years, she has spent her free time on staycations, where she sees a protected area of Long Island each day.

From a young age, Davalos recalls being interested in science. Indeed, when she was only 4, she saw a documentary where Louis and Mary Leakey showed the results of their expeditions where they collected human fossils in Kenya. “From that moment on,” Davalos recalled, “I thought, ‘Some day, this is what I’m going to study.’” Her family and their acquaintances suggested that pursuing such a career path would be challenging.

She tells her current SBU students that she’s “the luckiest person in the world, living out my childhood dream.” Last year, she went on her first fossil dig in Colombia, where she joined a team from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, and Johns Hopkins. She found fossils from bats that were 12 million years old.

While Davalos has never met the Leakey family, she wants to tell them that, “Children are watching and [their work] can have a huge effect” on their dreams. Some day, Davalos hopes a future scientist may say the same thing about her research.

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