Anurag Agrawal, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, has received the Ecological Society of America's (ESA) George Mercer Award for his 2004 paper, "Resistance and Susceptibility of Milkweed: Competition, Root Herbivory, and Plant Genetic Variation," published in the journal Ecology. The study explored the complex interactions of herbivory, competition and genotype, presenting a general model that predicts the conditions in which plant-plant interactions result in net competition or facilitation.

The Mercer Award is given annually to a researcher under 40 for an outstanding ecological paper. Agrawal received the award Aug. 8 at ESA's 91st annual meeting in Memphis, Tenn.

Agrawal, who joined the Cornell faculty in 2004, studies the evolution of the interaction between plants and insects.