The Cowles Award was established in 1998 in honor of Henry Cowles, who published the first paper to appear in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers: "The Causes of Vegetation Cycles" (1911). The award is to be given annually in recognition of the best biogeographical publication of the year, honoring either books or papers. In some years, two winners are recognized. Not every year sees an award.

2024

Miranda Brooke Rose, Santiago Jose Elias Velazco, Helen M. Regan, and Janet Franklin. (2023) "Rarity, geography, and plant exposure to global change in the California Floristic Province" Global Ecology and Biogeography 32(2):218-232

Anaïs Zimmer, Timothy Beach, Sebastián Riva Regalado, Jean Salcedo Aliaga, Rolando Cruz Encarnación, and Fabien Anthelme. (2023) "Llamas (Llama glama) enhance proglacial ecosystem development in Cordillera Blanca, Peru" Scientific Reports 13(1): 15936.

2022
Grant Elliott, Sydney Bailey, and Steven Cardinal (2021) "Hotter drought as a disturbance at upper treeline in the southern Rocky Mountains" Annals of the American Association of Geographers 111(3): 756-770

2021
Evan Larson, Kip Kipfmueller, and Lane Johnson (2021) "People, fire, and pine: linking human agency and landscape in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and beyond" Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111(1): 1-25

2018
Jeremy Johnson, Keith Gaddis, David Cairns, and Konstantin Krutovsky (2017) "Seed dispersal at alpine treeline: an assessment of seed movement and immigration within the alpine treeline ecotone" Ecosphere 8:e01649. 

2017
Beth Hundey, Sam Russell, Fred Longstaffe, and Katrina Moser (2016) “Agriculture causes nitrate fertilization of remote alpine lakes.” Nature Communications 7:10571

Alan Taylor, Valerie Trouet, Carl Skinner, Scott Stephens (2016) “Socioecological transitions trigger fire regime shifts and modulate fire-climate interactions in the Sierra Nevada, USA.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(48): 13684–13689

2016
Stephen J. Tulowiecki, Chris P.S. Larsen (2015) "Native American impact on past forest composition inferred from species distribution models" Ecological Monographs 85(4): 557-581

2015
Neil Pederson, Amy Hessl, Nachin Baatarbileg, Kevin Anchukaitis, Nicola di Cosmo (2014) "Pluvials, droughts, the Mongol Empire, and modern Mongolia" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111: 4375–4379

2014
Carissa Wonkka, Charles Lafon, Craig Hutton and Audrey Joslin (2013) "A CSR classification of tree life history strategies and implications for ice storm damage" Oikos 122:209-222

2013
John Kupfer (2012) “Landscape ecology and biogeography: Rethinking landscape metrics in a post-FRAGSTATS landscape” Progress in Physical Geography 36: 400-420

2012
Michael Pisaric, Joshua Thienpont, Steven Kokelj, Holly Nesbitt, Trevor Lantz, Steven Solomon and John P. Smol (2011) “Impacts of a recent storm surge on an Arctic delta ecosystem examined in the context of the last millennium” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108: 8960-8965.

2011
James Speer (2010) "Fundamentals of Tree-Ring Research" Univ of Arizona Press

2010
Bryan Shuman, Anna Henderson, Colin Plank, Ivana Stefanova and Susy Ziegler (2009) “Woodland-to-forest transition during a prolonged drought in Minnesota after AD 1300” Ecology 90: 2782-2807

2009
David Cairns, Charles Lafon, John Waldron, Maria Tchakerian, Robert Coulson, Kier Klepzig, Andrew Birt and Weimin Xi  (2008) “Simulating the reciprocal interaction of forest landscape structure and southern pine beetle herbivory using LANDIS” Landscape Ecology 23: 403-415.

2008
Kim Diver (2008) “Not as the crow flies: assessing effective isolation for island biogeographical analysis” Journal of Biogeography 35: 1040-1048

2007
John Kupfer, George Malanson, and Scott Franklin (2006) “Not seeing the ocean for the islands: the mediating influence of matrix-based processes on forest fragmentation effects” Global Ecology and Biogeography 15: 8-20

2006
Kate Alftine and George Malanson (2004) “Directional positive feedback and pattern at an alpine tree line” Journal of Vegetation Science 15: 3-12

2005
Lori Daniels and Tom Veblen (2004) “Spatiotemporal influences of climate on altitudinal treeline in northern Patagonia” Ecology 85: 1284-1296

2004
Glen McDonald (2003) "Biogeography: Space, Time and Life" John Wiley and Sons

2003
Mark Cowell and James Dyer “Vegetation development in a modified riparian environment: Human imprints on an Allegheny River wilderness”

Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92: 189-202 (2002)

2002
James Speer, Tom Swetnam, Boyd Wickman and Andrew Youngblood (2001) “Changes in pandora moth outbreak dynamics during the past 622 years” Ecology 82: 679-697

2000
Thomas Veblen, Thomas Kitzberger,  Ricardo Villalba and Joseph Donnegan (1999) “Fire history in northern Patagonia: The roles of humans and climatic variation” Ecological Monographs 69: 47-67

1999
Glen McDonald, Julian Szeicz, Jane Claricoates and Kursti Dale (1998) “Response of the central Canadian treeline to recent climatic changes”

Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88: 183-208

1998
Karl Zimmerer (1997) "Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian Andes" University of California Press