BMC Ecology is delighted to announce the winning images in its very first Ecology Image Competition. We were truly overwhelmed by the positive response to the competition, which received more than 200 individual entries from researchers across the world.

In an accompanying Editorial, guest judge Dr Yan Wong and the journal’s Editorial Board outline what they found most striking about their choice of winning images – and discuss some of the ecological stories behind these stunning pictures.

Click on the links below to browse through the winning entries, together with some of the most highly commended images that didn’t quite make it to winning the top prize. All of these winning images have been released under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY), so please feel free to share or reuse them as much as you like after attributing the image author.

Head over to the BMC-series blog to also read an accompanying interview with the overall winner, Dr Moritz Muschick of the University of Sheffield.