This special issue of the Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution is dedicated to the memory of Professor Leon Blaustein, who died peacefully at his home in Koronit, Israel during the night of June 23/24, 2020 after a long illness. All of the contributors to this special issue were connected to Leon as collaborators, students, or postdocs, and – above all – as dear friends. Leon treated all with generosity, compassion, kindness, and a unique good-humor. He is still greatly missed by all who knew him.
Leon was an eminent and talented ecologist. He obtained his Ph.D. in Ecology in 1988 from the University of California at Davis, followed by two postdocs at Ben-Gurion University in southern Israel. Leon then headed north to the University of Haifa in Israel, where he remained for his academic career. Leon steadily advanced at the University of Haifa, becoming a Full Professor in the Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, Head of the Community Ecology Laboratory, a Fellow of the Institute of Evolution, the Director of the Kadas Green Roofs Ecology Research Center, and the Editor-in-Chief of the Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution.
Most of Leon’s research focused on two groups of organisms: mosquitoes and salamanders. Leon studied behavior, population and community ecology, population genetics, and transcriptomics. He particularly excelled at experimental design, both in the lab and in the field. Leon had an excellent naturalist’s eye, making field trips with him a delight (Figures 1–3). He was curious about everything he saw, and his knowledge of natural history was broad and deep and not at all limited to the organisms he studied. (The one exception was birds, as he classified all birds as “pigeons”.) These studies produced insight and major contributions to amphibian ecology and evolution, mosquito population regulation, compassionate conservation, biodiversity conservation, and green roof ecology.
Leon’s final project on the endangered species Salamandra infraimmaculta illustrates well the breadth of his approaches and his drive to learn all about his study system rather than just one narrow aspect. This project focused on plasticity in aquatic resource use in this species at its southernmost boundary. In this era of climate change, populations at the low latitude boundaries of a species are the ones most at risk. This project was feasible only because of Leon’s extensive earlier work on this species. Leon assembled a diverse team of graduate students, post-docs, and collaborators to first define the evolutionary and ecological context in which this plasticity is manifest. Leon and his group used molecular genetic surveys, determined optimal and sub-optimal areas, uncovered historical effects, and estimated adult population sizes in a diversity of habitats. Field and laboratory experiments on larval developmental and morphological plasticity and on their transcriptomes revealed that plasticity was both genetically influenced at the population level and due to individual responsiveness to environmental variation. Leon and his co-workers used climate projection models to reveal conservation challenges at the southernmost boundary. Hence, both the evolvability of plasticity and current individual environmental plasticity could play an important role in the survival of this endangered species.
The breadth of Leon’s interests and work is mirrored in the contributions made in his memory in this special issue. Leon would have been delighted to be honored in this manner, and doubly so because of his personal connections to the contributors.
Leon processing salamander larvae on Mount Carmel, 2007. Photograph by Alan Templeton.
Citation: Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution 2026; 10.1163/22244662-bja10130
Leon collecting mosquitoes at En Afeq Natural Area, 2009. Photograph by Alan Templeton.
Citation: Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution 2026; 10.1163/22244662-bja10130
Leon looking for salamander larvae in rock pools at the Warburg site on Mt. Carmel, 2011. Photograph by Alan Templeton.
Citation: Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution 2026; 10.1163/22244662-bja10130
