At the annual meeting of the German Society for Limnology (DGL) e.V. on the 30.09.2021, our team member Dr. Elias Ehrlich was awarded first place in the DGL young talent contest. Three selected candidates were chosen to present their topics and the audience could decide. The topic of Dr. Elias Ehrlich's talk was: The shape of a defense-growth trade-off governs seasonal trait dynamics in natural phytoplankton.