This mesmerizing image is a stereographic projection of the Long Sault Parkway, a bridge linking 11 islands in Lake St. Lawrence, Canada. Allan Tian, a postdoctoral researcher with Queen’s University in Canada and Hangzhou Normal University and Zhejiang University in China, captured the image while conducting biodiversity research at the lake.

“The creation of this waterway caused severe fragmentation of historically interconnected aquatic ecosystems and displaced thousands of residents,” Tian said after winning the “Protecting our planet” category in this year’s joint BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition. “Today, the parkway serves as a bridge between the disruptions of the past and present conservation efforts.”

The contest, hosted by the two journals, showcases the “beauty and diversity of nature,” as well as the “remarkable efforts of scientists to understand and protect it.”

The galleryâwhich you can check out hereâcelebrates the beauty of nature, specifically seen from the perspective of the scientists who study it. Read on for Gizmodo’s favorites from the list.

Window to the Wetlands

To start, here’s the overall winner of the competition: a bobble-eyed damselfly peering through a hole in the leaf. Sritam Kumar Sethy, a student at Berhampur University in India, captured this photo at a freshwater wetland habitat in Odisha, India.

The damselfly’s adorable little face betrays the fact that, in its habitat, the insect is a key predator that regulates insect populations in wetlands. In his winning statement, Kumar Sethy explained that damselflies are bioindicators of ecosystem health, particularly in wetlandsâan increasingly disappearing, threatened habitat.

Giant cuttlefish in breeding battle

Australia is somewhat famous for being home to Earth’s weirdest, wildest creatures. That includes the giant Australian cuttlefish in this photograph, which won the category for relationships in nature. Victor Huertas, a researcher at James Cook University in Australia, took this image of male cuttlefish locked in a battle to impress a potential mate.

“This image freezes an ancient contest, one repeated for millennia in these waters alone and increasingly vulnerable to a changing ocean,” Huertas said in his winning comment. “Yet even aggregations of this scale are not invincible; reports this season point to unusually low numbers gathering in the area, a sobering sign of how fragile even large-scale natural phenomena can be.â

Go away

This photograph depicts a dramatic instance of mobbingâan anti-predator strategy in birds, in which smaller species (friarbirds, right) come together to harass a potential threat (the raptor on the left). Alwin Hardenbol, a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, won runner-up in the category for relationships in nature.

âThree birds hang in the air like charcoal smudges on white paper,” commented Christy Hipsley, a member of the judging panel. “Once our brain processes that this is a black and white photograph and not a drawing, the next striking feature is the action of this moment.”

Manatees seek freshwater in the everglades

In this image, three Florida manatees bustle up against the edge of a freshwater drain in Everglades National Park. Brandon Güell, a field technician from Florida International University, received an honorary mention for his photograph.

According to Güell, access to freshwater is vital for the survival of manatees. As a result, in “built” environments like Everglades, limited resources often bring “individuals together at a small number of reliable sources,” he added. “This image captures both the speciesâ gentle social behavior and the subtle influence of human infrastructure on wildlife in the Everglades, where natural and built environments are becoming increasingly interconnected.â

Into the bear’s realm

Another honorable mention awardee was this photograph of a cave entrance overlooking the alpine valleys of the western Himalayas in India. Vineet Kumar, who took the photo, and his colleagues at the Zoological Survey of India initially believed that the cave was a bear den, as they were surveying known habitats for brown bears. They were wrong.

âRather than a bear den, the spacious cave was being used by nomadic shepherds as a natural shelter while grazing sheep and goats in these remote alpine pastures during summer,” Kumar explained. âEvery expedition has a story beyond its original question.â

Intertidal education

This is a striking scene that shows that no matter what, research must go on. In this photo, which won the category for research in action, three undergraduate students sort through the sludge to count and collect fish and invertebrates from the coasts of Canada. Liam Brennan of the University of New Brunswick was a teaching assistant for an undergraduate field program when he took this photograph.

âAs this image shows, presenting undergraduate students with research project opportunities will transform classroom science into action to support crucial ecological and environmental monitoring research,” commented Edward Narayan, of the judging panel.

Tide, turtle, and trust!

Last but not least, here’s an image of a baby olive ridley sea turtle as it peers up at a human hand looming overhead. This human is thankfully a part of community-led conservation efforts on India’s west coast. In other words, this is a moment of farewell for the conservator and the little turtle. Abhijeet Bayani, a biologist at MES Abasaheb Garware College, India, won runner-up in the “Protecting our planets” category for his work.

“The release of hatchlings is not just a biological milestone but an emotional one,” said Bayani in his winning statement. âIt brings a profound sense of joy and ownership to people and a renewed promise of continuity to the species.â