This award is presented annually to the most outstanding scholarly printed work in the humanities and natural sciences. The work is to have been published during the four years prior to the award, and the author should have been a staff member at a South African public higher education institution in the time frame when the book was published. The category of awards alternates between books in the Humanities and books in the Natural Sciences categories.
 

The award-winning book is entitled Insect Physiological Ecology - Mechanisms and Patterns and is published by Oxford University Press. The book distinguishes itself from other similar publications through its refreshing synthesis of the various interactions that occur between insects and their environments from a physiological point of view. It demonstrates that physiological responses in insects vary substantially across both temporal and spatial scales. Furthermore, it provides a novel integration of the understanding gained from broad-scale field studies of many species and the more narrowly focused laboratory investigations of model organisms.