Olivier Dangles is an ecologist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) based at the Center of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in Montpellier, France. After joining the IRD in 2006, he worked as a visiting professor in Ecuador, Bolivia and at Cornell University. Over the last decade his work in the tropical Andes has allowed significant contributions in the field of aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity in the face of climate change. His enthusiasm to deepen knowledge about ecology also makes him a passionate teacher and science communicator, especially through wildlife photography. His fieldwork in high-altitude ecosystems combined with innovative research in ecology at the interface with a wide array of other disciplines (physics, glaciology, hydrology, information science, sustainability, geography, sociology, history) offers a unique breadth of science equal to the task of perpetuating Humboldt’s legacy.