The prize is awarded once a year by the Vereinigung von Freunden der Technischen Universität zu Darmstadt e.V. and recognises excellent and innovative theses.
Lüdke received the prize for his master's thesis on ‘Surveying Senecio inaequidens DC. and Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC. as Food Sources for Pollinators by Environmental DNA (eDNA) Metabarcoding’, supervised by Dr. Annette Herz, Dr. Jörg Wennmann, Prof. Dr. Johannes Jehle (all BI) and Prof. Dr. Andreas Jürgens (TU Darmstadt). He investigated plant-insect relationships in agricultural landscapes by analysing genetic traces left on plants by flower visitors. This approach allows the characterisation of pollinator communities without having to catch a single animal. All methodological steps, from collecting and preparing DNA samples to sequencing and taxonomic classification using an own specially tailored computational pipeline, were developed and carried out by himself at the JKI site in Dossenheim, which the awards committee found worthy of an award.