Labex OSUG#2020 - IRS (2017 - 2021) : MONTANE

Multi-trophic biodiversity and multi-functionality across Alpine Environments

Team involved : BIOM
Platform involved : AAEM, PASTIS
Main contact person : Wilfried THUILLER (LECA, CNRS)

Climate and land-use changes have already triggered phenological changes, species range shifts, and species extinctions. Multi-trophic assemblages are being de-synchronized with unexpected consequences on multiple ecosystem functions and associated services. So far, experiments have shown that loss of biodiversity reduces the capacity of ecosystems to provide the multiple services on which humans depend. However, experiments oversimplify the complexity of natural ecosystems and do not account for changes in the abiotic environment or land use, which prevents large-scale generalization. Also, most studies typically focus on the diversity of single trophic groups, neglecting that biodiversity loss occurs across many taxa and that the functional effects of any trophic group may depend on the abundance and diversity of others. Consequently, we know very little about the relative effect of changes in the diversity of different trophic groups on multiple ecosystem functions such like soil organic matter, which it is a key component of regulating ecosystem services through its role on ecosystem functioning. In Alpine systems strongly influenced by climatic conditions, a long history of land use and low nutrient levels, understanding and modelling the chain of interactions between environment – multi-trophic assemblages – multi-functionality across space and time, is thus pivotal to sustain human well-being in a global change context.

The overarching objectives of MONTANE are twofold :
– To build an integrated spatio-temporal database of environment (climate and snow), land use, multi-trophic biodiversity and multi-functionality across multiple sites in the French Alps. This database will be fully integrated into the Orchamp observatory network.
– To understand and model the joint effects of environment, land use legacies and multi-trophic assemblages on ecosystem multi-functionality.
Through a combination of remote sensing information, multiple soil measurements, biodiversity monitoring from environmental DNA and multi-functioning estimates, together with spatially explicit latent variable modelling, MONTANE will pave the way for a comprehensive understanding and modelling of the relationships between environment, multi-trophic diversity and multi-functionality. It builds on the academic excellence of the Grenoble-Chambery axis and will place the UGA Idex and the labex OSUG in the top research on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

Publications :
Calderón-Sanou, I., Münkemüller, T., Boyer, F., Zinger, L. & Thuiller, W. (2020) From environmental DNA sequences to ecological conclusions : How strong is the influence of methodological choices ? Journal of Biogeography

Chalmandrier, L., Pansu, J., Zinger, L., Boyer, F., Coissac, E., Génin, A., Gielly, L., Lavergne, S., Legay, N., Schilling, V., Taberlet, P., Münkemüller, T. & Thuiller, W. (2020) Environmental and biotic drivers of soil microbial β-diversity across spatial and phylogenetic scale. Ecography, in press

Martinez-Almoyna, C., Thuiller, W., Chalmandrier, L., Clément, J.C., Foulquier, A., Ohlmann, M., Zinger, L. & Münkemüller, T. (2019) Multi-trophic beta-diversity mediates the effect of environmental gradients on the turnover of multiple ecosystem functions. Functional Ecology, 33(10) 2053-2064

Ohlmann, M., Miele, V., Dray, S., Chalmandrier, L., O’Connor, L. & Thuiller, W. (2019) Diversity indices for ecological networks : a unifying framework using Hill numbers. Ecology Letters, 22, 737-747

Ohlmann, M., Mazel, F., Chalmandrier, L., Bec, S., Chave, J., Coissac, E., Gielly, L., Pansu, J., Schilling, V., Taberlet, P., Zinger, L. & Thuiller, W. (2018) Mapping the imprint of biotic interactions on β-diversity. Ecology Letters, 21, 1660-1669

Partners :