Résumé
This study analyzes the impact of droughts, compared with average climatic conditions, on the supporting ecosystem service water provision in sub-watersheds in managed alpine grasslands in two climatically different regions of the Alps, Lautaret (French Alps) and Stubai (Austrian Alps). Soil moisture was modelled in the range of 0–0.3 m. At both sites, current patterns showed that the mean seasonal soil moisture was (1) near field capacity for grasslands with low management intensity and (2) below field capacity for grasslands with higher land-use intensity. Soil moisture was significantly reduced by drought at both sites, with lower reductions at the drier Lautaret site. At the sub-watershed scale, soil moisture spatial heterogeneity was reduced by drought. Under drought conditions, the evapotranspiration to precipitation ratios at Stubai was slightly higher than those at Lautaret, indicating a dominant ‘water spending’ strategy of plant communities. Regarding catchment water balance, deep seepage was reduced by drought at Stubai more strongly than at Lautaret. Hence, the observed ‘water spending’ strategy at Stubai might have negative consequences for downstream water users. Assessing the water provision service for alpine grasslands provided evidence that, under drought conditions, evapotranspiration was influenced not only by abiotic factors but also by the water-use strategy of established vegetation. These results highlight the importance of ‘water-use’ strategies in existing plant communities as predictors of the impacts of drought on water provision services and related ecosystem services at both the field and catchment scale. © 2015 The Authors. Ecohydrology published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Georg Leitinger , Romed Ruggenthaler , Albin Hammerle , Sandra Lavorel , Uta Schirpke , Jean-Christophe Clement , Pénélope Lamarque , Nikolaus Obojes , Ulrike Tappeiner
Publication : Ecohydrology
Date : 2025
Volume : 8
Issue : 8
Pages : 1600-1613
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Climatic variation is a key driver of genetic differentiation and phenotypic traits evolution, and local adaptation to temperature is expected in widespread species. We investigated phenotypic and genomic changes in the native range of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. We first refine the phylogeographic structure based on genome-wide regions (1,901 double-digest restriction-site associated DNA single nucleotide polymophisms [ddRAD SNPs]) from 41 populations. We then explore the patterns of cold adaptation using phenotypic traits measured in common garden (wing size and cold tolerance) and genotype-temperature associations at targeted candidate regions (51,706 exon-capture SNPs) from nine populations. We confirm the existence of three evolutionary lineages including clades A (Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos), B (China and Okinawa), and C (South Korea and Japan). We identified temperature-associated differentiation in 15 out of 221 candidate regions but none in ddRAD regions, supporting the role of directional selection in detected genes. These include genes involved in lipid metabolism and a circadian clock gene. Most outlier SNPs are differently fixed between clades A and C, whereas clade B has an intermediate pattern. Females are larger at higher latitude yet produce no more eggs, which might favor the storage of energetic reserves in colder climate. Nondiapausing eggs from temperate populations survive better to cold exposure than those from tropical populations, suggesting they are protected from freezing damages but this cold tolerance has a fitness cost in terms of egg viability. Altogether, our results provide strong evidence for the thermal adaptation of A. albopictus across its wide temperature range.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Stephanie Sherpa , Jordan Tutagata , Thierry Gaude , Frederic Laporte , Shinji Kasai , Intan H. Ishak , Xiang Guo , Jiyeong Shin , Sebastien Boyer , Sebastien Marcombe , Theeraphap Chareonviriyaphap , Jean-Philippe David , Xiao-Guang Chen , Xiaohong Zhou , Laurence Despres
Publication : MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Date : 2022
Volume : 39
Issue : 5
Catégorie(s)
#ANR-Citation #CNRS #Lautaret #UGAAuteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Sandra Lavorel , Karl Grigulis
Publication : Journal of Ecology
Date : 2025
Volume : 100
Issue : 1
Pages : 128-140
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGAAuteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Sébastien Ibanez , Fabien Arène , Sébastien Lavergne
Publication : Oecologia
Date : 2025
Volume : 180
Issue : 4
Pages : 989-1000
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
The ecosystem services (ES) concept has emerged and spread widely recently, to enhance the importance of preserving ecosystems through global change in order to maintain their benefits for human well-being. Numerous studies consider various dimensions of the interactions between ecosystems and land use via ES, but integrated research addressing the complete feedback loop between biodiversity, ES and land use has remained mostly theoretical. Few studies consider feedbacks from ecosystems to land use systems through ES, exploring how ES are taken into account in land management decisions. To fill this gap, we carried out a role-playing game to explore how ES cognition mediates feedbacks from environmental change on farmers’ behaviors in a mountain grassland system. On a close to real landscape game board, farmers were faced with changes in ES under climatic and socio-economic scenarios and prompted to plan for the future and to take land management decisions as they deemed necessary. The outcomes of role-playing game were complemented with additional agronomic and ecological data from interviews and fieldwork. The effects of changes in ES on decision were mainly direct, i.e. not affecting knowledge and values, when they constituted situations with which farmers were accustomed. For example, a reduction of forage quantity following droughts led farmers to shift from mowing to grazing. Sometimes, ES cognitions were affected by ES changes or by external factors, leading to an indirect feedback. This happened when fertilization was stopped after farmers learned that it was inefficient in a drought context. Farmers’ behaviors did not always reflect their attitudes towards ES because other factors including topographic constraints, social value of farming or farmer individual and household characteristics also influenced land-management decisions. Those results demonstrated the interest to take into account the complete feedback loop between ES and land management decisions to favor more sustainable ES management.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Pénélope Lamarque , Patrick Meyfroidt , Baptiste Nettier , Sandra Lavorel , Kurt O. Reinhart
Publication : Plos One
Date : 2014
Volume : 9
Issue : 9
Pages : e107572
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Background: The tussock grass Festuca paniculata can become strongly dominant in subalpine grasslands after cessation of mowing. The depletion of water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) reserves has been suggested as a mechanism by which mowing can contain this species. By affecting plant physiology and especially by favouring WSC accumulation, extreme summer weather (i.e. exceptionally hot and dry) could however counterbalance the effects of mowing on WSC reserves in F. paniculata. The relevance of this hypothesis needs to be tested in the current context of climate and land-use changes. Aims: We investigated (1) the physiological mechanisms that control the growth of F. paniculata, (2) how they are affected by mowing and (3) whether extreme summer heat and drought could influence physiological mechanisms and thereby the ecological response of F. paniculata to mowing.
Methods: In a field experiment we manipulated weather and mowing during two summers. For current summer weather (W0), ambient temperature was unchanged and precipitation was adjusted on the past 30-year average. Extreme summer weather (W+) corresponded to a seasonal change (+1◦C, –80% in precipitation compared to W0) and a three-week heatwave (+4.3◦C) in the first year. In addition, vegetation was either mown at 5 cm in late summer (M) or left unmown (U). Concentrations and absolute contents of WSC contained in tiller bases, leaf nitrogen concentration (LNC), vegetative multiplication, plant growth and leaf senescence were measured from one to four times, depending on the variable considered, throughout the summer of the second year of the experiment.
Results: As compared to the unmown treatment, late-summer mowing decreased tillering, tussock size and LNC, regardless of the summer weather treatment. However, it depleted WSC pools, including fructans, only under current summer weather (W0).
Conclusions: These results suggest that extreme summer heat and drought could alleviate the sensitivity of F. paniculata to mowing. They raise the question of the consequences of recurrent summer extremes for conservation management in subalpine grasslands.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Marie-Lise Benot , Patrick Saccone , Rachel Vicente , Emmanuelle Pautrat , Annette Morvan-Bertrand , Marie-Laure Decau , Karl Grigulis , Marie-Pascale Prud'homme , Sandra Lavorel
Publication : Plant Ecology & Diversity
Date : 2025
Volume : 6
Issue : 3-4
Pages : 393-404
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Land use and spatial patterns which reflect social-ecological legacies control ecosystem service (ES) supply. Yet, temporal changes in ES bundles associated with land use change are little studied. We developed original metrics to quantify synchronous historical variations in spatial patterns of land use and ES supply capacity, and demonstrated their use for two mountain grassland landscapes. Consistent with other European mountains, land use dynamics from the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century resulted in increased landscape heterogeneity, followed by homogenisation. In the persistently grassy landscape of Lautaret in France, landscape multifunctionality—the provision of multiple ES—coincided with greatest landscape heterogeneity and within-patch diversity in ecosystem services in the 1950–1970s. In the more complex Austrian landscape, where since the nineteenth century intensive production has concentrated in the valley and steep slopes have been abandoned, grassland landscape-level multifunctionality and spatial heterogeneity across grasslands have decreased. Increasing spatial heterogeneity across grasslands until the 1970s was paralleled at both sites by increasing fine-grained spatial variability for individual ES, but subsequent landscape simplification has promoted coarse-grained ES patterns This novel analysis of landscape-scale turnover highlighted how spatial patterns for individual ES scale to multiple grassland ES, depending on the nature of land use spatial variability. Under current socio-economic trends, sustaining or re-establishing fine-grained landscapes is often not feasible, thus future landscape planning and policies might focus on managing landscape and regional-scale multifunctionality. Also, the trends towards decreasing cultural ES and increasing regulating ES suggest a contradiction with current social demand and regional policies.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Sandra Lavorel , Karl Grigulis , Georg Leitinger , Marina Kohler , Uta Schirpke , Ulrike Tappeiner
Publication : Regional Environmental Change
Date : 2017
Volume : 17
Issue : 8
Pages : 2251-2264
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
To ensure their quality of life, people adapt to multiple changes by maintaining or transforming the structure and functions of their socio-ecological systems (SES). A better understanding of mechanisms underpinning SES adaptation, especially the contribution of changes in human–nature interactions, is crucial to facilitate adaptation to future challenges. Using a chronosystemic timeline and based on literature, archives and local knowledge of inhabitants, we explored the past trajectory of a mountain SES (Pays de la Meije, French Alps) since 1900 by analysing drivers, impacts and responses. We hypothesised that adaptation has occurred through changes in the co-production of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). We identified four historical periods of combined changes in agriculture and tourism with associated changes in NCP. Results show which and how drivers of changes have influenced NCP co-production, how NCP have been mobilised in adaptive responses and how human and natural capitals involved in NCP co-production have been reconfigured for adaptation. We show that drivers of change have been mainly exogenous and out of the control of local actors, like public policies, markets and consumption patterns. These drivers can directly impact the capitals involved in NCP co-production like amount of workforce, knowledge or skills, creating not only threats but also opportunities for the livelihood of the local community. Depending on the intensity of capital reconfiguration and the type of NCP involved, adaptive responses range from resistance to transformation of the governance system and socio-economic sectors. This analysis highlights existing path dependencies that could hinder future adaptation.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Enora Bruley , Bruno Locatelli , François Vendel , Agnès Bergeret , Nicolas Elleaume , Julia Grosinger , Sandra Lavorel
Publication : Regional Environmental Change
Date : 2021
Volume : 21
Issue : 2
Pages : 34
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Small mammal population outbreaks are one of the consequences of socio-economic and technological changes in agriculture. They can cause important economic damage and generally play a key role in food webs, as a major food resource for predators. The fossorial form of the water vole, Arvicola terrestris, was unknown in the Haute Romanche Valley (French Alps) before 1998. In 1998, the first colony was observed at the top of a valley and population spread was monitored during 12 years, until 2010. Spread occurred as a high population density wave. Based on farming history (1810–2003, 193 years) and spatio-temporal analysis of crop rotations, our study indicates that this water vole population outbreak has been promoted by the presence of grassland corridors that increase hayfield connectivity. These corridors appeared as a result of the conversion of cropped fields to hay meadows where water vole outbreaks have occurred. Spatial mosaic management for grasslands with decreasing spatial connectedness should be considered to prevent vole outbreak risks and promote biodiversity.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Guillaume Halliez , François Renault , Eric Vannard , Gilles Farny , Sandra Lavorel , Patrick Giraudoux
Publication : Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
Date : 2025
Volume : 212
Pages : 198-206
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Understanding the influence of the environment on the functional structure of ecological communities is essential to predict the response of biodiversity to global change drivers. Ecological theory suggests that multiple environmental factors shape local species assemblages by progressively filtering species from the regional species pool to local communities. These successive filters should influence the various components of community functional structure in different ways. In this paper, we tested the relative influence of multiple environmental filters on various metrics of plant functional trait structure (i.e. ‘community weighted mean trait’ and components of functional trait diversity, i.e. functional richness, evenness and divergence) in 82 vegetation plots in the Guisane Valley, French Alps. For the 211 sampled species we measured traits known to capture key aspects of ecological strategies amongst vascular plant species, i.e. leaf traits, plant height and seed mass (LHS). A comprehensive information theory framework, together with null model based resampling techniques, was used to test the various environmental effects. Particular community components of functional structure responded differently to various environmental gradients, especially concerning the spatial scale at which the environmental factors seem to operate. Environmental factors acting at a large spatial scale (e.g. temperature) were found to predominantly shape community weighted mean trait values, while fine-scale factors (topography and soil characteristics) mostly influenced functional diversity and the distribution of trait values among the dominant species. Our results emphasize the hierarchical nature of ecological forces shaping local species assemblage: large-scale environmental filters having a primary effect, i.e. selecting the pool of species adapted to a site, and then filters at finer scales determining species abundances and local species coexistence. This suggests that different components of functional community structure will respond differently to environmental change, so that predicting plant community responses will require a hierarchical multi-facet approach.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Francesco de Bello , Sandra Lavorel , Sébastien Lavergne , Cécile H. Albert , Isabelle Boulangeat , Florent Mazel , Wilfried Thuiller
Publication : Ecography
Date : 2025
Volume : 36
Issue : 3
Pages : 393-402