Résumé
Ecosystems support the adaptation of societies to global changes through their contributions to people's quality of life. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) implementation remains a challenge and will require changes of practices, structures and processes underpinning human and nature interactions, also considered as co-production of nature’s contributions to adaptation (NCA). We analysed the levers required to implement EBA to reach a future desired by stakeholders of a mountain social-ecological system in the French Alps. Using a participatory backcasting scenario approach and a serious game, local stakeholders were invited to design a desired vision for their region in 2040 and reflect on strategies and levers for reaching it. We analysed co-production actions required to achieve adaptation objectives aligned with the vision. We then assessed how local communities can leverage these actions to navigate a desired adaptation pathway. EBA and landscape multifunctionality are critical to achieve stakeholders’ vision. EBA require substantial adjustments, transformations, or new co-production actions, but natural capital was not a limiting factor for adaptation. Synergies among multiple co-production actions create windows of opportunity for local communities to achieve their vision through the combination of social levers. However, most powerful levers, like collaborative decision-making or common strategy design, appeared the most difficult to activate. EBA is mainly constrained here by social barriers reflecting the lack of collaboration and communication among stakeholders. Recognizing potential contributions of ecosystems to adaptation by maintaining and developing NCA supply can help communities to re-structure and re-think their local social-ecological system to achieve desired and sustainable pathways.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Enora Bruley , Bruno Locatelli , Matt J. Colloff , Nicolas Salliou , Thibault Métris , Sandra Lavorel
Publication : Environmental Science & Policy
Date : 2021
Volume : 124
Pages : 567-579
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Snow depth estimation derived from high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) can lead to improved understanding of the spatially highly heterogeneous nature of snow distribution, as well as help us improve our knowledge of how snow patterns influence local geomorphic processes. Slope deformation processes such as permafrost creep can make it challenging to acquire a snow-free DEM that matches the sub-snow topography at the time of the associated snow-covered DEM, which can cause errors in the computed snow depths. In this study, we illustrate how modelling changes in the sub-snow topography can reduce errors in snow depths derived from DEM differencing in an area of permafrost creep. To model the sub-snow topography, a surface deformation model was constructed by performing non-rigid registration based on B-splines of two snow-free DEMs. Seasonal variations in creep were accounted for by using an optimization approach to find a suitable value to scale the deformation model based on in-situ snow depth measurements or the presence of snow-free areas corresponding to the date of the snow-covered DEM. This scaled deformation model was used to transform one of the snow-free DEMs to estimate the sub-snow topography corresponding to the date of the snow-covered DEM. The performance of this method was tested on an active rock glacier in the southern French Alps for two surveys dates, which were conducted in the winter and spring of 2017.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Jason Goetz , Paul Fieguth , Keyvan Kasiri , Xavier Bodin , Marco Marcer , Alexander Brenning
Publication : Remote Sensing of Environment
Date : 2025
Volume : 231
Pages : 111275
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Demographic compensation arises when vital rates change in opposite directions across populations, buffering the variation in population growth rates, and is a mechanism often invoked to explain the stability of species geographic ranges. However, studies on demographic compensation have disregarded the effects of temporal variation in vital rates and their temporal correlations, despite theoretical evidence that stochastic dynamics can affect population persistence in temporally varying environments. We carried out a seven-year-long demographic study on the perennial plant Arabis alpina (L.) across six populations encompassing most of its elevational range. We discovered demographic compensation in the form of negative correlations between the means of plant vital rates, but also between their temporal coefficients of variation, correlations and elasticities. Even if their contribution to demographic compensation was small, this highlights a previously overlooked, but potentially important, role of stochastic processes in stabilising population dynamics at range margins.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Marco Andrello , Pierre de Villemereuil , Marta Carboni , Delphine Busson , Marie-Josée Fortin , Oscar E. Gaggiotti , Irène Till‐Bottraud
Publication : Ecology Letters
Date : 2025
Volume : 23
Issue : 5
Pages : 870-880
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Methods: Our approach gradually constrains null models by: (1) filtering out species not able to survive in the regional conditions in order to reduce the spatial scale, and (2) shuffling species only within lineages of different ages to reduce the evolutionary scale of the analysis. We first tested and validated this approach using simulated communities. We then applied it to study the functional diversity patterns of the leaf–height–seed strategy of plant communities in the French Alps.
Results: Using simulations, we found that reducing the spatial scale correctly detected a signature of competition (functional divergence) even when environmental filtering produced an overlaying signal of functional convergence. However, constraining the evolutionary scale did not change the identified functional diversity patterns. In the case study of alpine plant communities, investigating scale effects revealed that environmental filtering had a strong influence at larger spatial and evolutionary scales and that neutral processes were more important at smaller scales. In contrast to the simulation study results, decreasing the evolutionary scale tended to increase patterns of functional divergence.
Conclusion: We argue that the traditional null model approach can only identify a single main process at a time and suggest to rather use a family of null models to disentangle intertwined assembly processes acting across spatial and evolutionary scales.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs L. Chalmandrier , T. Münkemüller , L. Gallien , F. de Bello , F. Mazel , S. Lavergne , W. Thuiller , Rasmus Ejrnaes
Publication : Journal of Vegetation Science
Date : 2025
Volume : 24
Issue : 5
Pages : 853-864
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Continental-scale assessments of 21st century global impacts of climate change on biodiversity have forecasted range contractions for many species. These coarse resolution studies are, however, of limited relevance for projecting risks to biodiversity in mountain systems, where pronounced microclimatic variation could allow species to persist locally, and are ill-suited for assessment of species-specific threat in particular regions. Here, we assess the impacts of climate change on 2632 plant species across all major European mountain ranges, using high-resolution (ca. 100 m) species samples and data expressing four future climate scenarios. Projected habitat loss is greater for species distributed at higher elevations; depending on the climate scenario, we find 36–55% of alpine species, 31–51% of subalpine species and 19–46% of montane species lose more than 80% of their suitable habitat by 2070–2100. While our high-resolution analyses consistently indicate marked levels of threat to cold-adapted mountain florae across Europe, they also reveal unequal distribution of this threat across the various mountain ranges. Impacts on florae from regions projected to undergo increased warming accompanied by decreased precipitation, such as the Pyrenees and the Eastern Austrian Alps, will likely be greater than on florae in regions where the increase in temperature is less pronounced and rainfall increases concomitantly, such as in the Norwegian Scandes and the Scottish Highlands. This suggests that change in precipitation, not only warming, plays an important role in determining the potential impacts of climate change on vegetation.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Robin Engler , Christophe F. Randin , Wilfried Thuiller , Stefan Dullinger , Niklaus E. Zimmermann , Miguel B. Araújo , Peter B. Pearman , Gwenaëlle Le Lay , Christian Piedallu , Cécile H. Albert , Philippe Choler , Gheorghe Coldea , Xavier De LAMO , Thomas Dirnböck , Jean-Claude Gégout , Daniel Gómez-García , John-Arvid Grytnes , Einar Heegaard , Fride Høistad , David Nogués-Bravo
Publication : Global Change Biology
Date : 2025
Volume : 17
Issue : 7
Pages : 2330-2341
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Biogeographic delineations within the European temperate mountains remain poorly understood, as there has been little effort to assemble and analyze vegetation relevés covering Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians and Balkans altogether. Our study tackles this issue by focusing on the widely distributed alpine acidic grasslands dominated by Carex curvula. Cluster analysis of more than 800 vegetation relevés revealed the European-scale spatial patterns of vascular plant diversity in these alpine grasslands. The geographical distribution of floristic clusters was partly congruent with the physiography of European mountains. Southern European ranges (Southern Balkans and Pyrenees) exhibit a high level of endemism and corresponding floristic clusters are well separated from the others. Marked floristic similarities between the Easternmost Alps, the Carpathians, and the Northern Balkans (Stara Planina) supported a major floristic boundary that runs through the Austrian Alps and that is likely the legacy of a shared Quaternary history. Within the Alps, floristic clustering was mainly driven by ecological drivers and not geography. This paper presents the first detailed study of spatial patterns of species distribution within the European Alpine System, based on a comprehensive analysis of within- and between-community species diversity. It shows that the quantitative analysis of large and consistent data sets may question the traditional delineations of biogeographic regions within European mountains.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Mihai Puşcaş , Philippe Choler
Publication : Flora - Morphology, Distribution, Functional Ecology of Plants
Date : 2025
Volume : 207
Issue : 3
Pages : 168-178
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Cushion plants have long fascinated botanists for their ability to cope with extreme environments in most mountains and arctic regions of the world. One century ago, a first worldwide catalogue of species forming cushions was published by Hauri and Schröter (Bot Jahrb Syst Pflanzengesch Pflanzengeogr 50:618–656, 1914). Here, we defined a simplified typology of cushion plants and updated the worldwide catalogue of cushion species, along with information on their geographic distribution. This compilation was based on available information in floras and catalogues but also in efloras and virtual encyclopedias, which were screened using automated database queries. We established a list of 1,309 cushion-forming species distributed in 272 genera and 63 families of angiosperms. Compact cushions are represented by 678 species, among which 587 species exhibit a hemispherical shape, and 91 species exhibit a flat to mat shape. We found 398 species forming non-compact hemispherical cushions. The list of cushion species has significantly increased since Hauri and Shröter, due to the description of new species, updated regional inventories, and improved access to electronic databases. Uncertainties in the delineation of the cushion life form are discussed, notably for non-compact growth forms. A website has been launched to display the catalogue and enable a collaborative improvement of the database (http://www.cushionplants.eu/). The distribution of the species is presented on the basis of the world geographical scheme for recording plant distributions and global biodiversity information facility data. This catalogue will serve as a reference database for further analyses on the biogeography and evolutionary history of cushion plants and arctico-alpine biotas.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Serge Aubert , Florian Boucher , Sébastien Lavergne , Julien Renaud , Philippe Choler
Publication : Alpine Botany
Date : 2014
Volume : 124
Issue : 1
Pages : 59-70
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Lautaret #UGARésumé
Alpine glacier variations are known to be reliable proxies of Holocene climate. Here, we present a terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN)-based glacier chronology relying on 24 new 10Be exposure ages, which constrain maximum Neoglacial positions of four small to mid-sized glaciers (Rateau, Lautaret, Bonnepierre and Etages) in the Ecrins-Pelvoux massif, southern French Alps. Glacier advances, marked by (mainly lateral) moraine ridges that are located slightly outboard of the Little Ice Age (LIA, c. 12501860 AD) maximum positions, were dated to 4.25 ± 0.44 ka, 3.66 ± 0.09 ka, 2.09 ± 0.10 ka, c. 1.31 ± 0.17 ka and to 0.92 ± 0.02 ka. The ‘4.2 ka advance’, albeit constrained by rather scattered dates, is to our knowledge exposure-dated here for the first time in the Alps. It is considered as one of the first major Neoglacial advance in the western Alps, in agreement with other regional paleoclimatological proxies. We further review Alpine and Northern Hemisphere mid-to-high latitude evidence for climate change and glacier activity concomitant with the ‘4.2 ka event’. The ‘2.1 ka advance’ was not extensively dated in the Alps and is thought to represent a prominent advance in early Roman times. Other Neoglacial advances dated here match the timing of previously described Alpine Neoglacial events. Our results also suggest that a Neoglacial maximum occurred at Etages Glacier 0.9 ka ago, i.e. during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, c. 850-1250 AD). At Rateau Glacier, discordant results are thought to reflect exhumation and snow cover of the shortest moraine boulders. Overall, this study highlights the need to combine several sites to develop robust Neoglacial glacier chronologies in order to take into account the variability in moraine deposition pattern and landform obliteration and conservation.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Melaine Le Roy , Philip Deline , Julien Carcaillet , Irene Schimmelpfennig , Magali Ermini
Publication : Quaternary Science Reviews
Date : 2025
Volume : 178
Pages : 118-138