Nicolas Gross
@nicolas-p-gross
Community ecologist interested in the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship
Another great outcome from the #BIODESERT dryland survey publishedin @journalofecology.bsky.social ! Congrats to Kaarina for leading this one! @ftmaestre.bsky.social @inrae-france.bsky.social @urep.bsky.social
In herbaceous plants, phenols are driven by grazing pressure and foliar nitrogen, while woody plants respond mainly to climate (precipitation & temperature). Livestock and climate change thus reshape plant secondary metabolites, with consequences for ecosystem functioning and forage quality 🌍🌱
Plant phenolics play a key roles in plant strategies. Here we explore the drivers of phenolic content in plants over 1800 species across global drylands 🧪🌐 ➡️https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2745.70222
Visiting the long term grassland observatory in Laqueuille France @urep.bsky.social @inrae-france.bsky.social
By applying this approach to #grasslands, we identified the upper limits of management and fertilization practices that could support these emblematic systems without altering their properties, a crucial prerequisite for guiding efficient conservation efforts to prevent grassland degradation!
Overall, trait distributions are an effective variable for detecting ecological thresholds Our research opens new avenues for using functional traits as system variables to study ecosystems under anthropogenic pressure and to build a more predictive science in the era of global change!
When LUI thresholds were crossed, the functional organization of grasslands changed abruptly ➡️Plant species lose their ability to coexist ➡️Distribution become highly uneven and peaked ➡️Communities become highly vulnerable to climate extreme ➡️Grasslands exhibit a low multifunctionality
Using the SKR framework, we successfully identified two thresholds revealing how LUI alters ecosystem structure, stability ➡️First threshold occurred with the implementation of fertilization practices ➡️Second threshold occurs when fertilization exceeded 80 N kg.ha–1.year–1
Trait distributions were highly variable over time! However, the SKR framework can accounts for the inherent stochasticity of ecological systems and helps reveal the imprint of deterministic processes on community assembly and dynamics!
Here, we propose a novel approach the skewness-Kurtosis relationship (SKR) framework, grounded in complex dynamical systems, to analyse the spatiotemporal variability of trait distributions (adapted from doi.org/10.1111/ele....) and detect ecological thresholds
Identifying ecological thresholds is crucial for anticipating the impacts of environmental change Yet, detecting these thresholds is challenging (see for instance www.nature.com/articles/s41...) ➡️ We lack of suitable system variable variables and ecological data are often very noisy!
The re-analyses presented here further confirm that the patterns we originally reported are robust. We stand for the main conclusions of our study and maintain that plant species in arid land are functionally hyperdiverse.
Nathan Rondeau successfully defended his PhD Yesterday on trait dynamics assembly. Exciting works to be published soon !!! Congrats Nathan #inrae #urep #traits #diversity #communityAssembly
Sometimes plants are not so lonely in drylands! But they are in anycase on the Nature cover today :-)! www.nature.com/nature/volum...
This study is part of the @biodesert_erc project led by the @ftmaestre ! It started height years ago with my colleagues and friends @ftmaestre and Yoann Pinguet @CNRS all the folks at the @Maestrelab ! Delighted to be part of the team for so many years! #research_takes_time
A big congratulation to all coauthors who made this crazy global scale study becoming a reality!
Overall, our findings provide a fresh lens through which to view plant architecture, the adaptation of plants to dryland habitats, historical plant colonisation of terrestrial areas, and the capacity of plants to respond to current global changes
Our study further suggests that that the loss of plant cover in the most arid place of our planet leads to ‘plant loneliness syndrome’, where reduced competition for resources produces high degrees of trait uniqueness and functional diversity that are globally exceptional
The sharp increase in trait diversity observed with increases in aridity and grazing pressure resulted mainly from a decrease in trait covariation and a decoupling between macronutrients in plants.
We found an unexpected 88% increase in trait diversity to occur at an aridity threshold of ~0.7 (400mm rain/year). The threshold appeared with the presence of grazers, and moved toward lower aridity levels with increasing grazing pressure.
We, a team of 121 scientist from 27 countries, conducted a global survey of trait diversity within drylands. We measured 20 plant traits in 326 plots from six continents including 133,769 trait measurements, 1,347 observations of 301 plant species
Climate changes the relationships between land use intensification, species richness and grassland multifunctionality! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... Our new paper just out today! Congrats to Lucie Allart for this first phd chapter now published in @jappliedecology.bsky.social
Happy to share our new paper proposing an in depth revision of the concept of soil fertility: Plant–soil synchrony in nutrient cycles: Learning from ecosystems to design sustainable agrosystems doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... Led by S. Fontaine, G. Alvarez and a great team work!