DyAFor - Dynamics and community assembly of tropical forests
Keywords
Our main objective is to improve our understanding of tree community dynamics and assembly in tropical forests, in order to predict their potential future under different global change scenarios.
Using a diversity of tools from different fields (e.g. ecophysiology, genomics, remote sensing, modelling) in various environmental and anthropogenic contexts across the tropics, we provide evidence-based knowledge on the mechanisms that shape the temporal and spatial variability of the diversity, structure, and functioning of tropical forests.
To this end, we use three complementary approaches: i) the implementation of experiments that allow to empirically control variables or processes of interest in order to understand their effects; ii) the collection of field observations to document existing patterns and inform their underlying processes using statistical frameworks; iii) the development of models to assimilate various data and evaluate empirical knowledge on processes and their interactions. The integration of these three mutually-informative approaches allows to identify the spatial and temporal scales at which ecological and evolutionary processes act and interact in shaping the dynamics and assembly of tropical forests, and improve our ability to predict the fate of tropical forests with increasing anthropogenic pressure and climate stress. Our work focuses mainly on plants, but can also integrate other trophic levels (e.g. herbivores and micro-organisms) that play a key role in certain processes, such as the maintenance of local diversity through negative density dependence, or carbon and nutrient fluxes through decomposition.
Our multidisciplinary team develops research projects in South America (French Guiana, Peru and Ecuador), Central Africa (Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, and DR Congo), Asia (India and Thailand) and the Pacific (New Caledonia and Pacific islands), thus opening up perspectives for regional syntheses and intercontinental comparisons across the tropics. In each of these projects, we rely in particular on networks of permanent forest plots et up and monitored by ourselves and our collaborators in French Guiana (Guyadiv), Central Africa (Africadiv) and New Caledonia (NC-PIPPN). These networks represent c. 850 plots of 100 m2 up to 1 ha and c. 200,000 inventoried trees. We also leverage data from large international networks, such as the Amazon Tree Diversity Network or ForestGeo. Some projects benefit from collaborative research infrastructures, such as LabEx CEBA in French Guiana, LMI BioInca in Ecuador and Colombia, or LMI DYCOFAC in Central Africa. Our group regularly goes in the field on short trips or long stays (e.g. expats), thus ensuring the long-term maintenance of field set-ups and local collaborative networks
| Acronym | Title | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| ADMIRE | Partenariat pour l’Analyse des DynaMIques de REforestation et de la résilience forestière Project PI: Philippe BIRNBAUM | 2021 - 2024 |
| ALT | Amazonian Landscapes in Transition Project PI: Jérôme CHAVE (EDB, Toulouse) | 2022 - 2025 |
| DESSFOR | Degraded Stable States in Tropical Forests Project PI: Maxime REJOU-MECHAIN | 2021 - 2024 |
| DOPAMICS | Domestication and adaptation in Neotropical palms – a microevolutionary history Project PI: Louise BROUSSEAU | 2022 - 2027 |
| EDENE | Extinction dynamics of endemic trees in exotic-dominated ecosystems Project PI: Robin POUTEAU | 2023 - 2026 |
| IFIHSA | Inventaires forestriers par imagerie hyperspectrale aéroportée Project PI: Olivier BRUNAUX (ONF) | 2023 - 2024 |
| ISLETS | Island Leaf Ecophysiological Trait Synthesis Project PI: Claire FORTUNEL / Kasey BARTON (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa) | 2023 - 2025 |
| MELANOBS | Towards a Melanesian observatory of forest response to global change Project PI: Thomas IBANEZ | 2023 - 2025 |
| Phenobs | Towards a phenology observatory in French Guiana to study climate-vegetation feedbacks and the diversity of plant strategies Project PI: Nicolas BARBIER | 2020 - 2024 |
| SynTreeSys | Synthesis of Neotropical Tree Biodiversity with Plot Inventories Project PI: Jérôme CHAVE (EDB, Toulouse) / Adriane ESQUIVEL MUELBERT (University of Birmingham (UK)) | 2021 - 2024 |
BADOUARD Vincyane 2022 - 2024. Déterminants de la distribution spatiale des arbres du sous-étage en forêts tropicales. Ecole doctorale : GAIA / Université de Montpellier. Dir : VINCENT Grégoire / Co-dir. : MARCON Eric
KACAMAK Asli-Begum 2020 - 2023. Stratégies écologiques des lianes africaines en milieu stable et perturbé : des modèles bio-inspirants pour la robotique douce.. Ecole doctorale : GAIA / Université de Montpellier. Dir : ROWE Nicholas / Co-dir. : ROSSI Vivien
KREBBER Daniela 2019 - 2023. Comment la biodiversité influence-t-elle la réponse des forêts tropicales aux changements climatiques et aux perturbations anthropiques ?. Ecole doctorale : GAIA / Université de Guyane. Dir : MARCON Eric
PICARD Juliette 2021 - 2024. Dynamique spatio-temporelle des forêts à Marantacées d’Afrique centrale. Ecole doctorale : GAIA / Université de Montpellier. Dir : COUTERON Pierre
PRIEUR Colin 2022 - 2025. Télédétection hyperspectrale pour l’exploitation soutenable des forêts tropicales: quand la modélisation physique rencontre l'apprentissage profond.. Ecole doctorale : GAIA / Université de Montpellier. Dir : VINCENT Grégoire / Co-dir. : CHANUSSOT jocelyn
ROJAT Margaux 2023 - 2026. Interactions biotiques entre les plantes exotiques envahissantes et les arbres menacés endémiques des Mascareignes. Ecole doctorale : GAIA / Université de Montpellier. Dir : PELISSIER Raphaël