Forecasting the impacts of global changes on French Alpine Flora: distribution of specific, functional and phylogenetic diversities, simulations and conservation strategies

The DIVERSITALP project is supported by the Agence National pour la Recherche (French) as a 4 years project from 2008-2011. It is coordinated by Wilfried Thuiller

Total grant: about 600K€

OBJECTIVES

On-going climate (CC) and land use change (LUC) specifically influence diversity distributions in highly constrained environments such as mountainous regions. However, to the best of our knowledge, no regional/landscape published study have allowed so far to understand by which mechanisms the different levels of diversity (specific, phylogenetic and functional) were distributed in space and what could be the response of these diversities into the future and how to preserve them.

This multidisciplinary project aims to understand and simulate the dynamic of different levels of plant diversity in the French Alps in a CC and LUC context. Using one of the most complete floristic database on France, our project will focus on:

-    the understanding of the mechanisms determining the spatial co-variation of specific, functional and phylogenetic diversity

-    the simulation of these diversities with the help of both statistical models at the regional scale, and spatially explicit landscape model at the landscape scale, according to various climate and land use change scenarios in order to be used for conservation planning, observatory and biodiversity management.

Scientific Partners:

LECA: Wilfried Thuiller, Sébastien Lavergne, Sandra Lavorel, Francesco de Bello, Tamara Münkemüller, Cristina Roquet, Isabelle Boulangeat, Cécile Albert, Julien Renaud, Damien Georges

LBEE: Stéphane Dray, Thibaut Jombart

SAJF: Serge Aubert, Roland Douzet

ISEM: Nicolas Mouquet, Christine Meynard

Associated scientific Partners:

Ecolag: David Mouillot

Conservation Partners:

Alpine Botanical National Conservatory: Luc Garraud, Jérémie Van Es, Noémie Fort

Ecrin National Park: Hérvé Cortot, Richard Bonnet