November 2020
New study bringing evidence on the ability of protected areas to deliver some benefit for birds conservation.
This one is finally out! (based a study I led in 2017)
Using Citizen Science data from the French Breeding Bird Survey (spatial distribution of studied sites on the figure on the right), we compared temporal trends of common breeding species - including mostly non-targeted avian biodiversity - inside and outside N2000 network.
We provide evidence that common bird species (bottom-left figure), farmland bird more especially (bottom-right figure), may have benefited from the protection or management measures of the N2000 network, but are still in decline.
The 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 of the N2000 network suggests that it is not able to reverse negative population trends either because the land management or spatially extent are insufficient...
We suggest that 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒔, 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑷𝑨, 𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔, are the priority actions that may help improve N2000 effectiveness.
More details here!
September 2020
Let's start this new academic year with some conservation optimism... Protected Areas are working!
This new study shows that Protected Areas are contributing significantly to the conservation of rare & threatened birds across tropical biodiversity hotspots.
I am happy to share this work led by Victor Cazalis (PhD student at Univ Montpellier) co-authored with Ana Rodrigues (CNRS, Montpellier), JB Mihoub (MNHN Paris), Joseph Kelly (Univ Montpellier), Stuart Butchart (BirdLife, UK) and myself.
Results show protected areas retain more bird species of concern - threatened, endemics, forest specialists - than similar but unprotected areas. Protected areas achieve this by preserving forest quantity & quality, which in turn has a positive effect on species of concern.
More details here
Protected areas are a crucial tool for bending the curve on biodiversity loss, but for that they need to work. They are not perfectly effective (e.g. suffering deforestation) but making significant difference to retaining species & habitats. We need more & more effective PAs!
May 2020
Citizen Science is not only a way to collect ecologically sound data, it is also a direct conservation tool!
You want to know why? Have a look at this paper in which we show that participating in nature-based citizen science programs can spur to engage in biodiversity-friendly behaviours.
Pretty happy to come back from maternity leave - and while still lockdown due to covid - which such news ;-)
November 2019
New empirical evidence that the effects of climate and land cover changes on bird communities are intrinsically intertwined, and need to be considered together to monitor and predict the future of farmland biodiversity.
Study led by Pierre Gaüzère and just published in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.
September 2019 (updated Nov. 2019)
Our new study led by F. Jiguet showing a link between toe mutilation in urban pigeons and human-induced pollution has been accepted in Biological Conservation. (Stay tuned!) Paper finally published and freely available with this link (until December 26, 2019).
Urbanization is intensifying worldwide, and little is known about how changes in urban landscapes influence wildlife health in cities. Foot deformities are ubiquitous in urban pigeons, but the reasons for these mutilations have been debated (infection by Staphylococcus bacteria; contact with chemical or mechanistic pigeon deterrents; necrosis following stringfeet). Here we tested the hypothesis that pigeons' toe deformities arise from human-induced pollution in urban environments: street litter dirtiness, human population density, and other potential proxies related to human density too, such as noise and air pollution. With this study, we highlight that urban interfaces raise concerns not only about disease emergence, but also about mechanical injuries to urban wildlife, arising from human activities and development.
This study has caught some attention in the media:
August 2019
Happy to announce that the collaborative review paper I have been part of on boreal bird population monitoring and analysis is finally published in Avian Ecology and Evolution (Special thanks to Chris Roy for leading this work!).
The boreal forest provides essential habitat for many migratory birds, and this ecosystem is projected to become a critical climate stronghold for even more species. Yet due to its size and inaccessibility the region is poorly sampled, & most surveys are conducted along the southern fringe. In this context, in this paper we seek to (1) review the existing monitoring programs, (2) discuss the available statistical tools for population monitoring and their applications (including hierarchical models & IPMs), and (3) identify future directions to overcome current challenges in monitoring bird populations in the boreal forest.
October 2018
I am looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic Master student to join us next semester for a research internship (French std => aka 6 months) to work on modeling bird community diversity based on opportunistic survey data. This work will be part of an ongoing research project funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (VGI4Bio project).
Overview: Opportunistic biodiversity data - collected by amateur naturalists without protocol - provide the opportunity to improve the reliability, scope and accuracy of biodiversity indicators. However, since these data are collected without documenting the observation pressures, several statistical locks (spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the observation pressure, heterogeneity of the quality of the data) must be taken into account in order to obtain reliable information. Our objective is to take advantage of the recent development of a new statistical framework, Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities, to model community diversity of French birds using opportunistic data, while accounting for species co-occurrence patterns and traits.
The candidate should have interest in quantitative ecology, citizen sciences and macroecology. The candidate is expected to have good knowledge of statistical tools, and experience with R development software. Knowledge of development and application of hierarchical modeling and/or Bayesian methods would be appreciated.
Co-advisors: Stéphane Dray & Wilfried Thuiller
Work location will preferentially be Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive - Université ClaudeBernard Lyon I, Lyon.
More details can be find here. Feel free to contact me for any further information.
September 2018
I have been invited to participate in a Workshop on "Time series Analyses" led by Luc Barbaro. We spent 2 days in a stunning place (in Côteaux de Gascogne) discussing our different methodologies to analyse environmental & biodiversity time series. It was the opportunity for me to present a good part of the work done during my postdoc at UW-Madison in the Zuckerberg Lab (it was also the opportunity to reminds me that part of this work is still waiting to be published...!!). Early-evening bird watching, bat acoustic monitoring, and good meals have accompanied these intense working sessions ;-)
Bird watching session
Evening Bat Acoustic Monitoring
Lunch break
April 2018
Looking forward to attending the next European Citizen Science Association conference (ECSA2018) in Geneva, Switzerland! We will be presenting some pretty cool work on whether environmentally-friendly behaviours can emerge from participation to Citizen Science during a speed talk session on June 4th (presentation entitled: "Does multi-annual participation to a garden butterfly survey induce environmentally significant behaviours in garden owners?").
March 2018
My talk "Assessing the long-term effect of Natura 2000 network on common breeding bird communities" has been accepted at the next European Conference for Conservation Biology (12th-15th of June 2018) in Jyväskylä, Finland. I will be presenting some major outcomes from my previous (short-term) postdoc at the French Museum of Natural History. Stay tuned if you want to know more about it (draft of paper in prep), or see you in Finland ;)
January 2018
We got some coverage of our paper published in J Applied Ecology this month!
Climate change threatens bird populations in the Great Lakes. The Daily Cardinal (01/23/2018)
Lake Michigan waterfowl botulism deaths linked to warm waters, algae. UW-Madison News (10/16/2014)
Others: Science Daily (01/09/208), Science Newsline (01/10/2018)...
January 2018
Our recently accepted paper in Journal of Applied Ecology is out today! Here is a brief overview of our study:
Outbreaks of avian botulism type E have become more common throughout the Great Lakes and have been associated with large die-offs of waterbirds. Using data collected by citizen scientists on beached waterbird carcasses around northern Lake Michigan from 2010 to 2013, we found that several waterbird species demonstrated synchronized patterns of mortality over time and space. Importantly, the extent and timing of mortality matched changes in lake temperatures and the presence of macroalgae, two factors suspected to be important in the spread of avian botulism. Our findings are suggestive of a synchronizing effect where warmer lake temperatures and greater macroalgae prevalence are associated with increased avian mortality, especially among resident bird species. Future climate conditions in the Great Lakes are likely to promote bird mortality events of a higher magnitude and greater extent. Citizen-based monitoring efforts are critical for estimating future risk to waterbird populations to disease outbreaks.
More details can be found here, and do not hesitate to reach out at me if you want to chat about the results of our study (CONTACT).
November 2017
Great news!! It's been a (very) long process to get this one out... but another of my manuscripts initiated during my first postdoc - at UW-Madison - finally got accepted for publication in Journal of Applied Ecology. Stay tuned if you want to know more about how citizen science data helped us to reveal synchrony between avian botulism mortality and fluctuations in environmental conditions in the Great Lakes area. (Special thanks to Ben Zuckerberg for pushing me not to let go on this one ;) )
July 2017
It's been a while since I posted in this feed... Maternity leave, moving, postdoc/job applications, interviews, succession of negative responses (aka professional failures for me), all this kept me away from day-to-day research work and news. But... I am coming back with a pretty good news! The project I was contributing to, finally got funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR)! More details will come soon about the project VGI4BIO: "VGI users & data centered methods for the analysis of farmland biodiversity indicators: A participative SOLAP approach for opportunistic data"
October 2015
I am invited to give a presentation at the colloque « Agriculture et Biodiversité : des liens essentiels ! » organized by the LPO in Valence on October 26th. I will present results from recent work done on the past and future of farmland bird populations in France based on French BBS.
August 2015
I am leading a symposium with Wesley Hochachka (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) at ICCB-ECCB 2015, in Montpellier, on Citizen Science in Conservation Science: the new paths, from data collection to data interpretation.
The symposium focuses on analytical tools and methods recently developed and their application to data from participatory monitoring, opportunistic, etc.
Invited speakers: Dr. Nick Isaac (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Wallingford, UK), Dr. Alison Johnston (British Trust of Ornithology – Norfolk, UK), Dr. Camille Coron (Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées, École Polytechnique – Paris, France), Dr. Jörn Pagel (University of Potsdam - Germany), Dr. Arco Van Strien (Statistics Netherlands - Den Haag, The Netherlands), Dr. Olivier Gimenez (Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive – Montpellier, France).
November 2014
We got pretty good coverage of our recent paper in GCB last month!
How climate change is transforming winter birds, Conservation Magazine - U of Washington (10/23/2014)
Warming climate restructuring bird population, The Economic Times (10/18/2014)
Winter bird feeders: Get ready for a busy season, Science (10/17/2014)
Climate change alters cast of winter birds, UW-Madison News (10/16/2014)
UW research: Global warming a welcome mat for small birds keen to winter up north, Wisconsin State Journal (10/15/2014)
October 2014
My recent work at UW Madison, with Ben Zuckerberg, on the impact of climate change on north american winter bird communities published in Global Change Biology, got covered in Science News!
July 2014
I am glad to report that I will give a presentation at the upcoming AOU-COS-SCO 2014 Joint Meeting, in Boulder CO in September. I will present results from one of my current postdoc projects titled: Using citizen science to explore spatio-temporal patterns of avian botulism mortality events in Lake Michigan. Abstract
April 2014
Talk accepted at the 2014 ESA Annual Meeting, Sacramento CA! My talk will be based on my postdoc work and is titled: Climate change in our backyards: the reshuffling of North America’s winter bird communities. Abstract
February 2014
Battling Botulism in Birds (USGS National Wildlife Health Center)
August 2013
Modelling the effects of CAP policy options on farmland biodiversity (Joint Research Center)