Harsh environments, ecosystems at the edge of environmental severity gradients, are at the center of my research interest. I am particularly fascinated by the spatio-temporal dimension of the web of interactions and processes shaping communities in cold environments. I am not sure how to explain my personal attraction for cold and snowy conditions, but my scientific interest undoubtedly deals with the potential for the severity of the environment to accentuate structuring forces, reveal mechanisms and characterize underlying mechanisms. My research activities led me to these (sub)-Antarctic, Alpine and Arctic regions.
From September 1999 to July 2001, I worked as research assistant for the French Polar Institute and CNRS on the BIOSOL program “Climate changes and human activities effects on biodiversity of French subantarctic islands” directed by Y. Frenot.
Kerguelen is a French Sub-Antarctic Island sheltering the scientific base “Port-Aux-Français”. The scientific activities are managed by the French Polar Institute (IPEV). During the winter, twenty young scientists monitor and maintain the scientific programs. The PIs and invited researchers come on the island during the summer from November to April to launch new experiments and to ensure the transmission of working sheet between old and new winterers.
I landed on Kerguelen in early December 1999. My first summer campaign on Kerguelen consisted in assisting Y. Frenot in his field campaign and in the acquisition of my independence for the monitoring of the BIOSOL program during the following winter.
During my winter-over, my main lab activity was the sorting under binocular of entomological samples collected and accumulated from the early summer. In the field, I continued the long-term surveys of terrestrial plants phenology and primary succession process on a glacier foreland. I also prospected the plant and insects distribution the Island.
Finally, I had the opportunity to stay on the Island for a second summer campaign to assist M. Hulle in his field campaign and to transmit my experience to the new winterer in charge of the BIOSOL program for the following winter.
I lived 16 months on this isolated, constraining and beautiful island. Such experience leaves its mark for the rest of the life and probably a part of my interests for the functioning of constrained environments found its origins on the “Desolation Island”.
Some pictures of the island and local inhabitants
After two short incursions during undergraduate and master internships, I came back to Alpine Ecology as a post-doctoral and associate researcher in the Alpine Ecology Laboratory of the University of Grenoble. During these successive positions, I conducted several field experiments addressing contrasting questions about alpine ecosystems functioning. Some of these experiments, favoured by internal collaborative initiatives, explored nearly unknown aspects of alpine life such as the winter snow-plants relationships and the plant community of alpine cliffs. My implication in the GLORIA program and MicroClim project has been a return from a latitudinal to an altitudinal edge replacing the remoteness by the slope steepness. The different projects and experiments in alpine ecology are detailed in the research and project pages. Because mountain activities are my main hobbies, spending time in mountain landscape trying to “read” the occurring processes is a really pleasant and efficient way to imagine and develop new research project exploring the integrated alpine plant communities.
Some alpine experiments.
As post-doctoral researcher in the Virtanen’s group, at the University of Oulu, Finland, I analyzed the results of long-term experiments set up at Kilpisjärvi, North-western Finnish Lapland. The landscape is typical Fjeld Lapland with elevation gradients from 200 to 500 m. The vegetation is dominated by subalpine birch woodland under the treeline and arctic mountain tundra above. Kilipisjärvi, the most isolated town of Finland, harbors the Biological Station of the University of Helsinki that is a perfect base camp for light (one day) expedition on field. Two main experiments are still running, a heath vegetation transplantation along an elevation gradient in the mountain tundra and grazing exclosure experiment in willow woodland. Some pictures of Kilpisjärvi landscape and experiments
Nostoc is the field station on the shore of Petuniabutka, central Svalbard that shelters most of the field activities of the Czech Centre for Polar Ecology in the Arctic. TRAPA project used the station as base camp for sampling and setting-up experiments in the (more or less) adjacent valleys allowing deep experience of the High Arctic, including windy and rainy days but also sunny breakfast on the station terrace, Arctic fox visit or Bear watching.
Some pictures from the field, the experiments and local inhabitants