Séminaire de Margot Neyret

“Integrating diverse ecological and social-ecological data: examples of ecological synthesis “

I will present two contrasted synthesis studies conducted in the Biodiversity Exploratories, a large-scale, long term platform in Germany for ecological and socio-ecological research.

1. Slow-fast trait synchrony at the level of whole communitiesAcrossthe tree of life, life history strategies form a continuum from slow- to fast-growing organisms in response to common drivers such as resource availability and disturbance. However, the synchronization of these strategies at the entire community level is untested. We combine trait data for >2800above- and belowground taxa from 14 trophic guilds in German grasslands spanning a disturbance and resource availability gradient. I will show that most guilds consistently respond to these drivers through both direct and trophically-mediated effects, resulting in a ‘slow-fast’ axis at the level of the entire community.Fast trait communities were also associated with faster rates of ecosystem functioning. These findings demonstrate that ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ strategies can be manifested at the level of whole ecosystems, opening new avenues of ecosystem-level functional classification.

2. Landscape strategies for multifunctionality and social equity

Increasing pressure on land resources necessitates landscape management strategies that simultaneously deliver multiple benefits to numerous stakeholder groups with competing interests. Accordingly, we developed an approach that combines ecological data on all types of ecosystem services with information describing the ecosystem service priorities of multiple stakeholder groups. We identified landscape scenarios that maximise overall ecosystem service supply relative to demand (multifunctionality) for the whole stakeholder community, while maintaining equitable distribution of ecosystem benefits across groups. I will discuss our results for rural Germany and their implications for identifying sustainable land-use transformations.