Description du projet
Concevoir des paysages connectés: solution éclair ou impasse pour la conservation de la biodiversité
La disparition des habitats constitue sans doute la plus grande menace qui pèse sur la biodiversité à l’échelle mondiale. Étant donné que les activités humaines consistent en l’expansion des zones bâties, les possibilités de préservation de larges étendues d’habitats naturels s’en trouvent limitées. L’organisation spatiale des habitats restants (configuration) et les possibilités de déplacement des organismes entre ces habitats dans le paysage (perméabilité de la matrice) représentent dès lors des variables essentielles. Ceci dit, le créneau offert par la gestion de ces variables et la quantité d’habitats est matière à débat entre les scientifiques depuis les années 1970, ce qui limite les possibilités de soutien à la prise de décision en ce qui concerne l’aménagement du territoire. Le projet SCALED, financé par l’UE, vise à clore ce débat en combinant des approches de modélisation et empiriques à différentes échelles spatiales et destinées à de nombreux organismes.
Objectif
"The accelerating loss and fragmentation of natural habitats are major threats to biodiversity, the very foundation of our life-supporting system. High land pressure at the global scale reduces opportunities to preserve large amounts of habitat. Habitat configuration (i.e. spatial arrangement) and matrix resistance (i.e. easiness for animals to move between habitat patches) remain the only possible adjustment variables to sustain biodiversity. What the management of habitat configuration and matrix resilience offers as ""window of opportunity"" for conservation has been subject to debate since the 1970s. Resolving this debate is now critical. This is the objective of this project.
SCALED will investigate key ecological processes for multiple organisms and at multiple scales to:
1) understand the circumstances under which different habitat configurations - at fixed habitat amount - can lead to higher or lower levels of biodiversity; 2) understand and quantify the role of matrix resistance - at fixed habitat amount and habitat configuration – in shaping biodiversity in landscapes;
3) generalize and predict how habitat amount, habitat configuration and matrix resistance affect biodiversity with trait-based and process-based modelling.
SCALED combines a new model based on traits and processes at the individual-level with a set of multi-scale innovative empirical experiments, monitored with ambitious sampling designs and a range of advanced tools including landscape genetics and movement telemetry.
SCALED will offer a unique opportunity to validate our predictive model with unprecedented observations of movement, demographic and species-interaction processes under crossed conditions of habitat amount, habitat configuration and matrix resistance. SCALED can also bring wide applications, because public and private land planners deeply need effective decision guidelines and readily usable tools able to bring scientific support to land planning decision-making.
"
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
75794 Paris
France