Papers by Jonathan Lenoir
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021
Understanding drivers of success for alien species can inform on potential future invasions. Rece... more Understanding drivers of success for alien species can inform on potential future invasions. Recent conceptual advances highlight that species may achieve invasiveness via performance along at least three distinct dimensions: 1) local abundance, 2) geographic range size, and 3) habitat breadth in naturalized distributions. Associations among these dimensions and the factors that determine success in each have yet to be assessed at large geographic scales. Here, we combine data from over one million vegetation plots covering the extent of Europe and its habitat diversity with databases on species’ distributions, traits, and historical origins to provide a comprehensive assessment of invasiveness dimensions for the European alien seed plant flora. Invasiveness dimensions are linked in alien distributions, leading to a continuum from overall poor invaders to super invaders—abundant, widespread aliens that invade diverse habitats. This pattern echoes relationships among analogous dimens...
Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2021
1. Ecosystem heterogeneity has been widely recognized as a key ecological indicator of several ec... more 1. Ecosystem heterogeneity has been widely recognized as a key ecological indicator of several ecological functions, diversity patterns and change, metapopulation dynamics, population connectivity or gene flow. 2. In this paper, we present a new R package-rasterdiv-to calculate heterogeneity indices based on remotely sensed data. We also provide an ecological application at the landscape scale and demonstrate its power in revealing potentially hidden heterogeneity patterns. 3. The rasterdiv package allows calculating multiple indices, robustly rooted in Information Theory, and based on reproducible open-source algorithms.
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates ... more Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids thus fail to reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions are controlled and most terrestrial species reside. Here we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km² resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e., offset) between in-situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km² pixels (summarized from 8500 unique temperature sensors) across all of the world’s major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding 2 m gridded air tempe...
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2020
Aim: Variation in plant defence traits has been frequently assessed along largescale macroclimati... more Aim: Variation in plant defence traits has been frequently assessed along largescale macroclimatic clines. In contrast, local-scale changes in the environment have recently been proposed to also modulate plant defence traits. Yet, the relative importance of drivers at both scales has never been tested. We aimed to quantify the relative importance of environmental drivers inherent to large and small spatial scales on the physical and chemical defence and tolerance to herbivory in understorey plant species of deciduous forests of Europe. Location: Deciduous forests in Europe. Time period: Present. Major taxa studied: Forest understorey plants. Methods: We sampled four typical ancient forest herbs (Anemone nemorosa, Oxalis acetosella, Deschampsia cespitosa, Milium effusum) along small and large spatial scale gradients (those driven by latitude, elevation, forest management and distance to the forest edge), and analysed a suite of nine constitutively expressed traits associated with overall resistance to herbivory, and their multivariate response to environmental clines. Results: Although our study included a large gradient in macroclimate, we found variation in the local environment at small spatial scales (i.e. soil nutrient concentration and forest structural complexity) to be more important in predicting plant resistance to herbivory. Main conclusions: In addition to macroclimatic conditions, subtle differences in forest microclimate and soil characteristics also played a major role in modulating plant
Forest Ecology and Management, 2020
Despite mounting evidence of species redistribution as climate warms, our knowledge of the coupli... more Despite mounting evidence of species redistribution as climate warms, our knowledge of the coupling between species range shifts and isotherm shifts is limited. Compiling a global geo-database of 30,534 range shifts from 12,415 taxa, we show that only marine taxa closely track the shifting isotherms. In the oceans, the velocity of isotherm shifts interacts synergistically with anthropogenic disturbances and baseline temperatures such that isotherm tracking by marine life happens either in warm and undisturbed waters (e.g. Central Pacific Basin) or in colder waters where human activities are more pronounced (e.g. North Sea). On lands, increasing anthropogenic activities and temperatures negatively impact the capacity of terrestrial taxa to track isotherm shifts in latitude and elevation, respectively. This suggests that terrestrial taxa are lagging behind the shifting isotherms, most likely due to their wider thermal safety margin, more constrained physical environment for dispersal ...
Ecosphere, 2018
Impact of an invasive alien plant on litter decomposition along a latitudinal gradient.
Proceedings of the 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology, 2018
During climate change, populations have two survival options - they can remain in situ and tolera... more During climate change, populations have two survival options - they can remain in situ and tolerate the new climatic conditions ('stay'), or they can migrate to track their climatic niches elsewhere ('go'). Staying requires broad climatic tolerances, niche shifts due to changing biotic interactions, acclimation through plasticity, or rapid genetic adaptation. Going, in contrast, requires good dispersal and colonization capacities. However, both the magnitude of climate change experienced locally and the capacities required for staying or going in response to climate change are not constant across landscapes, but affected by local microclimatic variation associated with topographic complexity. We combine frameworks from population and community ecology to develop a theory for the effects of landscape topographic complexity on the immediate stay or go opportunities of local populations and communities, and on the selective pressures that may have affected the stay or go capacities of the species. With example landscapes we present population processes and community dynamics that we expect all to be dependent on the topography of the landscape that accommodate the populations and communities. We thereafter synthesize how these topography related changes in dynamics may shape the responses of populations and communities to climate change. We predict that populations and communities of topographically complex landscapes should be more resistant and resilient to climate change than those of topographically homogeneous landscapes. However, mass effects in heterogeneous landscapes as well as extinction lags in homogeneous landscapes may mask these landscape differences under rapidly changing climates.peerReviewe
Nature Climate Change, 2012
Journal of Vegetation Science, 2010
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020
122 Aim Research on how the climatic niche varies across a species range has focused on a 123 lim... more 122 Aim Research on how the climatic niche varies across a species range has focused on a 123 limited number of species, mostly invasive, and has not been very conclusive so far. Here, we 124 assess the degree of niche conservatism between distant populations of alpine plant species 125 that have been established for thousands of years. 126 Location European Alps and Fennoscandia. 127 Methods Focusing on a representative sample (n = 389) of the pool of terrestrial vascular 128 plant species (n = 888) occurring in both the Alps and Fennoscandia, we used two 129 complementary approaches to test for and quantify climatic-niche shifts for species with 130 Alpine and Fennoscandian populations that are either strictly disjunct (n = 31) or at least 131 distant (n = 358). First, we used a species distribution modelling approach to test for a region 132 effect on each species’ climatic niche. Second, we quantified niche overlap and shifts in niche 133 width (i.e., ecological amplitude) and p...
bioRxiv, 2020
Aim Here, we aim to: (i) investigate the local effect of environmental and human-related factors ... more Aim Here, we aim to: (i) investigate the local effect of environmental and human-related factors on alien plant invasion in sub-Antarctic islands; (ii) explore the relationship between alien species features and their dependence on anthropogenic propagule pressure; and (iii) unravel key traits conferring invasiveness in the sub-Antarctic. Location Possession Island, Crozet archipelago (French sub-Antarctic islands). Taxon Non-native vascular plants (Poaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Juncaceae). Methods Single-species distribution models were used to explore the effect of high-resolution topoclimatic and human-related variables on the occurrence of six of the most aggressive alien plants colonizing French sub-Antarctic islands. Furthermore, the interaction between alien species traits and their response to anthropogenic propagule pressure was analysed by means of a multi-species distribution model. This allowed identifying the features of species that were associated to low dependence on hum...
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Papers by Jonathan Lenoir