Alan Vergnes

Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier · Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology

Soil unsealing, the process of removing the impermeable top layer of soil, is increasingly advocated by urban planning policies. The role of unsealed areas in biodiversity conservation, particularly soil biodiversity, remains strongly understudied and especially in understanding the recolonization dynamics of soil biodiversity in these new habitats...

Invasive species often have harmful effects on human activities and biodiversity. The Tapinoma nigerrimum complex includes three species that exhibit invasive traits and the ability to form supercolonies, including Tapinoma magnum and Tapinoma darioi . While these species are native to the Mediterranean basin, they have recently been reported as in...

Highlights • The earthworm population in Montpellier exhibits remarkably high genetic diversity. • Haplotypic and nucleotidic diversities of earthworms are influenced by environmental factors. • Cryptic lineages were identified in three earthworm species. • Human-mediated transports significantly contribute to the distribution patterns of earthw...

Soil unsealing, the process of removing the impermeable top layer of soil, is increasingly advocated by urban planning policies. The role of unsealed areas in biodiversity conservation, particularly soil biodiversity, remains strongly understudied and especially in understanding the recolonization dynamics of soil biodiversity in these new habitats...

Cities can host significant biological diversity. Yet, urbanisation leads to the loss of habitats, species, and functional groups. Understanding how multiple taxa respond to urbanisation globally is essential to promote and conserve biodiversity in cities. Using a dataset encompassing six terrestrial faunal taxa (amphibians, bats, bees, birds, cara...

Aim: Biological invasions in urban areas often have negative consequences for both human activities and local biodiversity, which is already heavily affected by urbanisation. On a global scale, ants are among the invasive species with the worst environmental impact and the highest economic cost. Recently, two other species of ants belonging to the...

Aim: urbanization is a major land use change that leads to the alteration or destruction of natural or agricultural terrestrial habitats, and sometimes to the creation of new patches of habitats referred to as “green spaces”. The types of green spaces are highly diverse, reflecting the multiplicity of human uses of those vegetated patches: recreati...

Classifying organisms has a wide use and a long history in ecology. However, the meaning of a 'group of or-ganisms' and how to group organisms is still the subject of much theoretical and empirical work. Achieving this long quest requires simplifying the complexity of species niches for which relevant morphological, behavioural, biochemical or life...

Urbanization modifies environments worldwide creating opportunities for the establishment of invasive species, natives or non-natives, a main driver of global change. To understand the process of biological invasion, we need to decipher the interactions between urbanization and species traits. Within the Mediterranean Tapinoma nigerrimum species co...

With the rise in urban population comes a demand for solutions to offset environmental problems caused by urbanization. Green infrastructure (GI) refers to engineered features that provide multiecological functions in urban spaces. Soils are a fundamental component of GI, playing key roles in supporting plant growth, infiltration, and biological ac...

With the rise in urban population comes a demand for solutions to offset environmental problems caused by urbanization. Green infrastructure (GI) refers to engineered features that provide multi-ecological functions in urban spaces. Soils are a fundamental component of GI, playing key roles in supporting plant growth, infiltration, and biological a...

Given the impact of livestock on ecosystems worldwide, it is necessary to understand the effects of grazing practices on biodiversity in order to improve the sustainability of pasture management practices. In a pasture, spatio-temporal variability in livestock activity results in a heterogeneous distribution of defoliation, trampling and excreta. T...

Background Mitigating the effect of linear transport infrastructure (LTI) on fauna is a crucial issue in road ecology. Wildlife crossing structures (tunnels or overpasses) are one solution that has been implemented to restore habitat connectivity and reduce wildlife mortality. Evaluating how these crossings function for small wildlife has often bee...

Recent call has been made to study the biogeography of species interactions in order to better understand ecosystems’ states and processes, as well as their response to global anthropogenic disturbances. Ants (Formicidae) are a dominant group of arthropods with a central role in ecosystem functioning. Many ant species, those feeding on liquids, are...

Although modern agriculture generally relies on homogeneous varieties that are usually grown in pure stands, crop variety mixtures have been used for a long time, notably to improve resistance to fungal diseases. A growing number of studies suggest that intraspecific plant diversity may also enhance the abundance and diversity of wild species and t...

First presentation of the results obtained concerning field experiment testing the effects of sheep grazing intensity on dung beetle communities in southern France.

The present document details how the Wheatamix consortium, inspired by ecological experiments exploring relationships between plant biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (e.g. the Jena experiment Weisser et al. 2017), selected bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) lines, phenotyped them across a range of functional traits and used this information to...

The Green Revolution and the introduction of chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides and high yield crops had enabled to increase food production in the mid and late 20th. The benefits of this agricultural intensification have however reached their limits since yields are no longer increasing for many crops, negative externalities on the environ...

Waste generation and management is a global issue receiving increasing attention. Construction and Demolition (C&D) debris generate high percentages of a country’s total solid waste, and has been estimated to contribute to 35% of the solid waste generated worldwide. Construction of Technosols is an innovative process based on the association of org...

Reflections In a context of urban greening, vertical plantings offer a great potential to enhance urban biodiversity but it is unclear whether they act as exclusive habitats or components of urban corridors. Thus, understanding the ecological value and functioning of each system becomes critical to integrate nature into urban design and planning at...

The Green Revolution and the introduction of chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides and high yield crops had enabled to increase food production in the mid and late 20th. The benefits of this agricultural intensification have however reached their limits since yields are no longer increasing for many crops, negative externalities on the environ...

The Green Revolution and the introduction of chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides and high yield crops had enabled to increase food production in the mid and late 20th. The benefits of this agricultural intensification have however reached their limits since yields are no longer increasing for many crops, negative externalities on the environ...

Formidable réservoir de biodiversité, les sols sont essentiels à de nombreux services écosystémiques tels que la production alimentaire ou la régulation du climat, des crues, de la qualité de l’eau ou de l’air. Face à des demandes croissantes et antagonistes en logement, zones d’activités économiques, infrastructures, nourriture, matières premières...

Waste generation and management is a global issue receiving increasing attention. Construction and Demolition (C&D) debris generate high percentages of a country’s total solid waste, and has been estimated to contribute to 35% of the solid waste generated worldwide. Construction of Technosols is an innovative process based on the association of org...

Insects are among the most diverse and abundant organisms on Earth, and they play a major role in ecosystem functioning. To protect them from decline, some conservation measures have been put in place, based primarily on threatened species lists. This is the case in Europe, where 123 of the 105,000 known European insect species are currently protec...

Soils in urban parks are mainly manmade and called Technosols. These Technosols are made of backfill with or without a topsoil addition, which may affect both the physicochemical properties of these soils and the success of soil fauna colonization. The effects of these initial soil management conditions on colonization dynamics of Technosols have n...

Some organisms are able to disperse by air through passive or active flying and can colonize highly isolated habitat. We can hypothesis than aerial dispersions could be a process of biodiversity development even in isolated town habitats such as some building roofs. The urban aerial plankton has been poorly studied and we analyzed here the arthropo...

In a context of urban greening, vegetated façades offer a great potential to enhance urban biodiversity. Yet, little is known about the ecological drivers of such man-made ecosystems on assemblages. We assessed four types of façades: three types of vegetated-façades–CP (climbing plant façades), FL (felt layer façades) and SM (substrate module façad...

Background/Question/Methods The area dedicated to business activity increased by 42 % during the last 30 years in the Île-de-France (IdF) region (France). In urban and suburban zones, the green spaces at business sites can represent large surfaces : in IdF, they cover 8 700 ha i.e. 8 % of the total urban green spaces. Given their importance, they...

Urban densification is often considered has a green planning policy. However, its effects on woodland arthropods have been rarely analysed. To fill this gap, a multi-taxa approach using three ground-dwelling arthropod assemblages was conducted on 11 woodlands located along an urbanisation gradient. The gradient range from rural areas to one of the...

The fragmentation of landscapes, induced by the growing urbanisation, is a major cause of biodiversity loss. Ecological corridors are landscape elements that make up for the negative effects of habitat fragmentation in agricultural or natural landscapes. However, their effectiveness have been rarely assess in an urban context. To do so, we analysed...

One consequence of the spatial expansion of cities is the multiplication of highly fragmented and diverse green spaces immediately surrounded by urban areas. Whereas the global expansion of urban areas is a growing concern for the viability of woodland arthropods, the suitability of green spaces as refuges to arthropods needs to be clarified. In or...

In an inexorably urbanizing world, green roofs could be an interesting tool to conciliate the greening of cities with ecological services. Studies on a large number of sites are necessary to understand the importance of environmental variables, especially how the type of vegetation affects the green roof biodiversity. We sampled several arthropods...

Freshwater species on tropical islands face localized extinction and the loss of genetic diversity. Their habitats can be ephemeral due to variability in freshwater run-off and erosion. Even worse, anthropogenic effects on these ecosystems are intense. Most of these species are amphidromous or catadromous (i.e. their life cycle includes a marine la...

Ecological corridors are landscape elements that prevent the negative effects of fragmentation. However, their effectiveness has never been clearly validated in urban landscapes. We analysed the role of green corridors in an urban context by comparing metacommunities of arthropods in (i) woodlots considered as sources of species, (ii) woody corrido...

The Rose-ringed parakeet Psittacula krameri, a bird species of subtropical origin, has established feral populations in temperate Europe. We analysed the feeding habits of Rose-ringed parakeets near Paris, France, in order to assess if food provided by humans might contribute to the success of this invasive bird species. We considered 87 feeding ev...

The escape or release of Rose-ringed Parakeets, cage-birds native to subtropical areas, has lead to the establishment of many feral populations in European towns. In l̂le-de-France, the Rose-ringed Parakeet has been observed since 1974, essentially in suburbs of Paris. We counted 39 breeding sites, especially in public parks, 33 being still used in...