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Publications (65)
Aim
Anthropogenic‐driven biodiversity loss can impact ecosystem stability. However, most studies have only evaluated the diversity–stability relationship at the local scale and we do not fully understand which factors stabilize animal populations and communities across scales. Here, we investigate the role of species dispersal ability, climate, spa...
Since 1970, there has been an overall decline in wildlife populations in the order of 52%. Freshwater species populations have declined by 76%; species populations in Central and South America have declined by 83%; and in the Indo-Pacific by 67%. These are often not complete extinctions, but large declines in the numbers of animals in each species,...
This is the automatic google translate french translation of:
Cowie, R. H., Bouchet, P., & Fontaine, B. (2022). The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation?. Biological Reviews, 97(2), 640-663.
Nous proposons ici des noms scientifiques français pour les différentes espèces de bivalves d'eau douce de Guyane française. La démarche suit les recommandations proposées par Fontaine et al. (2010) pour les espèces de mollusques continentaux de métropole.
There have been five Mass Extinction events in the history of Earth's biodiversity, all caused by dramatic but natural phenomena. It has been claimed that the Sixth Mass Extinction may be underway, this time caused entirely by humans. Although considerable evidence indicates that there is a biodiversity crisis of increasing extinctions and plummeti...
In this report, we update the European Grassland Butterfly Indicator, present new butterfly
indicators for widespread species, woodland butterflies, as well as butterflies in urban environments, in Natura 2000 areas and as climate change indicators. The indicators use field data up to and including the 2018 field season. The method for calculating...
Pupoidopsis hawaiensis Pilsbry & C.M. Cooke, 1921, and its monospecific genus, is the only representative of Pupillidae in
tropical Pacific Islands. Although most of native species from that region are single island endemics, P. hawaiensis has been recorded
from Hawaii to the Tuamotus. However, it has not been recorded alive since 1965. Here we rep...
Despite growing concern over consequences of global changes, we still know little about potential interactive effects of anthropogenic perturbations and diversity loss on the stability of local communities, especially for taxa other than plants. Here we analyse the relationships among landscape composition, biodiversity and community stability look...
This technical report describes the collection of data for an assessment of the multivariate relationships between a group of parameters and the distribution of butterflies over Butterfly Monitoring Transects. The results can be used for the development of future scenarios to investigate the effects on biodiversity, and butterflies in particular.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the premier global biodiversity conservation organization. Its Red List is a rigorous vehicle for assessing the conservation status of plant and animal species. However, although all animal and bird species recognized by IUCN have been evaluated , only a tiny fraction of invertebrates hav...
The field of biodiversity conservation has recently been criticised as relying on a fixist view of the living world, in which existing species constitute the targets of conservation efforts and simultaneously static states of reference, which is in apparent disagreement with evolutionary dynamics. Here, we argue that the ethical and theoretical fra...
We investigated the interacting impacts of urban landscape and gardening practices on the species richness and total abundance of communities of common butterfly communities across France, using data from a nationwide monitoring scheme. We show that urbanization has a strong negative impact on butterfly richness and abundance but that at a local sc...
Context
Understanding the factors contributing to maintaining biodiversity is crucial to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic disturbances. Representing large proportions of green area in highly modified landscapes, residential gardens are often seen as local habitats that can contribute to larger networks of suitable environments at the landscape...
Understanding the factors contributing to maintaining biodiversity is crucial to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic disturbances. Representing large proportions of green area in highly modified landscapes, residential gardens are often seen as local habitats that can contribute to larger networks of suitable environments at the landscape scale. W...
The diversity-stability relationship is one of the most debated topics in ecology, but mostly using theoretical or experimental approaches. From the large body of works addressing this issue, we know that the diversity-stability relationship can vary depending on the aspect of stability investigated, such as resilience, resistance, variability or r...
Context Understanding the factors contributing to maintaining biodiversity is crucial to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic disturbances. Representing large proportions of green area in highly modified landscapes, residential gardens are often seen as local habitats that can contribute to larger networks of suitable environments at the landscape...
The diversity-stability relationship is one of the most debated topics in ecology, but mostly using theoretical or experimental approaches. From the large body of works addressing this issue, we know that the diversity-stability relationship can vary depending on the aspect of stability investigated, such as resilience, resistance, variability or r...
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List includes 832 species listed as extinct since 1600, a minuscule fraction of total biodiversity. This extinction rate is of the same order of magnitude as the background rate and has been used to downplay the biodiversity crisis. Invertebrates comprise 99% of biodiversity, yet the sta...
Since the 1980s, many have suggested we are in the midst of a massive extinction crisis, yet only 799 (0.04%) of the 1.9 million known recent species are recorded as extinct, questioning the reality of the crisis. This low figure is due to the fact that the status of very few invertebrates, which represent the bulk of biodiversity, have been evalua...
This report presents the fifth version of the European Grassland Butterfly Indicator, one of the EU biodiversity indicators of the European Environment Agency.
The indicator is based on national Butterfly Monitoring Schemes in 22 countries across Europe, most of them active in the European Union.
Fluctuations in numbers between years are typical fe...
The family Endodontidae Pilsbry, 1895 comprised one of the most diverse groups of indigenous land snails of Pacific Islands. However, due to anthropogenic degradation of their habitats and predation by or competition with introduced species, most members of the family are now extinct or severely endangered. Based on limited and sporadic collections...
This report presents the European Grassland Butterfly Indicator, based on national Butterfly Monitoring Schemes (BMS) in 19 countries across Europe, most of them in the European Union. The indicator shows that since 1990 till 2011 butterfly populations have declined by almost 50 %, indicating a dramatic loss of grassland biodiversity. This also mea...
Faunistic surveys are fundamental in the conservation of land mollusks, particularly as a means of achieving accurate es- timates of species richness and levels of extinction of endangered taxa. The family Endodontidae comprises one of the most diverse groups of indigenous land snails of Pacific Islands. Due to anthropogenic degradation of their ha...
A large part of biodiversity is still unknown, and it is estimated that, at the current pace, it will take several centuries to describe all species living on Earth. In the context of the ongoing 'sixth extinction', accelerating the completion of the inventory of living biota is an issue that reaches far beyond the taxonomic community. However, the...
A large sample of bones representing prey remains of barn owls (Tyto alba) was collected from the surface of the floor of a cave on Toga Island, Torres Islands, a remote island of northern Vanuatu. These remains allowed us to obtain a first overview of the prey of barn owls on that island, knowing that elsewhere mammals constitute the major prey gr...
The number of described species on the planet is about 1.9 million, with ca. 17,000 new species described annually, mostly from the tropics. However, taxonomy is usually described as a science in crisis, lacking manpower and funding, a politically acknowledged problem known as the Taxonomic Impediment. Using data from the Fauna Europaea database an...
Cumulative number of valid species of terrestrial and freshwater multicellular animals recorded in Europe. Numbers of valid species described since Linnaeus (1758) are plotted against the description year for selected phyla, major classes and major insect orders. These groups are not of equivalent taxonomic rank but were divided as such to demonstr...
How urbanization affects the distribution patterns of butterflies is still poorly known. Here we investigated the structure
and composition of butterfly assemblages along an urbanization gradient within the most urbanized and densely populated region
in France (Île-de-France). Using a method issued from artificial neural networks, i.e. self-organiz...
Although land snail communities could be a good indicator of soil quality and landscape structure impact, they are seldom
analysed in an urban context, probably because of the lack of interest in this ecosystem and because no fast and reliable
method of inter-site comparison seems to exist. The classical method of removing large quantities of soil...
Organisms provide some of the most sensitive indicators of climate change and evolutionary responses are becoming apparent in species with short generation times. Large datasets on genetic polymorphism that can provide an historical benchmark against which to test for recent evolutionary responses are very rare, but an exception is found in the bro...
Four new extinct species of Endodontidae (Mollusca, Pulmonata) from Rurutu (Austral Islands, French Polynesia). Four species of land snails belonging to the family Endodontidae (Mollusca, Pulmonata) are described, all of them are endemic to Rurutu Island (Austral Islands, French Polynesia): Australdonta collicella n. sp, A. magnasulcatissima n. sp....
An update of the checklist of continental molluscs of France by Falkner et al. (2002) is presented. All changes (new names, taxonomical and nomenclatural acts) are supported by a note referring to the bibliography (up to the end of 2010). Altogether, 93 terminal taxa are added to the French fauna, including 61 recently described; 20 are removed. Th...
Non-professional taxonomists have been responsible for describing more than half of the animal species discovered in Europe from 1998 to 2007 (see also Nature 467, 788; 2010). The extraordinary current rate of description of new species makes Europe an unexpected frontier for biodiversity exploration. The Fauna Europaea database (www.faunaeur.org),...
We study whether butterfly diet predicts butterfly distribution along an urban gradient. Data come from a large scale participatory scheme involving the general public reporting butterfly abundance in their gardens (more than 6000 gardens), completed by a special survey on the relationship between butterfly species and flower species based on amate...
According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), states have to provide indicators in order to assess the performance of their initiatives for halting the loss of biodiversity. Sixteen headline indicators have been identified for monitoring the CBD targets. Of these indicators only one, "Trends in the abundance and distribution of selecte...
During expeditions to Santo and the Torres islands belonging to the Vanuatu archipelago in 2006 and 2007, ten new species
of tateid gastropods confined to springs, the upper most, slowly flowing regions of streams or the groundwater had been discovered.
These species were now described based on shell morphology and anatomy. In accordance with geogr...
Résumé. — Dans le contexte de la crise de la biodiversité et de la prise de conscience par le grand public des enjeux environnementaux, la conservation des espèces petites et méconnues est handicapée par le fait que ces espèces ne peuvent être désignées que par leur nom latin. Dans une optique de communication pour la préservation de la biodiversit...
In the biodiversity crisis context and with the increasing general awareness on this issue, conservation of small and poorly-known species is hampered by the fact they only have latine names. In order to communicate for biodiversity conservation, having French names is an advantage which is lacking in terrestrial and freshwater molluscs from France...
Four new extinct species of Endodontidae (Mollusca, Pulmonata) from Rurutu (Austral Islands, French Polynesia). Four species of land snails belonging to the family Endodontidae (Mollusca, Pulmonata) are described, all of them are endemic to Rurutu Island (Austral Islands, French Polynesia): Australdonta collicella n. sp, A. magnasulcatissima n. sp....
Mollusks are the group most affected by extinction according to the 2007 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, despite the group having not been evaluated since 2000 and the quality of information for invertebrates being far lower than for vertebrates. Altogether 302 species and 11 subspecies are listed as extinct on the I...
We present the assessment of the land snail diversity in approximately 50 km2 of savanna/forest mosaic in the northern part of Lopé National Park, Gabon, taking into account habitat variation and seasons. A total of 3,745 specimens were collected, yielding 74 species from 12 families, with Subulinidae being the most speciose family. Most specimens...
In order to assess the potential for molluscan conservation of a protected area considered representative of regional megafauna, we sampled molluscs inside and outside Lopé National Park in Gabon. In the northern part of Lopé National Park, 116 stations were surveyed and 71 species collected. Outside the park, 37 stations yielded 96 species, includ...
Inter-archipelago exchange networks were an important aspect of prehistoric Polynesian societies. We report here a novel genetic characterization of a prehistoric exchange network involving an endemic Pacific island tree snail, Partula hyalina. It occurs in the Society (Tahiti only), Austral and Southern Cook Islands. Our genetic data, based on mus...
The European Union has adopted the ambitious target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Several indicators have been proposed to assess progress towards the 2010 target, two of them addressing directly the issue of species decline. In Europe, the Fauna Europaea database gives an insight into the patterns of distribution of a total dataset...
The Austral Islands comprising five islands of volcanic origin situated in the south of Polynesia, harbour what is probably the most isolated fauna of hydrobioid gastropods. To date, only two species belonging to the genus Fluviopupa have been known. We describe an additional four species. Each species is exclusive to one island. Two species each o...
INEICH I., GARGOMINY O. & FONTAINE B., 2004 - Geographic Distribution. Lacertilia. Lepidodactylus lugubris (Mourning Gecko). Herpetological Review, 35(3): 288.
In 1984, a species of guenon endemic to Gabon was discovered: the sun-tailed monkey (Cercopithecus solatus). This species is difficult to locate and observe in the wild, and hence to date has been little studied. The Centre International de Recherches Medicales de Franceville (CIRMF), Gabon, houses the world's only breeding colony of C. solatus, on...
In 1984, a new species of guenon, Cercopithecus solatus, was discovered in central Gabon [1]. Morphological [1]and cytogenetic [2]studies showed C. lhoesti solatus to be a member of the C. lhoesti superspecies.
Mandrills have long been known to form large aggregations in the wild, but it has proved difficult to obtain detailed information on the socioecology of these groups. An unusually large (>600) horde of mandrills was followed for ten days during the 1995 dry season in Central Gabon, and data were collected on group composition and ecology while the...
Reports on 2 types of spontaneous activity in a captive group of western lowland gorillas: toolmaking and use, and object handling. Using a video camera, observations were made on 11 gorillas which were housed in 2 indoor rooms for sleeping and feeding, and allowed to spend the rest of the time together in an outdoor area. The observations were foc...
