Cedric Dentant

Ecrins National Park · Scientific

In the framework of a vegetation monitoring, a scientific ascent and exploration of the Mont Aiguille (2087m a.s.l), one of the oldest known nunatak in Europe, was carried out in 2022. A critical review of the plant diversity of this site is proposed here, as well as a reference list of floristic species. Finally, two remarkable species of Mont Aig...

Glacier forefields have long provided ecologists with a model to study patterns of plant succession following glacier retreat. While plant survey-based approaches applied along chronosequences provide invaluable information on plant communities, the “space-for-time” approach assumes environmental uniformity and equal ecological potential across sit...

Glacier forefields have long provided ecologists with a model to study patterns of plant succession following glacier retreat. While plant survey-based approaches applied along chronosequences provide invaluable information on plant communities, the “space-for-time” approach assumes environmental uniformity and equal ecological potential across sit...

The European Alps are highly rich in species, but their future may be threatened by ongoing changes in human land use and climate. Here, we reconstructed vegetation, temperature, human impact and livestock over the past ~12,000 years from Lake Sulsseewli, based on sedimentary ancient plant and mammal DNA, pollen, spores, chironomids, and microcharc...

Yttrium (Y) has gained importance in high tech applications and, together with the other rare earth elements (REEs), is also considered to be an emerging environmental pollutant. The alpine plant Saxifraga paniculata was previously shown to display high metal tolerance and an intriguing REE accumulation potential. In this study, we analysed soil gr...

The species-richness of the flora in the European Alps results from complex interactions between geographical, climatic and environmental factors. In this study, we focus on a complex of closely related Alpine plants: Primula hirsuta, P. pedemontana and their relatives. Using a large DNA dataset of thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphisms seque...

High mountain environments have long been considered to be devoid of life. If science has been a relevant means of legitimization and narrative from the very first explorations of high altitudes, life sciences (biology, ecology) have occupied only a marginal place. Even the inventor of biogeography, Alexander von Humboldt, saw little interest in st...

La haute montagne a longtemps été considérée comme un espace dépourvu de vie. Si la science a dès les premières explorations des hautes altitudes été un puissant moteur de légitimation et de mise en récit, les sciences du vivant (biologie, écologie) n’y ont occupé qu’une place marginale. Même l’inventeur de la biogéographie, Alexander von Humboldt,...

The range of metals used for industrial purposes - electrical engineering, solar panels, batteries - has increased substantially over the last twenty years. Some of these emerging metals are the subject of geopolitical conflict and are considered critical as their unique properties make them irreplaceable. Many of these elements are poorly studied...

High elevation temperate mountains have long been considered species poor owing to high extinction or low speciation rates during the Pleistocene. We performed a phylogenetic and population genomic investigation of an emblematic high-elevation plant clade ( Androsace sect. Aretia, 31 currently recognized species), based on plant surveys conducted d...

Since the last glacial maximum, soil formation related to ice‐cover shrinkage has been one major sink of carbon accumulating as soil organic matter (SOM), a phenomenon accelerated by the ongoing global warming. In recently deglacierized forelands, processes of SOM accumulation, including those that control carbon and nitrogen sequestration rates an...

While soil ecosystems undergo important modifications due to global change, the effect of soil properties on plant distributions is still poorly understood. Plant growth is not only controlled by soil physico‐chemistry but also by microbial activities through the decomposition of organic matter and the recycling of nutrients essential for plants. A...

High altitude temperate mountains have long been considered devoid of life owing to high extinction or low speciation rates during the Pleistocene. We performed a phylogenetic and population genomic investigation of an emblematic high-altitude plant clade (Androsace sect. Aretia, 31 currently recognized species), based on plant surveys conducted du...

Due to the continued ice retreat with global warming, areas of deglaciated forefields will strongly increase in the future, leading to the emergence of new terrestrial ecosystems in many regions of the world. The soil chronosequences resulting from glacier retreat have long been a key tool for studies focusing on the mechanisms of soil formation an...

This book presents the impact of climate change related to many environmental, economic and social issues in southern Alps.

Mountaineering, since the beginning of its history, has played an inconspicuous but key role in the collection of species samples at the highest elevations. During two historical expeditions undertaken to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1935 and 1952, mountaineers collected five species of vascular plants from both the north and south sides of...

High-altitude rockjasmines (genus Androsace) are a paramount example of evolutionary radiations in temperate mountains of the Northern Hemisphere. Yet, we show here that their taxonomy is incomplete and has been subject to many historical mistakes, probably due to the lack of exploration of mountains by the classical botanists who described these s...

We combined imagery from multiple sources (MODIS, Landsat-5, 7, 8) with land cover data to test for long-term (1984-2015) greening or browning trends of vegetation in a temperate alpine area, the Ecrins National Park, in the context of recent climate change and domestic grazing practices. We showed that over half (56%) of the Ecrins National Park d...

Aim: Plants occurring on high-alpine summits are generally expected to persist due to adaptations to extreme selective forces caused by the harshest climates where angiosperm life is known to thrive. We assessed the relative effects of this strong environmental filter and of other historical and stochastic factors driving plant community structure...

In accordance with their mission and as part of their long-term observation work, Ecrins National Park (NP) is making important contributions to the study and monitoring of phenomena related to climate change. Its work takes information collected at different meteorological stations and supplements it with analyses of vegetation changes through aer...

There is an increasing need for data on the patterns of population changes for rare species at the regional, national and European scales in the context of the Natura 2000 reporting on the state of species’ conservation. This reporting requires the use of the same protocol over a whole region or country with the major constraint that it has to be s...

Vegetation is a key driver of ecosystem functioning (e.g. productivity and stability) and of the maintenance of biodiversity (e.g. creating habitats for other species groups). While vegetation sensitivity to climate change has been widely investigated, its spatio-temporally response to the dual effects of land management and climate change has been...

During the past glaciations, alpine plant species migrated towards lower altitude or southwards refugia. Nevertheless, some of them stayed in place, occupying nunataks (summits free of glace). Likely nunataks have been prospected in the Ecrins massif in order to sample and inventory the plants that probably occupied them. The highest altitudes for...

Many new taxons have been discovered in Hautes- Alpes (southern alps, France) since 1994, date of publishing of a botanical atlas over this territory (CHAS, 1994). New stations have also been discovered for noteworthy species in regard to their rarity or distribution. Consequently, 104 new taxons are mentioned for the first time in the studied zone...

During the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory + Monitoring programme (ATBI+M) in the Mercantour and Alpi Marittime National Parks, our inventories of bryophytes identified 234 taxa (mosses and liverworts). This work completes the previous field campaigns, notably those of Jean-Pierre Hébrard (IMEP, Marseille) since 1965, and the ATBI bryophyte invento...