Clement Bataille

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Ottawa

Forest pest insects cause major socio-economic impacts, global losses of millions of dollars, and ecosystem changes. A key challenge for their management is tracing regional dispersal events critical to outbreak dynamics. We developed an integrated tracing framework for pest insects by combining isotope geolocation, ecological data, and atmospheric...

Bioavailable strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) distribution across the landscape mainly follow the underlying lithology, making ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr baseline maps (isoscapes) powerful tools for provenance studies. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr has already been used in Eastern Canada (EC) to track food and human remains origins, or to reconstruct animal mobility. While bioavai...

The painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui is renowned for its virtually cosmopolitan distribution and the remarkable long-distance migrations as part of its annual, multigenerational migratory cycle. In winter, V. cardui individuals inhabit breeding grounds north and south of the Sahara, suggesting distinct migratory behaviors within the species as...

Some insects, such as the painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui, exhibit complex annual migratory cycles spanning multiple generations. Traversing extensive seas or deserts is often a required segment of these migratory journeys. We develop a bioavailable strontium isoscape for Europe and Africa and then use isotope geolocation combining hydrogen a...

Stable isotope data have made pivotal contributions to nearly every discipline of the physical and natural sciences. As the generation and application of stable isotope data continues to grow exponentially, so does the need for a unifying data repository to improve accessibility and promote collaborative engagement. This paper provides an overview...

The extent of aerial flows of insects circulating around the planet and their impact on ecosystems and biogeography remain enigmatic because of methodological challenges. Here we report a transatlantic crossing by Vanessa cardui butterflies spanning at least 4200 km, from West Africa to South America (French Guiana) and lasting between 5 and 8 days...

Migratory insects may move in large numbers, even surpassing migratory vertebrates in biomass. Long-distance migratory insects complete annual cycles through multiple generations, with each generation’s reproductive success linked to the resources available at different breeding grounds. Climatic anomalies in these grounds are presumed to trigger r...

Woolly mammoths in mainland Alaska overlapped with the region’s first people for at least a millennium. However, it is unclear how mammoths used the space shared with people. Here, we use detailed isotopic analyses of a female mammoth tusk found in a 14,000-year-old archaeological site to show that she moved ~1000 kilometers from northwestern Canad...

Rationale Many insect species undertake multigenerational migrations in the Afro‐tropical and Palearctic ranges, and understanding their migratory connectivity remains challenging due to their small size, short life span and large population sizes. Hydrogen isotopes ( δ ² H) can be used to reconstruct the movement of dispersing or migrating insects...

The painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui is renowned for its virtually cosmopolitan distribution and the remarkable long-distance migrations that are part of its annual, multi-generational migratory cycle. Recently, V. cardui individuals were found north and south of the Sahara in the autumn, suggesting distinct migratory behaviours within the spe...

Rationale: Many insect species undertake multi-generational migrations in the Afro-tropical and Palearctic ranges, and understanding their migratory connectivity remains challenging due to their small size, short life span and large population sizes. Hydrogen isotope ( δ H) can be used to reconstruct the movement of dispersing or migrating insects,...

Constraining the multiple climatic, lithological, topographic, and geochemical variables controlling isotope variations in large rivers is often challenging with standard statistical methods. Machine learning (ML) is an efficient method for analyzing multidimensional datasets, resolving correlated processes, and exploring relationships between vari...

Migratory insects are key players in ecosystem functioning and services, but their spatiotemporal distributions are typically poorly known. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) may be used to predict species seasonal distributions, but the resulting hypotheses should eventually be validated by field data. The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) perf...

Eastern spruce budworm moth (Choristoneura fumiferana (Clem.)) mass outbreaks have widespread economic and ecological consequences. A key explanation for the large-scale spread and synchronization of these outbreaks is the long-distance dispersal (up to 450 km) of moths from hotspots (high-density populations) to lower-density areas. These events h...

During the Late Holocene, hunter-gatherer interaction networks significantly grew in intensity and extension across Patagonia. Although this growth is evidenced by the increased flow of exotic items across the region, the mechanisms behind these strengthening social networks remain unclear. Since evidence suggests that some individuals might have p...

Anthropogenic activities are exposing insects to elevated levels of toxic metals and are altering the bioavailability of essential metals. Metals and metal isotopes have also become promising tools for the geolocation of migratory insects. Understanding the pathways of metal incorporation in insect tissues is thus important for assessing the role o...

Hydrogen isotope geolocation of insects is based on the assumption that the chitin in the wings of adult migratory insects preserves the hydrogen isotope composition (δ²H) of the larval stages without influence of adult diet. Here, we test this assumption by conducting laboratory feeding experiments for monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) includ...

With global warming and increasing water use, tap water resources need sustainable management. We used hydrogen and oxygen isotope analyses in tap water (i.e., δ²H and δ¹⁸O values) to identify issues associated with tap water resources in Canada. We analyzed 576 summer tap samples collected from across Canada and 76 tap samples from three cities du...

With the record breaking flood experienced in Canada's capital region in 2017 and 2019, there is an urgent need to update and harmonize existing flood hazard maps and fill in the spatial gaps between them to improve flood mitigation strategies. To achieve this goal, we aim to develop a novel approach using machine learning classification (i.e., ran...

Anthropogenic activities are exposing insects to abnormal levels of toxic metals, with unknown implications for migratory insects. Simultaneously, metals and metal isotopes have become promising tools for the geolocation of migratory insects. Furthering our understanding of metal cycling in insect tissues is essential, both for the development of m...

Unidentified human remains have historically been investigated nationally by law enforcement authorities. However, this approach is outdated in a globalized world with rapid transportation means, where humans easily move long distances across borders. Cross-border cooperation in solving cold-cases is rare due to political, administrative or technic...

Eastern spruce budworm moth ( Choristoneura fumiferana (Clem.)) mass outbreaks have widespread economic and ecological consequences. A key explanation for the large-scale spread and synchronization of these outbreaks is the long-distance dispersal (up to 450km) of moths from hotspots (high-density populations) to lower-density areas. These events h...

In the Precambrian, reverse weathering—a process consuming oceanic silica, metal cations and alkalinity to form marine clays—was a key control of the long-term carbon cycle. However, the appearance of marine silicifiers decreased the importance of this process in regulating climate in the Phanerozoic eon. Here, we present seawater lithium and stron...

This multidisciplinary study analyzes kurī skeletal remains from the Northern Runway Development (NRD) archaeological site (AD 1400-1800) to develop an “osteo-history” and help us better understand 1) human-dog interactions; 2) the role kurī played in early Māori societies; and 3) to potentially use kurī as a proxy for human behavior at the site. W...

Continental arcs influence the global carbon cycle via degassing and chemical weathering. Several studies also suggested that the isotopic composition of continental arcs plays an important role in controlling the strontium (Sr) isotopic composition of seawater through chemical weathering. Yet, geological or tectonic drivers of isotopic variations...

As people, animals and materials are transported across increasingly large distances in a globalized world, threats to our biosecurity and food security are rising. Aotearoa New Zealand is an island nation with many endemic species, a strong local agricultural industry, and a need to protect these from pest threats, as well as the economy from frau...

With ongoing global warming and permafrost thawing, weathering processes will change on the Yukon River, with risks for water quality and ecosystem sustainability. Here, we explore the relationship between weathering processes and permafrost cover using elemental concentration and strontium and lithium isotopic data in the dissolved load of 102 sam...

Strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) of archaeological samples (teeth and bones) can be used to track mobility and migration across geologically distinct landscapes. However, traditional interpolation algorithms and classification approaches used to generate Sr isoscapes are often limited in predicting multiscale 87Sr/86Sr patterning. Here we inves...

Uranium (U) contamination in groundwater from geogenic sources affects water quality globally. Here, we use a multifaceted isotopic and geochemical approach to elucidate U sources and controls on geogenic U release to groundwater and surface water at a prospective subarctic gold deposit in Yukon, Canada, that is characterized by permafrost, fractur...

Nearly four decades after the first applications of strontium isotope analyses in archaeology and paleoecology research, it could be said that we are entering a “Golden Age”. Here, we reflect on major past developments and current strengths in strontium isotope research, as well as speculate on future directions. We review (1) the currently limited...

Understanding seasonal mobility, population connectivity, and site fidelity is critical for managing and preserving migratory species. We investigated the potential of coupling strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and hydrogen (δ2H) isotopes in feathers for quantitatively constraining natal origin for juvenile migratory predatory birds (raptors) using a probabili...

Strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) have shown promise for tracing the geographic origin of animal tissues because they have high‐resolution and show discrete spatial patterns independent and complementary to those of light isotopes. In this study, we provide a complete quantitative framework to apply ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr for tracking migratory animals using...

Earth’s plate-tectonic activity regulates the carbon cycle and, hence, climate, via volcanic outgassing and silicate-rock weathering. Mountain building, arc–continent collisions and clustering of continents in the tropics have all been invoked as controlling the weathering flux, with arcs also acting as a major contributor of carbon dioxide to the...

A mammoth’s life Fossils have long given us glimpses of the life that came before us, but these glimpses are generally static. They tell us a bit about species that lived, but not much about how they lived. Evolving techniques are deepening our viewpoint. Wooller et al . examined isotopes collected from the tusk of a 17,000-year-old mammoth to eluc...

Mass graves are usually key historical markers with strong incentive for archeological investigations. The identification of individuals buried in mass graves has long benefitted from traditional historical, archaeological, anthropological and paleopathological techniques. The addition of novel methods including genetic, genomic and isotopic geoche...

Sulfur isotope composition of organic tissues is a commonly used tool for gathering information about provenance and diet in archaeology and paleoecology. However, the lack of maps predicting sulfur isotope variations on the landscape limits the possibility to use this isotopic system in quantitative geographic assignments. We compiled a database o...

Mass graves are usually key historical markers with strong incentive for archeological investigations. The identification of individuals buried in mass graves has long benefitted from traditional historical, archaeological, anthropological and paleopathological techniques. The addition of novel methods including genetic, genomic and isotopic geoche...

Accumulations of shed caribou antlers (Rangifer tarandus) are valuable resources for expanding the temporal scope with which we evaluate seasonal landscape use of herds. Female caribou shed their antlers within days of giving birth, thus marking calving ground locations. Antler geochemistry (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) reflects the isotopic signature of regions use...

Stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions (δ ² H and δ ¹⁸ O, respectively) of animal tissues have been used to infer geographical origin or mobility based on the premise that the isotopic composition of tissue is systematically related to that of local water sources. Isotopic data for known‐origin samples are required to quantify these tissu...

Human remains, later named “Madame Victoria”, were discovered in 2001 near the Royal Victoria hospital in Montreal but were never identified by forensic practitioners. We use multi-isotope hair profiles to investigate Madame Victoria’s travel and diet history. Based on carbon isotope abundances, Madame Victoria had a stable diet and values typical...

Numerous paleoecological questions concern the mobility of ancient fauna in eastern Beringia. Strontium (Sr) isotope ratio (87 Sr/ 86 Sr) analysis has emerged as a powerful tracer for determining the provenance of ancient biological materials. However, it is important to characterize 87 Sr/ 86 Sr variation across a landscape. We measured the 87 Sr/...

Earth’s plate tectonic activity regulates the carbon cycle, and hence, climate, via volcanic outgassing and silicate-rock weathering 1,2,3 . Mountain building, arc-continent collisions, and clustering of continents in the tropics have all been invoked as controlling the weathering flux 4,5,6 , with arcs also acting as a major contributor of carbon...

Forensic practitioners, archeologists, and ecologists increasingly use hair isotope profiles and isotope databases and maps to reconstruct the life history of unidentified individuals. Relationships between hair isotope profiles with travel history have been primarily investigated through controlled laboratory experiments. However, those controlled...

Studying the isotope variability in fast-growing human tissues (e.g., hair, nails) is a powerful tool to investigate human nutrition. However, interpreting the controls of this isotopic variability at the population scale is often challenging as multiple factors can superimpose on the isotopic signals of a current population. Here, we analyse carbo...

Eastern Africa is a key region for studying archaeological, palaeontological, and ecological movements. This region hosts critical developments in hominin and human evolution, the dispersal of food-producing populations across the continent, and some of the largest known contemporary mammalian migrations on the planet. Strontium isotope analysis of...

Strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) are a popular tool in provenance applications in archeology, forensics, paleoecology, and environmental sciences. Using bioavailable ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr in provenance studies requires comparing the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of a sample of interest to that of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr baselines. Historically, these baselines required building empirical d...

For cases missing the essential skeletal elements required for ancestry estimation, stable isotope analysis can help predict potential regions of origin based on the geochemical signature of the bones and teeth. Some isotope systems, such as hydrogen, oxygen or strontium, distribute themselves in predictable spatiotemporal patterns and are useful g...

This chapter provides some background and applications of stable isotope analysis in the context of humanitarian forensic science to illustrate the contribution that isotopic profiling can make to an investigation of an unidentified decedent. It also describes a few of the isotopic tools and data resources currently available to forensic investigat...

Rationale Strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) of hair may be a valuable tool to estimate human provenance. However, the systematics and mechanisms controlling spatial variation in ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of modern human hair remain unclear. Here, we measure ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of hair specimens from across the USA to assess the presence of geospatial relationships. Meth...

Complex processes in the settling of the Americas The expansion into the Americas by the ancestors of present day Native Americans has been difficult to tease apart from analyses of present day populations. To understand how humans diverged and spread across North and South America, Moreno-Mayar et al. sequenced 15 ancient human genomes from Alaska...

Records of subtropical climate on land from the early Paleogene offer insights into how the Earth system responds to greenhouse climate conditions. Fluvial and floodplain deposits of the Tornillo Basin (Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA) preserve a record of environmental and climatic change of the Paleocene and the early Eocene. We report carbon,...

The early Paleogene was a dynamic period marked by long-term climatic trends and rapid climate events superimposed upon a hot greenhouse state. The response of the terrestrial hydrological cycle to these climate variations can be investigated at the continental scale by analysis of Paleogene strata in Laramide basins and the Gulf of Mexico. New U-P...

The land spanning the Mexico and US border totals 2,000 miles and experiences hundreds of thousands of border-crossings each year by migrants fleeing violence, seeking refuge and safety, in search of work, better healthcare, educational opportunity, and to reunite with family (Anderson, 2008; Spradley, et al. 2008; Holmes, 2013; DeLuca, et al. 2010...

The Palearctic–African migratory circuit has been typically associated with birds. Very few insects are known to endure annual trans-Saharan circuits, but the Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) is an exception. While it was demonstrated that this species massively migrates from Europe to the Afrotropics during the autumn, the existence of a re...

Strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) are gaining considerable interest as a geolocation tool and are now widely applied in archaeology, ecology, and forensic research. However, their application for provenance requires the development of baseline models predicting surficial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variations (“isoscapes”). A variety of empirically-based and proc...

Strontium isotope ratios (87 Sr/ 86 Sr) are gaining considerable interest as a geolocation tool and are now widely applied in archaeology, ecology, and forensic research. However, their application for provenance requires the development of baseline models predicting surficial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr variations ("isoscapes"). A variety of empirically-based an...

Strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) of archaeological samples (teeth and bones) can be used to track mobility and migration across geologically distinct landscapes. However, traditional interpolation algorithms and classification approaches used to generate Sr isoscapes are often limited in predicting multiscale ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr patterning. Here we inves...

The composition of igneous rocks in the continental crust has changed throughout Earth’s history. However, the impact of these compositional variations on chemical weathering, and by extension on seawater and atmosphere evolution, is largely unknown. We use the strontium isotope ratio in seawater [(87Sr/86Sr)seawater] as a proxy for chemical weathe...

Strontium (Sr) isotope analysis can provide detailed biogeographical and ecological information about modern and ancient organisms. Because Sr isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) in biologically relevant materials such as water, soil, vegetation, and animal tissues predominantly reflect local geology, they can be used to distinguish geologically distinct re...

Radiogenic strontium isotope ratios (87Sr:86Sr) in otoliths were compared with isotope ratios predicted from models and observed in water sampling to reconstruct the movement histories of smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu between main-river and adjacent tributary habitats. A mechanistic model incorporating isotope geochemistry, weathering proces...

The expression of global climate trends (106 to 107 years) and events (105 years) in terrestrial sedimentary sections can only be assessed from long, continuous continental records. Such records are rare due to the paucity of well-dated terrestrial deposits covering millions of years. This study uses isotope chemostratigraphy to develop an age mode...

We report new 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 61 rivers across Alaska's diverse geologic regions.•Regional patterns in carbonate and silicate weathering influence observed multi spatial scale 87Sr/86Sr heterogeneity.•Rivers north of the Denali Fault exhibit higher and more variable 87Sr/86Sr ratios than rivers south of the fault.•North of the Denali Fault, eas...

Strontium isotope ratio (87Sr/86Sr) has a strong potential to complement atmospherically-derived traditional stable isotopes in geochemical provenance studies because strontium (Sr) in Earth surface reservoirs is sourced from local bedrock. As such, 87Sr/86Sr variations are discrete and differ drastically from the large scale smoothed variations of...

Carbon isotope ratios of bulk organic matter in sedimentary rocks (δ13CDOM) are a potential source of paleoenvironmental information in terrestrial stratigraphic sequences. However, insufficient understanding of the range of depositional and post-depositional controls on δ13CDOM values makes interpretations of these data difficult. Here we evaluate...

[1] Carbon isotope ratios of bulk organic matter in sedimentary rocks (δ13CDOM) are a potential source of paleoenvironmental information in terrestrial stratigraphic sequences. However, insufficient understanding of the range of depositional and post-depositional controls on δ13CDOM values makes interpretations of these data difficult. Here we eval...

A method for mapping strontium isotope ratio (Sr-87/(86) Sr) variations in bedrock and water has been recently developed for use in the interpretation of Sr-87/(86) Sr datasets for provenance studies. The mapping process adopted the simplifying assumption that strontium (Sr) comes exclusively from weathering of the underlying bedrock. The scope of...

Drainage tiles buried beneath many naturally poorly drained agricultural fields in the Midwestern U.S. are believed to "short circuit" pools of NO3--laden soil water and shallow groundwater directly into streams that eventually discharge to the Mississippi River. Although much is known about the mechanisms controlling this regionally pervasive prac...

Although variation in 87Sr/86Sr has been widely pursued as a tracer of provenance in environmental studies, forensics, archeology and food traceability, accurate methods for mapping variations in environmental 87Sr/86Sr at regional scale are not available. In this paper, we build upon earlier efforts to model 87Sr/86Sr in bedrock by developing GIS-...

Numerous case studies in the ecological and forensic fields have illustrated the potential utility of light stable isotopes as tracers of the geographic origin of biological materials. However, a number of critical challenges continue to limit the application of these tools, among them (1) limitations to our knowledge of isotopic values expected fo...