Fabien Spicher

Fabien Spicher
University of Picardie Jules Verne | UPJV · EDYSAN - Ecologie et dynamique des systèmes anthropisés

Master of Science

About

98
Publications
45,047
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Introduction
I am a technical engineer studying anthropised ecosystems in a changing environment. My knowledge and skills allow me to study different ecosystems (forest and agro-ecosystem) from the point of view of their characteristics and their functioning at different spatial and temporal scales. Thus, my activities are declined in different themes or tools within the ecology like: • Forest ecology • Plant Ecology and Ecophysiology • Agroecology • Instrumentation and experimentation • Biological invasion • Historical ecology
Additional affiliations
November 2009 - October 2011
French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE)
Position
  • Technician
October 2011 - December 2014

Publications

Publications (98)
Article
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The biodiversity and distribution of many groups of arthropods living on the trunk and in the canopy of large trees is still relatively little described at the European scale. Pan traps are commonly used to assess pollinators in various ecosystems but have been less used to monitor spiders and harvestmen in trees. Here, we report on the diversity a...
Article
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Once introduced in a new range, alien plants likely escape specialist natural enemies of their native range, but still have to cope with resident generalist enemies in the invaded habitats. Here we designed a suite of lab experiments to assess whether the generalist aphid pest Aphis fabae was able to feed, survive, reproduce and establish colonies...
Article
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With recent advances in technology and modelling, ecologists are increasingly advised to use microclimate, not the usual coarse scale macroclimate based on weather stations, to better reflect the proximal conditions that species experience. This is especially relevant in forest ecosystems, where natural disturbances and management create substantia...
Article
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Urban environments are vulnerable to the introduction of non-native species and sometimes contribute to their invasion success. Knowing how urban landscape features affect the population dynamics of exotic species is therefore essential to understand and manage these species. The spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, is a highly polyphagous...
Article
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Brief introduction: What are microclimates and why are they important? Microclimate science has developed into a global discipline. Microclimate science is increasingly used to understand and mitigate climate and biodiversity shifts. Here, we provide an overview of the current status of microclimate ecology and biogeography in terrestrial ecosystem...
Article
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Question Ecological indicator values (EIVs) reflect species‘ optimal conditions on an environmental gradient, such as temperature. Averaged over a community, they are used to quantify thermophilization stemming from climate change, i.e. the reshuffling of communities toward more warm‐adapted species. In forests, understorey plant communities do not...
Article
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Temperature conditions matter for ground-dwelling biodiversity. However, contrary to ambient-air temperatures as measured by weather stations, there is no global network available yet for measuring microclimate temperatures as perceived by organisms living near the ground. To predict microclimate temperatures near the ground, mechanistic models hav...
Article
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Forest biodiversity and ecosystem services are hitherto predominantly quantified in forest interiors, well away from edges. However, these edges also represent a substantial proportion of the global forest cover. Here we quantified plant biodiversity and ecosystem service indicators in 225 plots along forest edge-to-interior transects across Europe...
Article
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Due to multiple land‐cover changes, forest herb populations residing in forest patches embedded in agricultural landscapes display different ages and, thus, experience differences in genetic exchange, mutation accumulation and genetic drift. The extent of divergence in present‐day population genetic structure among these populations of different ag...
Article
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Questions Forests are highly fragmented across the globe. For urban forests in particular, fragmentation increases the exposure to local warming caused by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. We here aim to quantify edge effects on herbaceous understorey vegetation in urban forests, and test whether these effects interact with forest structural comp...
Article
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Forests worldwide are experiencing fragmentation, with especially important consequences for ecosystems bordering urbanized areas. Urban forests are exposed to local warming due to the urban heat island which affects their biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. A key ecosystem function affecting carbon and nutrient cycling in forests is litter dec...
Article
Forest microclimatic variation can result in substantial temperature differences at local scales with concomitant impacts on plant defences and herbivory. Such micro-climatic effects, however, may differ across abiotically contrasting sites depending on background environmental differences. To test these cross-scale effects shaping species ecologic...
Article
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Mapping the microclimate effect of forest canopies on understory temperature requires spatially explicit predictors at very fine spatial resolutions. Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) offers promising prospects in that regard, as it allows capturing the vertical dimension of vegetation structure at a very high resolution over large areas. To expl...
Article
Climate change is pushing species towards and potentially beyond their critical thermal limits. The extent to which species can cope with temperatures exceeding their critical thermal limits is still uncertain. To better assess species' responses to warming, we compute the warming tolerance (Δ T niche ) as a thermal vulnerability index, using speci...
Article
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Aim The microclimate and light conditions on the forest floor are strongly modified by tree canopies. Therefore, we need to better consider the micro‐environment when quantifying trait–environment relationships for forest understorey plants. Here, we quantify relationships between micro‐environmental conditions and plant functional traits at the co...
Article
The urban heat island (UHI) causes strong warming of cities and their urban forests worldwide. Especially urban forest edges are strongly exposed to the UHI effect, which could impact urban forest biodiversity and functioning. However, it is not known to what extent the UHI effect alters edge-to-interior microclimatic gradients within urban forests...
Article
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Macroclimatic changes are impacting ecosystems worldwide. However, a large portion of terrestrial species live under conditions where impacts of macroclimate change are buffered, such as in the shade of trees, and how this buffering impacts future below-canopy biodiversity redistributions at the continental scale is unknown. Here we show that shady...
Article
Questions Rhododendron ponticum subsp. baeticum is an invasive shrub of growing concern in continental Europe, but little is known about its impact on native plant communities. Here we ask: do environmental conditions differ between forest stands invaded by it and uninvaded stands? Do these differences correlate with R. ponticum 's cover? Are these...
Article
Early farmers used at least two types of agrarian amendments that could raise pH and base saturation levels to allow the cultivation of cereals: marling and plant ash. Ash can be input in many different ways: felling and burning in place, transferring plant material from wastelands and spreading the ash, charring sod or peat blocks, burning stubble...
Article
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Nitrogen (N) is one of the most limiting nutrients for cereal production, especially in wheat, which is one of the main crops cultivated globally. To achieve high yields, wheat requires a certain amount of nitrogen (N), as N deficiency can lead to a decrease in yield and thus reduce income for farmers. In contrast, excessive applications of N ferti...
Article
Microclimate research gained renewed interest over the last decade and its importance for many ecological processes is increasingly being recognized. Consequently, the call for high-resolution microclimatic temperature grids across broad spatial extents is becoming more pressing to improve ecological models. Here, we provide a new set of open-acces...
Preprint
Full-text available
Forest biodiversity and ecosystem services have been predominantly quantified in forest interiors, well away from edge influences. However, edges represent a significant portion of the forest cover in many regions world-wide. We quantified a broad set of plant biodiversity and ecosystem service indicators in 225 plots along forest edge-to-interior...
Article
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Most statistical models of microclimate focus on the difference or ‘offset’ between standardized air temperatures (macroclimate) and those of a specific habitat such as forest understorey, grassland or under a log. However, these offsets can fluctuate from positive to negative over a single day such that common practice consists in aggregating data...
Article
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To ensure sustainable forest management, the assessment and monitoring of soil compaction and rutting is essential. Here, we used an airborne light detection and ranging derived digital terrain model (LiDAR‐derived DTM), available for the forest of Compiègne in North France, to compute a spatial index of soil rutting. Following an environmental sys...
Article
In the paper by Haesen et al. (2021), a coding mistake was found in the calculation of the monthly mean temperature offset values, which were used as the response variable in the model. Particularly, when calculating the monthly mean temperatures of each of the in situ temperature time series, these time series were shifted half a month forward lea...
Article
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Aim The amount of forest edges is increasing globally due to forest fragmentation and land‐use changes. However, edge effects on the soil seed bank of temperate forests are still poorly understood. Here, we assessed edge effects at contrasting spatial scales across Europe and quantified the extent to which edges can preserve the seeds of forest spe...
Article
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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 do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we...
Article
Quercus spp. are one of the most important tree genera in temperate deciduous forests in terms of biodiversity, economic and cultural perspectives. However, natural regeneration of oaks, depending on specific environmental conditions, is still not sufficiently understood. Oak regeneration dynamics are impacted by climate change, but these climate i...
Article
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Intensive agriculture has profoundly altered biodiversity and trophic relationships in agricultural landscapes, leading to the deterioration of many ecosystem services such as pollination or biological control. Information on which spatio-temporal factors are simultaneously affecting crop pests and their natural enemies is required to improve conse...
Article
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Global forest cover is heavily fragmented. Due to high edge-to-surface ratios in small forest patches, a large proportion of forests is affected by edge influences involving steep microclimatic gradients. Although forest edges are important ecotones and account for 20% of the global forested area, it remains unclear how biotic and abiotic drivers a...
Article
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Forests harbour large spatiotemporal heterogeneity in canopy structure. This variation drives the microclimate and light availability at the forest floor. So far, we do not know how light availability and sub‐canopy temperature interactively mediate the impact of macroclimate warming on understorey communities. We therefore assessed the functional...
Article
Ecological research heavily relies on coarse-­gridded climate data based on standardized temperature measurements recorded at 2 m height in open landscapes. However, many organisms experience environmental conditions that differ substantially from those captured by these macroclimatic (i.e. free air) temperature grids. In forests, the tree canopy f...
Article
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Crop monitoring is essential for ensuring food security in a global context of population growth and climate change. Satellite images are commonly used to estimate crop parameters over large areas, and the freely available Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Sentinel-1 (S-1) and optical Sentinel-2 (S-2) images are relevant for that purpose combining hig...
Article
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Context Evidence for effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on the viability of temperate forest herb populations in agricultural landscapes is so far based on population genetic studies of single species in single landscapes. However, forest herbs differ in their life histories, and landscapes have different environments, structures and histori...
Article
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Forest biodiversity world‐wide is affected by climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, and today 20% of the forest area is located within 100 m of a forest edge. Still, forest edges harbour a substantial amount of terrestrial biodiversity, especially in the understorey. The functional and phylogenetic diversity of forest edges have never bee...
Article
Aim Climate warming reshuffles biological assemblages towards less cold‐adapted but more warm‐adapted species, a process coined thermophilization. However, the velocity at which this process is happening generally lags behind the velocity of climate change, generating a climatic debt the temporal dynamics of which remain misunderstood. Relying on h...
Preprint
Full-text available
Research in environmental science relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature at around 2 meter above ground1-3. These climatic grids however fail to reflect conditions near and below the soil surface, where critical ecosystem functions such as soil carbon storage are controlled and most biodiversity resides4-8...
Article
Aim Variation in plant defence traits has been frequently assessed along large‐scale 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 o...
Article
Forests play a key role in global carbon cycling and sequestration. However, the potential for carbon drawdown is affected by forest fragmentation and resulting changes in microclimate, nutrient inputs, disturbance and productivity near edges. Up to 20% of the global forested area lies within 100 m of an edge and, even in temperate forests, knowled...
Article
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In the global context of population growth and climate change, monitoring crops is necessary to sustain agriculture and conserve natural resources. While many studies have demonstrated the ability of optical and SAR remotely sensed data to estimate crop parameters, these data have not been compared or combined to predict crop phenological stages. D...
Article
Forest edges are interfaces between forest interiors and adjacent land cover types. They are important elements in the landscape with almost 20% of the global forest area located within 100 m of the edge. Edges are structurally different from forest interiors, which results in unique edge influences on microclimate, functioning and biodiversity. Th...
Article
In this study, we aim to evaluate the respective and combined effect of soil tillage reduction and winter cover crops (CCs) on both weed species recruitment and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) yields. By controlling the species composition and propagule pressure of weeds, we tested four soil cover rotation treatments with winter CCs (either Camelina...
Article
Hedgerows have the potential to facilitate the persistence and migration of species across landscapes, mostly due to benign microclimatic conditions. This thermal buffering function may become even more important in the future for species migration under climate change. Unfortunately, there is a lack of empirical studies quantifying the microclimat...
Article
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To evaluate the combined effect of different agricultural practices on photosynthetic nitrogen and water-use efficiency, winter wheat was grown in the field under tillage and no-till conditions, with and without cover crops under low and high nitrogen fertilization inputs. Leaf physiological traits, such as the rate of photosynthesis, stomatal cond...
Article
Are hedgerows efficient corridors for forest‐dwelling species within agricultural landscapes? Do time and space interact synergistically to enhance forest plant species accumulation in hedgerows (i.e. the species‐time‐area relationship)? Does the distribution profile of forest herbs along hedgerows differ between specialist and generalist species?...
Article
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Questions Does the influence of forest edges on plant species richness and composition depend on forest management? Do forest specialists and generalists show contrasting patterns? Location Mesic, deciduous forests across Europe. Methods Vegetation surveys were performed in forests with three management types (unthinned, thinned 5‐10 years ago an...
Article
Soil compaction, which results from the skidding of heavy machines used in forest operations, can seriously damage forest productivity. Indeed, it alters soil structure, disturbs its physical features and consequently affects gas exchange and biological activities. The impact of compaction on soil health has been widely studied, but less is known a...
Article
Questions Forest fragmentation affects biodiversity locally (α diversity) and beyond — at relatively larger scales (γ diversity) — by increasing dispersal and recruitment limitations. Yet, does an increase in fragmentation affect the relationship between α and γ diversity and what can we learn from it? Location Northern France. Methods We surveye...
Article
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Aim: Forest understorey microclimates are often buffered against extreme heat or cold, with important implications for the organisms living in these environments. We quantified seasonal effects of understorey microclimate predictors describing canopy structure, canopy composition and topography (i.e., local factors) and the forest patch size and di...
Article
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Context Small forest fragments are often the most abundant type of semi-natural habitat in intensive agricultural landscapes. Wild pollinators can use these forest patches as nesting or foraging habitat. However, the importance of small forest fragments as pollinator habitat has been neglected so far. Objectives We evaluated the role of these fore...
Article
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There is growing evidence that plant viruses manipulate host plants to increase transmission-conducive behaviors by vectors. Reports of this phenomenon frequently include only highly susceptible, domesticated annual plants as hosts, which constrains our ability to determine whether virus effects are a component of an adaptive strategy on the part o...
Article
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Reducing the deleterious effects of intensive tillage and fertilization on ecosystem integrity and human health is challenging for sustainable agriculture. The use of cover crops has been advocated as a suitable technique for this purpose, but scientific evidence to support this has been scarce. After four years and a complete rotation, including w...
Conference Paper
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Luvisols are part of the world most productive soils and are widely used for intensive farming, like in NorthWest Europe. The wideness of deforestation over those lands emphasizes the necessity to study soil evolution triggered by those land use changes. Recent works on loessic luvisols revealed deep alkalinization dynamics through decennial to sec...
Article
Aim Revisits of non‐permanent, relocatable plots first surveyed several decades ago offer a direct way to observe vegetation change and form a unique and increasingly used source of information for global change research. Despite the important insights that can be obtained from resurveying these quasi‐permanent vegetation plots, their use is prone...
Poster
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In many rural landscapes across Europe, biodiversity has experienced a dramatic decline following the “Green revolution” of the 1960s and the widespread use of agrochemicals. This decline considerably reduced the amount of ecosystem services delivered by agroecosystems. Increasing food production while reducing negative environmental impacts is cha...
Article
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Soil profiles keep records of the legacies of historical land uses on soil physicochemical properties with deep‐soil (3m depth) profiles providing information on centuries‐old dynamics. By combining geohistorical archives on past land‐uses and management practices together with soil pH data from 19 plots scattered across five study areas in North‐F...
Poster
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During the forest operations using heavy machines, soil will be extremely harmed by the compaction. Soil compaction is one of the main causes of reduction in forest productivity, since it affects the soil physically, which contributes to disturb the edaphic life as whole. In the first time soil compaction decreases porosity, which leads to increase...
Article
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Plant viruses strongly influence the physiology of their host plants and phytophagous insect vectors, thereby affecting ecological interactions between them. Despite the important role of natural enemies on insect vector control and thus on virus dissemination, the influence of plant viruses on the third trophic level received little attention. We...