Vincent DroissartInstitute of Research for Development | IRD · 123 - Plant Architecture, Functioning and Evolution (AMAP)
Vincent Droissart
PhD
Tropical botanist
About
217
Publications
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Introduction
I'm a tropical botanist interested in assessing plant diversity patterns at local and regional scales in Africa. A large part of my research is also focused on taxonomy, reproductive biology and conservation of African orchids.
Publications
Publications (217)
We compiled herbarium specimen data to provide an improved characterization of geographic patterns of diversity using indices of species diversity and floristic similarity based on rarefaction principles. A dataset of 3650 georeferenced plant specimens belonging to Orchidaceae and Rubiaceae endemic to Atlantic Central Africa was assembled to assess...
The tropical vegetation of Africa is characterized by high levels of species diversity but is undergoing important shifts in response to ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressures. Although our knowledge of plant species distribution patterns in the African tropics has been improving over the years, it remains limited. Here we pr...
Background and aims - There is increasing recognition that plant traits mediate environmental influence on species distribution, justifying non-random community assembly. We studied the influence of local scale edaphic factors on the distribution of functional traits in a tropical rainforest of Cameroon with the aim to find correlations between the...
The Red List Categories and the accompanying five criteria developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) provide an authoritative and comprehensive methodology to assess the conservation status of organisms. Red List criterion B, which principally uses distribution data, is the most widely used to assess conservation status...
Introduction. In recent decades, Madagascar has become one of the most important plant hotspots in the world. The country's remaining forests and vegetation are disappearing at an alarming rate, while dozens of new species are discovered each year. Amongst the plant families that have long been studied, Orchidaceae appear as one of the most charism...
Microcoelia and the monospecific Taeniorrhiza and Chauliodon are notable among Afrotropical angraecoid orchids for being leafless. However, the affinity among these genera was not addressed in previous molecular phylogenetic studies, thus precluding the understanding of how many times has leaflessness evolved in angraecoids. The discovery of an add...
Introduction. In recent decades, Madagascar has become one of the most important plant hotspots in the world. The country's remaining forests and vegetation are disappearing at an alarming rate, while dozens of new species are discovered each year. Among the plant families that have long been studied, Orchidaceae appear as one of the most charismat...
The fern genus Didymoglossum (Hymenophyllaceae) is not so diverse in Africa with seven species at most. However, its local taxonomy is surprisingly still strongly debated, in particular within the D. erosum complex interpreted either as a single polymorphic species or as a group of at least three distinct but morphologically very close taxa (D. ero...
A synopsis of Tridactyle Schltr. (Orchidaceae) in São Tomé and Príncipe is presented. We recognize nine species in São Tomé and Príncipe, including four new species. We describe here T. amadorii D’haijère, T. cocophila D’haijère, T. levelevis D’haijère & Stévart, and T. oboensis D’haijère & Stévart. Tridactyle armeniaca (Lindl.) Schltr., recorded b...
Cyrtorchis, a Tropical African angraecoid orchid genus, is renowned for its showy white stellated long-spurred flowers, which challenge species delimitation and resulting taxonomy. Also, the genus appears sphingophilous, and constitutes a suitable model for studies on reproductive biology of Angraecoids, a first step to their conservation.
Vandenboschia radicans (supposedly Neotropical and African), V. speciosa (supposedly European and Macaronesian) and V. gigantea (supposedly from western Indian Ocean) are morphologically close species and often confused in collections and in floras. Moreover, the status of African populations is still strongly debated. We undertook to combine morph...
Background and aims-A recent taxonomic and molecular study of the genus Cyrtorchis revealed three new species. Here, we describe one of these new species, endemic to the Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL), and compare it to its closest relatives. Its conservation status is provided along with detailed information on its ecology and reproductive biology....
Regeneration of tropical forest occurs naturally and mainly through early secondary succession by soil seed banks. Here, we analyzed seed bank variation in density and diversity along a degradation gradient. We also explored the relationship (similarity in composition) between the seed and seedling banks and the overstory vegetation. The investigat...
Tropical forests store 40-50% of terrestrial vegetation carbon. Spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests. Because of climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane compared to lowland forests. Here we ass...
Tropical forests store 40–50 per cent of terrestrial vegetation carbon1. However, spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests2. Owing to climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation3, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane forests compared with...
The filmy fern genus Trichomanes mainly comprises Neotropical species and a few taxa in Africa and the western Indian Ocean. The aim of this study is to infer the phylogenetic placement of all five Afro-Malagasy taxa in the genus and to investigate their history via an expanded and dated phylogenetic analysis including 39 species representing over...
The genus Cyrtorchis is renowned for its conspicuous white, long‐spurred flowers, but also for its challenging problems of species delimitation due to the great morphological resemblance of their flowers. Based on a preliminary visual inspection of 1752 specimens, 27 morphogroups were defined including 6 unpublished taxa. Then, we used a representa...
Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of...
This practical guide is an annex to the paper: PICT: A low-cost, modular, open-source camera trap system to study plant-insect interactions. Methods in Ecology and Evolution (Droissart V., Azandi L., Onguene E.R., Savignac M., Smith T.B., Deblauwe V. 2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13618
PICT (Plant-insect Interactions Camera Trap) is an...
Commercial camera traps (CTs) commonly used in wildlife studies have several technical limitations that restrict their scope of application. They are not easily customizable, unit prices sharply increase with image quality and importantly, they are not designed to record the activity of ectotherms such as insects. Those developed for the study of p...
Angraecoid orchids present a remarkable diversity of chromosome numbers, which makes them a highly suitable system for exploring the impact of karyotypic changes on cladogenesis, diversification and morphological differentiation. We compiled an annotated cytotaxonomic checklist for 126 species of Angraecinae, which was utilised to reconstruct chrom...
Habenaria linguiformis is recorded from Nigeria and Cameroon.
Dinklageella villiersi is endemic to Gabon
Habenaria phylacocheira is endemic to the northern part of Nigeria
Gastrodia africana is endemic to Cameroon.
Bulbophyllum pandanetorum is endemic to the southern part of Gabon
Habenaria phantasma has been recorded from Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo; it has a very disjunct distribution
Polystachya farinosa is endemic to Cameroon.
In an earlier paper published in Orchids in June 2020, we have shown that the major threats to the orchid habitats in Atlantic Central Africa are shifting agriculture, followed
by selective logging and urbanization. Focusing on the methodology we used and explained to assess the risk of extinction of endemic orchids from ACA, we presented habitat t...
The phylogenetic position of Rangaeris (Schltr.) Summerh. has been one of the most problematic issues of angraecoid orchid taxonomy. A recently published phylogenetic tree with nearly comprehensive taxon sampling of African angraecoid orchids suggested that this genus was polyphyletic, as its species appear nested within different subclades of the...
Tropical Africa is home to an astonishing biodiversity occurring in a variety of ecosystems. Past climatic change and geological events have impacted the evolution and diversification of this biodiversity. During the last two decades, around 90 dated molecular phylogenies of different clades across animals and plants have been published leading to...
Forest biomass is key in Earth carbon cycle and climate system, and thus under intense scrutiny in the context of international climate change mitigation initiatives (e.g. REDD+). In tropical forests, the spatial distribution of aboveground biomass (AGB) remains, however, highly uncertain. There is increasing recognition that progress is strongly l...
Aim
Examining tree species‐environment association can offer insight into the drivers of vegetation patterns and key information of practical relevance to forest management. Here, we aim to quantify the contribution of climate and soil gradients to variation in Central African tree species composition (abundance and occurrence).
Location
Tropical...
Reducing habitat loss for orchids can be mainly accomplished by (a) the inventory, report and risk of extinction assessment of the most threatened species; (b) the identification of critical habitats and areas that host extraordinarily high diversity and endemicity; and
(c) the simultaneous development of integrated in situ and ex situ conservation...
The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate contro...
The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate contro...
The World Orchid Congress has published their fascinating book ‘World Orchid Collections’ detailing about fifty of the world’s most diverse orchid collections with a view to assist ex-situ conservation, pollen sharing etc
Initially focused on the orchids of São Tomé, the Tropical Africa and Madagascar orchid shadehouses network currently counts n...
