Flore Viard-Crétat's research while affiliated with University of Grenoble and other places

... As plants mature, their digestibility decreases and their biomass increases, thus herbivore profitability should be higher in areas where plants are at a medium development stage (Demment and Van Soest, 1985;Hansen et al., 2009). The complexity of orography in mountain areas results in high diversity of pasture quality in comparison to that found in relatively flat and homogeneous areas (Duparc et al., 2013). It is well known that small herbivores are highly selective for high-quality and often sparsely distributed resources in comparison with larger species (Fryxell et al., 1988;Laca et al., 2010;Mysterud et al., 2012), and that energetic cost of displacement is lower in small than in larger herbivores (Dial, 2003;Taylor et al., 1972). ...

... Allelopathy and competition by exploitation can act simultaneously. This makes determining the contributions of the two processes a challenge, especially under field conditions (Fernandez et al., 2016;Nilsson, 1994;Viard-Crétat et al., 2012). Evidence of allelopathic potential can be obtained by removing donor plants or organs, but this is not possible with roots (Fernandez et al., 2016;Fuerst and Putnam, 1983;Inderjit and Mallik, 2002,;Olofsdotter et al., 1999;Ridenour and Callaway, 2001). ...

... Thus, monitoring of single seedlings for at least a year is necessary to determine their fate (Fenner 1978; Stampfli & Zeiter 1999). When studying seedlings in grasslands, ecologists often seek to understand the effect of various management regimes on their recruitment (Morgan 2001; Overbeck et al. 2003; Hofmann & Isselstein 2004; Martin & Wilsey 2006; Viard-Cr etat et al. 2010). The effect of grazing is one of the most studied factors of grassland ecology (e.g., Watt & Gibson 1988; Crawley 1990; Bullock et al. 1994 Bullock et al. , 1995 Edwards & Crawley 1999; Wilsey & Polley 2003). ...

... Mowing is one of the most important management mechanisms in the grassland ecosystems of northern China that directly or indirectly affects net primary productivity by influencing microbial activity and N turnover rates [17]. Previous studies reported that mowing also strongly affected nutrient cycling processes because mowing removed aboveground biomass and decreased litter biomass [15,23], which could increase soil surface temperature and decrease soil moisture content and further affect the bacterial and fungi composition and then stimulate N turnover processes [24][25][26][27]. Some studies showed that mowing reduced root biomass and soil total N concentrations [28,29], which was likely due to the loss of N through aboveground biomass harvesting. ...

... Seeds have perfect protective structures and multipathway metabolic functions that regulate their dormancy and germination and realize the continuation of plant species (Zaady et al., 1997;Simon et al., 2003;Fenner and Thompson, 2005;Robert and Angela, 2007). However, seed life history is determined by the local climatic regime, including environmental stresses such as sand burial, drought, salinity, microbe infection, predation, and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., grazing, mowing, and burning) (Auld and Denham 2006;Viard-Crétat et al., 2011;Song et al., 2017;Mariana and Alessandra, 2020;Lei and Middleton, 2021). Additionally, the spatiotemporal dynamics of the seed bank are also affected by the composition, structure, and functional traits of the aboveground vegetation (Dey et al., 2016;Mariana and Alessandra, 2020). ...

... In general, cultivation enhances and improves conditions for plant growth, but the opposite is often true for grassland species. A common problem caused by former cultivation is the large amount of residual soil nutrients (typically phosphorus), which enhances general productivity and the growth of highly competitive species (Liancourt et al., 2009), causing shady conditions that hamper the establishment of more light-demanding species, which comprise a large proportion of typical grassland species (Walker et al., 2004;Hautier et al., 2009). Tillage may also alter soil structure and reduce plant productivity. ...

... Plants release allelochemicals through volatilization (Barney et al. 2005;Eom et al. 2006;Ens et al. 2009;Harun et al. 2015), leaching of compounds from foliage or litter by rainfall (Viard-Crétat et al. 2009;Becerra et al. 2018;Pilsbacher et al. 2021), or exudation by roots (Weston et al. 2012;Jessing et al. 2013;Gfeller et al. 2018). In some cases, microbial transformation products of plant allelochemicals may cause the observed effects on plant growth (Liebl and Worsham 1983;Venturelli et al. 2016). ...