MONTANE : Multi-trophic biodiversity and multi-functionality across Alpine Environments

Labex OSUG laboratories or/and Labex OSUG teams involved : LECA / Irstea
Project leader : Wilfried THUILLER

Abstract

MONTANE will take a spatially-explicit multitrophic approach to understand and model the relationships between environment (past and current), biodiversity and multi-functionality across the French Alps. MONTANE is a research project that will also build on and expand the Orchamp observatory network and thus has a strong observation component. In this project, we will set up 15 new altitudinal gradients representative of the French Alps (added to the 5 existing pilot gradients). The data from Orchamp will allow us to test the effects of land use legacies, climate and snow cover on the distribution of biodiversity at all trophic levels, and to tease apart the respective influences of environment and biodiversity on multi-functionality at multiple spatial scales.
The overarching objectives of MONTANE are twofold :
 To build an integrated spatio-temporal database of environment (climate and snow), land use, multi-trophic biodiversity and multi-functionality across multiple sites in the French Alps. This database will be fully integrated into the Orchamp observatory network.
 To understand and model the joint effects of environment, land use legacies and multi-trophic assemblages on ecosystem multi-functionality.

Support (2017) : 94 000 €

Updated on 26 juillet 2018