Abstracts

Biological invasions: How can scientists respond to scientific denialism and social unawareness?

Contextualising invasive species denial - James Russell

In 2017 I introduced the concept of invasive species denial, and proposed it was on the rise. In the two years since, many scholars have contributed by challenging the legitimacy of invasive species denial as a specific case of science denial. In this talk I will outline the rationale that underpinned the originally proposed concept of invasive denial, and then discuss the literature that has followed, particularly those that challenged the original work. Key points include distinguishing denial from disagreement, disentangling facts from values, and determining where invasive species denial is actually found. The wider discussion is undertaken with the intent to inclusively advance the science of invasion biology while generating meaningful progress in the management of invasive species.

The roles of facts, values and social groups in societal deliberations about biological invasions - Christoph Kueffer

I will address three questions: To what extent can facts clarify contested societal issues? What is the role of scientists in societal debates? And, what is the relationship between people’s knowledge and actions? I will refer to concepts such as wicked problems, mode 2 research, knowledge-action gap, the value-laden nature of science, mental models and transdisciplinarity as a basis to discuss what it might mean to respond to scientific denialism and social unawareness in the context of biological invasions.

« I would prefer not to! » - The defense of ecological nativism against the praise of the new global nomadism - Virginie Maris

A set of criticisms of invasion biology relies on the dubious analogy between the suspicion on new-arriving species and xenophobia. A corollary to this criticism is the idea that human beings as well as non-humans have always traveled. By trying to freeze the long-time process of migrations, invasion biologists would thus be both biologically fixist and culturally intolerant. The false analogy between human migrations and non-human populations’ settlements can be easily deconstructed. However, rather than completely dismissing the analogy, I will try to make visible what worldviews and values are at stake in a growing number of invasive species criticisms. Indeed, even from an analogical point of view, the underlying conception of living beings as essentially nomads is the symptom of a de-terrestrialization of life and an abstraction of our relationships with (human and non-human) others as well as with the Earth itself. If there is something like an invasive species denialism, it should be taken into account and answered not only by opposing facts to values, but also by explicitating the values and worldviews at stake and by offering other values and other worldviews in response. Here, the numerous resistances of indigenous people around the world, reclaiming recognition and respect as natives, offer an interesting counter-part to the current injunction to move faster and further as well as the passive acceptation of cultural as well as biological globalization.

Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) within IPBES assessments and beyond: contributions to local and global well-being

 Many Natures, Multiple Identities, One Planet:  The IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystems - Eduardo S. Brondizio

The global assessment (GA) of biodiversity and ecosystem services of the IPBES has critically assessed the state of knowledge on past, present and possible future trends in multi-scale interactions between people and nature, while considering different knowledge systems. The GA includes land, inland waters, coastal zones and oceans and is timed to assess the current (2011-2020) and inform the next (2020-2030) generation of Strategic Plans for Biodiversity, and provide input to the SDGs. This presentation will reflect on the strategy implemented to integrate Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) and issues of concern to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) in the GA will be presented. The ‘ILK operationalization strategy’ has contributed to scale-up the contribution of ILK to regional and global environments and understand the impact of regional and global pressures upon them, and explore policy and governance options going forward. The presentation will reflect on lessons learned and possible ways forward.

Weaving Indigenous and Local knowledge (ILK) of Hungarian herders and science locally, and integrating ILK at global scales: meeting of two worlds in an IPBES assessment -  Molnár Zsolt

Some authors of the IPBES Global Assessment (GA), members of the GA Indigenous and Local Knowledge Liaison Group, met traditional Hungarian herders in March 2017 as part of our dialogue activities. Hours-long discussions helped the process of knowledge exchange between those landscape stewards who manage and use biodiversity to produce food for the wider society, and international experts. Traditional herders often possess a deep understanding about relationships between their livestock and their pastures. As herders often keep their animals on species-rich pastures in protected areas in Hungary, they also learn about nature conservation, sometimes with conflictual visions but also through knowledge co-production with conservation rangers and scientists. Thus, traditional herding in a protected area is an opportunity for the meeting of two knowledge systems: western science (including ecology and conservation biology), and Indigenous and Local knowledge (ILK). IPBES plays a leading role in how these two knowledge systems can possibly cooperate in assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services at global levels. For example, the publication of the dialogue workshop between traditional knowledge holders and assessment authors of the European and Central Asian IPBES Assessment, was used extensively during the writing of the chapter on nature’s contributions to people. In the Global Assessment, local indicators of nature developed and used by Indigenous Peoples and local communities were used in parallel to scientific indicators to assess status and trends of biodiversity globally. In this presentation, we shall discuss the opportunities and constraints of uniting the forces of science and ILK for a better future.

FAO’s work on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems: contributions towards sustainable food systems and climate resilience -  Anne Brunel

 Over the last few years, there has been increasing attention towards indigenous food systems and their holistic approach to food. In particular at the international level, debates on sustainable food systems put progressively these so-called alternative approaches and paradigms on the global policy-making agenda. In this context, for instance, both the Symposium on Agroecology organized by FAO in 2013, and the 2017 FAO publication “The Future of food and agriculture – Trends and Challenges”, reflected on the importance of indigenous food systems, and more generally, on the on-going cognitive, epistemic and normative changes in the food systems debate.  Indigenous food systems, while not answering all the questions, can bring some of the solutions for more sustainable and climate resilient food systems, and therefore greatly contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG2 in particular. In 2017, FAO initiated research and field activities initiative together with Bioversity International, and with the technical support of the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty, IRD and CIFOR. It aimed at profiling indigenous food systems across the world in order to highlight their unique and common characteristics in terms of sustainability and climate resilience. This initiative follows the recommendations of indigenous leaders who officially requested FAO in 2015, to create an indigenous food systems group. This commitment was reaffirmed in April 2015 during the XIV session the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). In November 2018, the first High-Level Expert Seminar on Indigenous Food Systems was held at FAO. It gathered more than 200 participants, out of which 70 speakers, 22 indigenous communities and 20 research centers and aimed at reflecting on strategies to enhance the understanding, protection and promotion of indigenous food systems. Some of the results of the profiling exercise, as well as the outputs of the Expert Seminar will be presented at the side event on Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) within IPBES assessments and beyond: contribution to local and global well-being

International Cooperation in research and dynamic  conservation of the evolutionary Heritage of food production -  Nuria Sanz

The origin of our dietary dependency on domestic plants and animals constitutes the most important historical transition experienced by our species. Agriculture transformed the planet on a global scale. Although for several decades archaeologists have researched for the oldest evidence of the domestication process, current research on the origins of food production has experienced a fundamental transformation motivated by, the emergence of more robust biocultural approaches,  new physicochemical techniques  that allow the history of living beings to be traced, and new computational tools that model the dynamics of ecosystems and communities over time. The studies are currently undergoing a radical transformation, incorporating interdisciplinary approaches to the search for an understanding of demographic and social changes that have occurred over the last 12.000 years, as well as the impact of human management processes on the evolution of all forms of life that currently cohabit the planet.  With this background we shall discuss how international cooperation develops research and dynamic conservation of the evolutionary Heritage of food production.

Organic farming in Senegal and its value for reconstructing prehistoric farming practices - Amy Styring

Various programmes in Senegal are aiming to promote organic agriculture, encouraging farmers to apply composted household waste and animal manure to fertilise the soil and improve crop yields. What is not known is how long-lived this practice has been in West Africa, and how the intensity of manure application may have shaped the landscape over the last two millennia and contributed to the long-term sustainability of food production.

Pearl millet grains were collected from fields in northeast Senegal, where farmers are involved in a USDA-funded programme aiming to increase millet production and agricultural revenue. The nitrogen isotope values of these pearl millet grains provide a framework for interpreting isotope values of millet grains preserved on archaeological sites in terms of changing manuring intensity through time. In the light of these modern data, the nitrogen isotope values of millet grains recovered from ancient settlement mounds in northeast Burkina Faso indicate that manure application increased from the first to the mid-second millennium AD, with intensive manuring evidenced only after AD 1000, when fields became more permanent. This demonstrates the longevity of manuring in this region and contributes to a better understanding of how the present-day mosaic of fields and fallow lands developed and was sustained. This work also highlights the role of archaeology in placing present-day farming practices within the longue-durée of agricultural and social change, providing a truly long-term outlook on the sustainability and resilience of agrosystems.

Deep-time data for long-term concepts : How local knowledge, historical ecology and archaeology can contribute to assessing and managing biodiversity and ecosystem services -  Doyle Mckey

Sustainability, resilience and related concepts imply continued functioning over time. Evaluating the sustainability and resilience of human/nature interactions, including their impact on biodiversity, thus requires data that permit a long-term perspective. Three approaches to accomplish this can be distinguished. Local knowledge, to the extent that it results from long-term successful interaction of a society with nature, implies temporal depth. Two other approaches strive to go deeper in time. Historical ecology seeks to relate the present state of environments to their past use by humans. Environmental archaeology provides even greater temporal depth, offering examples of ‘completed experiments’ in human/nature interactions. Some of these ‘experiments’ support ‘collapse’ scenarios, while others suggest human use of environments in ways that were sustainable—at least until they were not. This talk will explore the opportunities for tying these three approaches together by comparing present and past social-ecological systems in similar environments. We show how a synthesis of these approaches can contribute to make local knowledge usable for assessing and managing biodiversity and ecosystem services today.

Blue forests and green oceans -- comparing the emerging properties across biomes

How large animals shape terrestrial, marine and planetary ecosystem function- Yadvinder Malhi

Ecologists have long been aware that animals are not mere passive recipients of the nutritious bounty that plants provide them, that they can shape the ecosystems around them through food webs and nutrient cycling and by altering the nature of the habitat around them. However, until recently such thinking has rarely been scaled up to our understanding of how the function of whole biomes is shaped by animals. Our models of the global biosphere still entirely ignore animals. Are animals merely a higher order detail in planetary function, or a critical element in any predictive understanding of ecosystems?

In this talk I explore a variety of ways in which animals (focusing on vertebrates) can influence ecosystem functioning in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, drawing on evidence from the Pleistocene to modern times, and on ongoing experiments and “rewilding” projects around the world. An appreciation of animal influence on ecosystem function leads to awareness of how many even apparently low disturbance ecosystems may carry the legacy of past extinctions. In a world of increasing human pressure and shifting climates, I argue that animals can have an important role in maintaining resilient ecosystems.

Characterizing human impacts on the functioning of marine food webs using ecological network analysis indices - Nathalie Niquil

Direct anthropogenic and climate-related pressures are inducing considerable changes in marine ecosystems and a central question is how the growing number and intensity of these pressures will affect the functioning of ecosystems. Ecological Network Analysis (ENA) indices are often used to quantify the emergent properties of food webs, to evaluate these impacts. For example, they can be used to characterize recycling, trophic levels, omnivory, at the level of the trophic compartment or of the ecosystem. Most of these indices were derived from ecological theories, and can be related to the stability or maturity of ecosystems. Several studies try presently to connect them to the notion of “health” of ecosystems, in order to use them as indicators. For example, we have insisted, during the last 8 years, on the fact that the health of marine food webs had to be quantified with holistic (on the complete food web) and functional (based on predator-prey fluxes) indicators and today, the “mean trophic level” indicator is used by the North East Atlantic regional seas convention OSPAR. In parallel, we are now developing methods, based on the ENA indices, to study cumulative impacts. I will present results in the Bay of Seine, a highly anthropized ecosystem, where we associate the effects of climate change and the presence of marine renewable energy device. This case study is based on scenarios linking species distribution changes (derived from IPCC projections) and the simulation of the wind farm scheduled in the Bay, based of 75 monopile turbines and a capacity of 450 MW. Two methodological developments are currently realized, one for taking into account the uncertainty in the ENA indices calculations, the other one for developing maps of these ENA indices, based on the scenarios simulated.

Understanding biodiversity patterns and processes through remote sensing - Maria J Santos

We are experiencing an unprecedented decline of global biodiversity due to anthropogenically driven drivers. If we are to ensure that these species and ecosystems persist, new ways to map the spatial distribution of biodiversity and understand the ecological processes that lead to such patterns are urgently needed. In this talk, I will review how remote sensing technologies have and will continue to revolutionise how we monitor and study biodiversity across scales. More specifically I will focus on remote sensing applications to the study of dimensions of biodiversity (species, structure and function) aiming to provide an overview of the contributions of remote sensing to ecological knowledge from maps to processes. I will show some applications across spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions, from small to large scale, one snapshot to dense time series, and from multispectral to imagining spectroscopy. I will conclude with an overview of upcoming new sensors and missions (e.g. Sentinel constellation, OCO2, GEDI, etc.) with particular relevance to the study of biodiversity, its essential variables, and the science of ecology.

Emerging impacts of climate change on marine biodiversity and fisheries - Didier Gascuel

While fisheries have been the main driver of global change in the sea over the last century, the effects of climate change became more and more significant in the last few decades, and are expected to amplify in the 21st century. Ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and the associated oceanographic changes such as increased stratification of large areas of the ocean, are threatening marine life and biodiversity. The presentation will focus on three key aspects of the observed and expected impacts of climate change on marine biodiversity. First, we will review how the poleward migration of fish stocks, projected by 2100 using niche models, may impact marine biogeography, leading to an overall shift in community structure and a decrease in global animal biomass, with large areas of the ocean particularly affected. Second, using trophic models forced by outputs of global circulation models, we will show that warmer oceans are expected to result in less efficient and faster trophic transfers within marine food webs. This is likely to lead to a global decrease in the biomass and productivity of secondary producers, with the largest impacts expected for the high trophic levels. Finally, we will stress that the potential global fisheries catches are projected by multiple models to decrease. Although the changes in realized catch will strongly depend on fishing intensity, this might severely reduce the revenue from fisheries sectors, thus impacting the livelihood of the dependent communities and food security of vulnerable people. The level of impacts will vary regionally, with tropical coastal ecosystems being the most at risk relatively to those in mid-latitude regions. Globally, the future of marine biodiversity under climate change can be envisioned by four dimensions of ecological deterioration, with marine ecosystems being at risk to become less ecologically productive, less stable, less reversible and less resilient.

CESAB (CEntre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity) symposium: Future and prospects for large scale biodiversity analysis

Welcoming remarks - Nicolas Mouquet & Claire Salomon

In a rapidly changing world, biodiversity research has moved from local-to continental-scale data collection and analysis and entered into the era of ‘big data’. With this transition, has grown the need for scientific synthesis of complex information across multiple scales and disciplines. The CEnter for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) aims to foster the synthesis of existing data on biodiversity. Since 2010, more than 500 researchers have participated in working sessions with the aim of improving and enhancing our knowledge and understanding of our precious ecosystems and their biodiversity, and ensuring their effective management and conservation. This 3-hour symposium will illustrate the future and prospects for large scale biodiversity analysis that have been explored during CESAB sessions. A keynote speaker will introduce the symposium (40 min) and five speakers will present the results of their synthesis working groups (25 min each).

Reef fishes as a model in macro-ecology - Michel Kulbicki

Reef fish represent the most diversified group of vertebrates living in a given ecosystem, with over 7000 species known at present. Coral reefs are found in the tropical belt worldwide. These ecosystems are amongst the most sensitive to global change. Their distribution is submitted to numerous factors, either wide ranging (e.g. latitude, evolutionary history, island size, isolation) or local (e.g. primary production, human pressure, depth). For a given group of organisms, such as fish, the distribution, abundance, biomass and production are linked to the previous factors but also to intrinsic factors such as dispersal and colonizing capacities, phylogeny, metabolism or trophic needs and interspecies relationships. A first group of scientists within the GASPAR program tried to tackle how the species distribution of reef fish could be understood from a global scale down to the local scale. Since, little by little we endeavored to add complexity, by bringing in functional diversity, then abundance, and biomass, with in scope to finally add production. Ideally we should be able to model the characteristics of reef fish assemblages all the way from small areas represented by coral patches to eco-regions. Extending this approach to other organisms and other systems is already on the way.

Disentangling the role of anthropic disturbances and ecological processes on weed community assembly to promote agroecological transitions - Sabrina Gaba

Biodiversity decline is a global issue, with potential negative consequences for all economic sectors especially for agriculture. Farmland biodiversity is threatened by the intensification and specialization of farming. Various wild species have adapted to farming practices and depend on farmland habitats. Arable weeds are emblematic species of farmland habitats. They play a key role in agroecosystems by supporting pollination services and trophic networks, but have drastically decline as a result of intensive chemical control for ensuring crop production. Indeed, herbicides represent the majority of pesticides used in annual crops in many countries, making weed management one of the main obstacles to reduce the reliance on pesticides. The Disco-Weed CESAB project used four databases from France and UK gathering surveys on weed flora, agricultural practices and crop yields, collected at spatial scales ranging from 1m² to the national scale over nearly 4000 agricultural fields sampled during the last 15 years. We first investigated key functional attributes of arable weeds compared to non-weed plants to provide a comprehensive perspective on the ecological and functional properties determining plant weediness. Then, we demonstrated that both spatial and temporal dispersal in interaction with mass-effect from source habitats in the landscape or in the crop sequence were major drivers of weed diversity. Finally, we explored the relationships between weeds and crop plants in various management situations to quantify the strength of the outcome of crop–weed competition on crop yield. Overall, this project provides new elements to design an innovative conceptual and operational framework aiming at promoting farmland biodiversity conservation and ensure for food security in a sustainable way.

Novel models for the study of insect diversity and macroecology - Rodolfe Rougerie

Insects are the most speciose group of terrestrial organisms and are strongly affected by global environmental and climatic changes. They exhibit a remarkable variety of forms and life history trait combinations and are responsible for many ecosystem services and disservices. Yet, our knowledge of their diversity and distributions, as well as our understanding of their evolution and diversification dynamics through space and time, remains fragmentary. We identified a group of herbivorous insects – two families of moths – that represent an unparalleled insect model. This group comprises about 5000 species and has been thoroughly documented worldwide, through comprehensive DNA barcode libraries, hundreds of thousands of occurrence records in databases, and a broad documentation of their life histories. Thus, they offer for the first time an opportunity to study patterns of diversity and distribution at global scale in insects, together with their underlying macroevolutionary processes. Here we present the comprehensive database built by our research group as well as the different approaches and dedicated tools or workflows we developed to address key questions about the macroecological patterns and the evolutionary history of these moths. This is the first time that such a holistic approach is applied to insects on a global scale. We expect that it will shed light on the processes governing the extant diversity of insects and help us understand how global changes will affect them, how they may or may not adapt to these changes, and how best we can act to conserve the species and preserve their roles in our ecosystems.

Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data to identify areas of ecological significance in the Southern Ocean - Yan Ropert-Coudert

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and FRB-CESAB Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) project aims to undertake a multispecies assessment of habitat use of meso- and top predators in the Southern Ocean, using existing animal tracking data. This will identify Areas of Ecological Significance - regions that are important for foraging to a range of predators, thereby signalling high prey abundance and diversity. The dataset contains data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations. The data for the project were derived from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and the challenges of getting people to join up and contribute data were considerable. Animal tracking data themselves present challenges for analysis, with data across several dimensions, some of which may have gaps. Tracking data are integrated with environmental data, leading to further challenges. The RAATD group has developed methods and workflows that deal with these challenges to produce habitat use predictions for 17 marine predator species across the Southern Ocean. The synthesis of these data provides an unprecedented view of biodiversity in the Southern Ocean in a context of conservation and the creation of Marine Protected Areas.