Publications related to Woody plant encroachment

Global carbon dioxide efflux from rivers enhanced by high nocturnal emissions

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Asa Lovisa Viktoria Horgby, Luis Gómez Gener

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the atmosphere from running waters are estimated to be four times greater than the total carbon (C) flux to the oceans. However, these fluxes remain poorly constrained because of substantial spatial and temporal variabilit ...

2021

Catchment land cover influences macroinvertebrate food-web structure and energy flow pathways in mountain streams

Tom Ian Battin, Christopher Robinson

Understanding how different food resources sustain stream food webs is fundamental towards increasing our knowledge on trophic structure and energy flow pathways in fluvial ecosystems. 2. Food webs in small mountain streams are sustained by autochthonou ...

2019

Drivers of soil carbon stabilization in oil palm plantations

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Guillaume, Mathieu Raymond Santonja, Juan Carlos Quezada Rivera, Johanna Katharina Rüegg

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) in agroecosystems is necessary to mitigate climate change and soil degradation. Management practices designed to reach this goal call for a deeper understanding of the processes and drivers of soil carbon input stabiliz ...

WILEY2019

Contrasting responses of bacterial and fungal communities to plant litter diversity in a Mediterranean oak forest

Mathieu Raymond Santonja

Tree species diversity of forested ecosystems control the diversity of leaf litter inputs to the soil, with cascading effects on the microbial communities colonizing decomposing litter. However, the extent to which bacterial and fungal communities inhabiti ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2018

A field-based modelling framework of the ecohydrology of schistosomiasis

Francisco Javier Perez Saez

Successful control of schistosomiasis, a water-borne parasitic disease, is challenged by the intricacy of the wormâ s lifecycle, which depends on aquatic snail intermediate hosts, and involves environmental, ecologic, and socio-economic factors. Current s ...

EPFL2018

On the Assessment of the CO2 Mitigation Potential of Woody Biomass

François Maréchal, François Richard Vuille, Emanuela Peduzzi, Victor Codina Gironès

Woody biomass, a renewable energy resource, accumulates solar energy in form of carbon hydrates produced from atmospheric CO2 and H2O. It is, therefore, a means of CO2 mitigation for society as long as the biogenic carbon released to the atmosphere when de ...

2018

Ecohydrological interfaces as hotspots of ecosystem processes

Tom Ian Battin

The movement of water, matter, organisms, and energy can be altered substantially at ecohydrological interfaces, the dynamic transition zones that often develop within ecotones or boundaries between adjacent ecosystems. Interdisciplinary research over the ...

American Geophysical Union2017

Integrating models across temporal and spatial scales to simulate landscape patterns and dynamics in mountain pasture-woodlands

Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

Context Pasture-woodlands are semi-natural landscapes that result from the combined influences of climate, management, and intrinsic vegetation dynamics. These landscapes are sensitive to future changes in land use and climate, but our ability to predict t ...

Springer2017

Positive litter feedbacks of an introduced species reduce native diversity and promote invasion in Californian grasslands

Pierre Rémi Mariotte

Questions: Californian grasslands have a long history of invasion, starting with the introduction of exotic forage species a century ago, and followed by newer waves of invaders. Both exotic and invasive species produce large amounts of litter, but the imp ...

Wiley2017

Improving the theoretical underpinnings of process-based hydrologic models

Bettina Schaefli, Serena Ceola

In this Commentary, we argue that it is possible to improve the physical realism of hydrologic models by making better use of existing hydrologic theory. We address the following questions: (1) what are some key elements of current hydrologic theory; (2) h ...

American Geophysical Union2016

Linking soil microbial communities to vascular plant abundance along a climate gradient

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Luca Bragazza, Richard David Bardgett

The ongoing expansion of shrub cover in response to climate change represents a unique opportunity to explore the link between soil microbial communities and vegetation changes. This link is particularly important in peatlands where shrub expansion is expe ...

Wiley-Blackwell2015

Alien plant species distribution in the European Alps: influence of species' climatic requirements

Luca Bragazza

The paper provides the first estimate of the role of abiotic and anthropogenic variables driving both alien plant species richness and composition covering the whole region of the European Alps. To establish and spread in a new area, alien plants must be a ...

Springer Verlag2014

Land management trumps the effects of climate change and elevated CO2 on grassland functioning

Pierre Rémi Mariotte, Aurélie Thébault

Grasslands cover similar to 30% of the Earth's terrestrial surface and provide many ecosystem services. Many grasslands are heavily managed to maximize these services for human benefit, but the outcome of management is anticipated to be increasingly inf ...

Wiley-Blackwell2014

Plant functional types define magnitude of drought response in peatland CO2 exchange

Luca Bragazza, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Peatlands are important sinks for atmospheric carbon (C), yet the role of plant functional types (PFTs) for C sequestration under climatic perturbations is still unclear. A plant-removal experiment was used to study the importance of vascular PFTs for the ...

Ecological Soc Amer2014

Impact of management type and intensity on multiple facets of grassland biodiversity in the French Jura Mountains

François Gillet

Questions(1) Does grassland vegetation differ in its taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional alpha diversity between strictly grazed parcels (SGP) and mowed-and-grazed parcels (MGP)? (2) Do we observe differences in the responses of functional diversity (re ...

Wiley-Blackwell2014

SEHR-ECHO v1.0: a Spatially Explicit Hydrologic Response model for ecohydrologic applications

Andrea Rinaldo, Enrico Bertuzzo, Bettina Schaefli, Ludovico Nicotina, Cédric Imfeld, Pierfrancesco Da Ronco

This paper presents the Spatially Explicit Hydrologic Response (SEHR) model developed at the Laboratory of Ecohydrology of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne for the simulation of hydrological processes at the catchment scale. The key concept of ...

2014

Past and future landscape dynamics in pasture-woodlands of the Swiss Jura Mountains under climate change

Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Thomas Spiegelberger, Joël Chételat, Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

Silvopastoral systems are traditional components of the landscape in the Swiss Jura Mountains, and are promising approaches for the sustainable management of mountain areas worldwide. Due to complex vegetation dynamics, pasture-woodlands are very vulnerabl ...

Resilience Alliance2013

A synthetic review of feedbacks and drivers of shrub encroachment in arid grasslands

Paolo d'Odorico

Many arid grasslands around the world are affected by woody plant encroachment and by the replacement of a relatively continuous grass cover with shrub patches bordered by bare soil. This shift in plant community composition is often abrupt in space and ti ...

John Wiley and Sons2012

Evaluating Ecohydrological Theories of Woody Root Distribution in the Kalahari

Paolo d'Odorico

The contribution of savannas to global carbon storage is poorly understood, in part due to lack of knowledge of the amount of belowground biomass. In these ecosystems, the coexistence of woody and herbaceous life forms is often explained on the basis of be ...

2012

An analytical model for soil-atmosphere feedback

Bettina Schaefli

Soil-atmosphere feedback is a key for understanding the hydrological cycle and the direction of potential system changes. This paper presents an analytical framework to study the interplay between soil and atmospheric moisture, using as input only the boun ...

European Geosciences Union2012