Publications by Thomas Spiegelberger

Seasonality alters drivers of soil enzyme activity in subalpine grassland soil undergoing climate change

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

In mountain ecosystems with marked seasonality, climate change can affect various processes in soils, potentially modifying long-term key soil services via change in soil organic carbon (C) storage. Based on a four-year soil transplantation experiment in S ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2018

Climate change effects on the stability and chemistry of soil organic carbon pools in a subalpine grassland

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Mountain soils stock large quantities of carbon as particulate organic matter that may be highly vulnerable to climate change. To explore potential shifts in soil organic matter (SOM) form and stability under climate change (warming and reduced precipitati ...

Springer2017

Seasonal influence of climate manipulation on microbial community structure and function in mountain soils

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Microbial communities drive soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition through the production of a variety of extracellular enzymes. Climate change impact on soil microbial communities and soil enzymatic activities can therefore strongly affect SOM turnover, ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2015

Drought-induced shifts in plants traits, yields and nutritive value under realistic grazing and mowing managements in a mountain grassland

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Constant Signarbieux, Claire Emilie Deléglise

Extreme drought events can dramatically impact grassland ecosystems, causing potential loss of forage production for livestock in temperate grasslands. However, knowledge of drought effects on forage production, nutritive value and plant community stabilit ...

Elsevier2015

Distinct invasion strategies operating within a natural annual plant system

Justine Marie Gay des Combes, Thomas Spiegelberger

Alien plant species are known to have a wide range of impacts on recipient communities, from resident species' exclusions to coexistence with resident species. It remains unclear; however, if this variety of impacts is due to different invader strategies, ...

Wiley-Blackwell2015

Intraspecific trait variability mediates the response of subalpine grassland communities to extreme drought events

Thomas Spiegelberger, Vincent Jung

Climate change is expected to increase the magnitude and the frequency of extreme climatic events such as droughts. Better understanding how plant communities will respond to these droughts is a major challenge. We expect the response to be a shift in func ...

Wiley-Blackwell2014

Transplantation of subalpine wood-pasture turfs along a natural climatic gradient reveals lower resistance of unwooded pastures to climate change compared to wooded ones

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov

Climate change could impact strongly on cold-adapted mountain ecosystems, but little is known about its interaction with traditional land-use practices. We used an altitudinal gradient to simulate a year-round warmer and drier climate for semi-natural suba ...

Springer2014

Invasion by Fallopia spp. in a French upland region is related to anthropogenic disturbances

Thomas Spiegelberger

Within Europe, mountain ecosystems are generally less invaded by exotic plant species than are lowland areas. This pattern is commonly attributed to climatic harshness, which limits invasive species presence, and higher propagule pressure and rates of dist ...

Elsevier Gmbh, Urban & Fischer Verlag2014

Diminished soil functions occur under simulated climate change in a sup-alpine pasture, but heterotrophic temperature sensitivity indicates microbial resilience

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

The pressure of climate change is disproportionately high in mountainous regions, and small changes may push ecosystem processes beyond sensitivity thresholds, creating new dynamics of carbon and nutrient cycling. Given that the rate of organic matter deco ...

Elsevier2014

Biotic and Abiotic Constraints on the Decomposition of Fagus sylvatica Leaf Litter Along an Altitudinal Gradient in Contrasting Land-Use Types

Alexandre Buttler, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

Climate change can affect the process of carbon cycling and leaf litter decomposition in multiple ways, both directly and indirectly, though the strength and direction of this relationship is often context dependent. In this experiment, we followed decompo ...

Springer Verlag2014

Light Availability Prevails Over Soil Fertility and Structure in the Performance of Asian Knotweeds on Riverbanks: New Management Perspectives

Thomas Spiegelberger

Asian knotweeds (Fallopia spp.) are considered one of the world's most invasive species. Restoring habitats dominated by these exotic species requires a better understanding of the importance of abiotic factors controlling the invasive knotweeds performanc ...

Springer2013

How do subordinate and dominant species in semi-natural mountain grasslands relate to productivity and land-use change?

Alexandre Buttler, Pierre Rémi Mariotte, Thomas Spiegelberger

Changes in agricultural practices of semi-natural mountain grasslands are expected to modify plant community structure and shift dominance patterns. Using vegetation surveys of 11 sites in semi-natural grasslands of the Swiss Jura and Swiss and French Alps ...

Elsevier Gmbh, Urban & Fischer Verlag2013

Dynamics of Forage Production in Pasture-woodlands of the Swiss Jura Mountains under Projected Climate Change Scenarios

Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

Silvopastoral systems of the Swiss Jura Mountains serve as a traditional source of forage and timber in the subalpine vegetation belt, but their vulnerability to land use and climate change puts their future sustainability at stake. We coupled experimental ...

Resilience Alliance2013

A Contextual Analysis of Land-Use and Vegetation Changes in Two Wooded Pastures in the Swiss Jura Mountains

Joël Chételat, Michaël Kalbermatten, Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Thomas Spiegelberger, Kathryn Lannas, Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

This study examines the effects of land-use policies and natural events on the evolution of two wooded pastures in the Jura Mountains in Switzerland between 1934 and 2000. The socioeconomic context and the local conditions were seen as major driving forces ...

Resilience Alliance2013

Sustainable Land Use in Mountain Regions Under Global Change: Synthesis Across Scales and Disciplines

Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Thomas Spiegelberger, Heike Lischke, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

Mountain regions provide essential ecosystem goods and services (EGS) for both mountain dwellers and people living outside these areas. Global change endangers the capacity of mountain ecosystems to provide key services. The Mountland project focused on th ...

Resilience Alliance2013

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

Joël Chételat, Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Thomas Spiegelberger, 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

Preservation of Wooded pastures in the Jura: climatic and agricultural Policy challenges

Joël Chételat, Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Pierre Rémi Mariotte, Thomas Spiegelberger, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

Agrarforschung2012

Resilience of acid subalpine grassland to short-term liming and fertilisation

Thomas Spiegelberger, Claire Emilie Deléglise

A fertilisation experiment was started in the French Alps on an acid grassland at 2000 m in 1989 where lime as calcium carbonate ("liming") and Thomas Slag enriched by potassium chloride ("fertilisation") were added in a random block design until 1992. Sin ...

2010