Publications de Charlotte Vandenberghe

Optimizing Carbon Storage Within a Spatially Heterogeneous Upland Grassland Through Sheep Grazing Management

Livestock grazing is known to influence carbon (C) storage in vegetation and soil. Yet, for grazing management to be used to optimize C storage, large scale investigations that take into account the typically heterogeneous distribution of grazers and C acr ...

Springer2014

Subordinate plant species impact on soil microbial communities and ecosystem functioning in grasslands: Findings from a removal experiment

Alexandre Buttler, Charlotte Vandenberghe, Pierre Rossi, Claire Meugnier, Pierre Rémi Mariotte, Richard David Bardgett

Despite their low relative abundance, subordinate plant species may have larger impacts on ecosystem functioning than expected, but their role in plant communities remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to test how subordinate plant species i ...

Elsevier Gmbh, Urban & Fischer Verlag2013

Subordinate plant species enhance community resistance against drought in semi-natural grasslands

Alexandre Buttler, Charlotte Vandenberghe, Pierre Rémi Mariotte

According to the insurance hypothesis, more diverse plant communities are more likely to be resistant to drought. Whilst many experiments have been carried out to determine the effects of plant diversity on plant community insurance, the results are still ...

Wiley-Blackwell2013

Effect of dung deposition on small-scale patch structure and seasonal vegetation dynamics in mountain pastures

Alexandre Buttler, François Gillet, Charlotte Vandenberghe

Cattle activity greatly influences plant species composition and biomass production of grassland ecosystems. Dung deposition by cattle together with grazing and trampling can be considered as one of the important factors driving vegetation dynamics in past ...

Elsevier2010

Restoration of Threatened Arable Weed Communities in Abandoned Mountainous Crop Fields

François Gillet, Charlotte Vandenberghe

Arable fields maintaining species-rich weed communities have almost disappeared from European mountain areas due to their abandonment or replacement by extensive grazing systems during the last decades. The restoration of arable weed communities have becom ...

Wiley-Blackwell2010

Does the strength of facilitation by nurse shrubs depend on grazing resistance of tree saplings?

Alexandre Buttler, François Frelechoux, Charlotte Vandenberghe

2009

The influence of competition from herbaceous vegetation and shade on simulated browsing tolerance of coniferous and deciduous saplings

Alexandre Buttler, François Frelechoux, Charlotte Vandenberghe

The ability of saplings to tolerate browsing (i.e. the ability to persist with reduced biomass and to compensate for biomass loss) is influenced by the level of stress and their growth strategies. Ultimately, insight into species-specific responses of sapl ...

2008

Short-term effects of cattle browsing on tree sapling growth in mountain wooded pastures

Alexandre Buttler, François Frelechoux, Charlotte Vandenberghe

Browsing by livestock has been identified as an important factor preventing tree regeneration in wooded pastures. Two field experiments were performed to investigate the effects of cattle browsing on tree sapling growth in a mountainwooded pasture. Two siz ...

2007

Nurse plants, tree saplings and grazing pressure: decreasing facilitation along a biotic environmental gradient

Charlotte Vandenberghe

Current conceptual models predict that an increase in stress shifts interactions between plants from competitive to facilitative; hence, facilitation is expected to gain in ecological importance with increasing stress. Little is known about how facilitativ ...

2007

Competitive effects of herbaceous vegetation on tree seedling emergence, growth and survival: does gap size matter?

Alexandre Buttler, François Frelechoux, Charlotte Vandenberghe

Question: What is the effect of gap size on the seedling emergence, growth and survival of four common tree species in wooded pastures? Location: A pasture in the Jura mountains, Switzerland. Methods: Seeds were sown in a complete three-way factorial desig ...

2006

The influence of cattle activity on tree regeneration in wood-pastures

Charlotte Vandenberghe

Wood-pastures are semi-natural, highly biodiverse systems maintained by traditional extensive agriculture. They are used for grazing and timber. The shifting mosaics of grassland, shrub thickets and woodland patches in these systems are driven by large her ...

EPFL2006