Publications de Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

Architecture of a decentralised decision support system for futuristic beehives

Francesco Mondada, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Robert Matthew Mills

Honeybees are essential to human society, providing pollination services globally as well as producing honey and other valuable products. Effective management of apiaries should not only rely on beekeeper knowledge and skill, but also incorporate new infor ...

2024

Social Integrating Robots Suggest Mitigation Strategies for Ecosystem Decay

Francesco Mondada, Frank Bonnet, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Rafael Botner Barmak

We develop here a novel hypothesis that may generate a general research framework of how autonomous robots may act as a future contingency to counteract the ongoing ecological mass extinction process. We showcase several research projects that have underta ...

2021

Bio-Hybrid Systems for Ecosystem Level Effects

Francesco Mondada, Jean-Louis Deneubourg, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Matthieu Jean-Michel Philippe Broisin, Martina Szopek, Robert Matthew Mills, Rafael Botner Barmak

In a time marked by ecological decay and by the perspective of a severe backlash of this ecosystem decay and climate devastation onto human society, bold moves that employ novel technology to counteract this decline are required. We present a novel concept ...

MIT Press2021

Vascular plant-mediated controls on atmospheric carbon assimilation and peat carbon decomposition under climate change

Alexandre Buttler, Luca Bragazza, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek, Remy Jean Henry Albrecht

2018

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

Slash-and-burn agriculture and tropical cyclone activity in Madagascar: Implication for soil fertility dynamics and corn performance

Alexandre Buttler, Justine Marie Gay des Combes, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek, Thomas Guillaume

On the western coast of Madagascar, the dry tropical forest of Kirindy may disappear in the next 50 years because of its rapid conversion into agricultural land by slash-and-burn cultivation. The slash-and-burn fields are cultivated during 3 years in avera ...

Elsevier Science Bv2017

Freeze-thaw cycles simultaneously decrease peatland photosynthetic carbon uptake and ecosystem respiration

Alexandre Buttler, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Constant Signarbieux, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek, Maaike Louise Hofsommer

Decreasing snow cover in winter resulting from climate warming increases the incidence of freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) in many ecosystems, including peatlands. As peatland ecosystems form a globally significant long-term carbon storage, understanding the effe ...

Finnish Environment Inst2017

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

Winter ecology of a subalpine grassland: Effects of snow removal on soil respiration, microbial structure and function

Alexandre Buttler, Konstantin Svetlozarov Gavazov, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Michael Bahn

Seasonal snow cover provides essential insulation for mountain ecosystems, but expected changes in precipitation patterns and snow cover duration due to global warming can influence the activity of soil microbial communities. In turn, these changes have th ...

Elsevier Science Bv2017

Tropical soils degraded by slash-and-burn cultivation can be recultivated when amended with ashes and compost

Alexandre Buttler, Justine Marie Gay des Combes, Leia Soraya Véronique Falquet, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek, Clara Sanz Carrillo, Muhammad Saleem Arif

In many tropical regions, slash-and-burn agriculture is considered as a driver of deforestation; the forest is converted into agricultural land by cutting and burning the trees. However, the fields are abandoned after few years because of yield decrease an ...

Wiley2017

Linking historical land use to present vegetation and soil characteristics under slash-and-burn cultivation in Madagascar

Rodolphe Schlaepfer, Alexandre Buttler, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Andry Randriamikatra Randrianarison

Aim: In this paper, we link historical land use of cultivated parcels formerly slashed and burnt, with current secondary vegetation and soil characteristics, in the region of evergreen rain forest in Madagascar. Aim is to understand the legacy effect of fo ...

Wiley-Blackwell2016

Loss of testate amoeba functional diversity with increasing frost intensity across a continental gradient reduces microbial activity in peatlands

Alexandre Buttler, Luca Bragazza, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Constant Signarbieux, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek, Maaike Louise Hofsommer

Soil microbial communities significantly contribute to global fluxes of nutrients and carbon. Their response to climate change, including winter warming, is expected to modify these processes through direct effects on microbial functions due to osmotic str ...

Elsevier2016

Sustained impact of drought on wet shrublands mediated by soil physical changes

Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

Projected climate warming may substantially increase carbon emissions from wet organic soils, contributing to a positive feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate change. Evidence suggests that in these soils the stimulation of soil respira ...

Springer2015

Peatland vascular plant functional types affect methane dynamics by altering microbial community structure

Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Peatlands are natural sources of atmospheric methane (CH4), an important greenhouse gas. It is established that peatland methane dynamics are controlled by both biotic and abiotic conditions, yet the interactive effect of these drivers is less studied and ...

Wiley-Blackwell2015

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

An unexpected role for mixotrophs in the response of peatland carbon cycling to climate warming

Alexandre Buttler, Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Bertrand Fournier, Luca Bragazza, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Constant Signarbieux, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Mixotrophic protists are increasingly recognized for their significant contribution to carbon (C) cycling. As phototrophs they contribute to photosynthetic C fixation, whilst as predators of decomposers, they indirectly influence organic matter decompositi ...

Nature Publishing Group2015

Evaluation of Dissolved Organic Carbon as a Soil Quality Indicator in National Monitoring Schemes

Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

Background: Monitoring the properties of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in soil water is frequently used to evaluate changes in soil quality and to explain shifts in freshwater ecosystem functioning. Methods: Using >700 individual soils (0-15 cm) collected ...

Public Library Science2014

Long-term organic carbon turnover rates in natural and semi-natural topsoils

Robert Thomas Edmund Mills

We combined published and new radiocarbon and ancillary data for uncultivated topsoils (typically 15 cm depth), to make two databases, one for the United Kingdom (133 sites), and one global (114 sites). Forest topsoils are significantly higher in radiocarb ...

Springer2014

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