Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : While Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, the abundance of trees is skewed strongly towards relatively few 'hyperdominant' species. In addition to their diversity, Amazonian trees are a key component of the global carbon cycle, assimilating and storing more carbon than any other ecosystem on Earth. Here we ask, using a unique data set of 530 forest plots, if the functions of storing and producing woody carbon are concentrated in a small number of tree species, whether the most abundant species also dominate carbon cycling, and whether dominant species are characterized by specific functional traits. We find that dominance of forest function is even more concentrated in a few species than is dominance of tree abundance, with only ≈1% of Amazon tree species responsible for 50% of carbon storage and productivity. Although those species that contribute most to biomass and productivity are often abundant, species maximum size is also influential, while the identity and ranking of dominant species varies by function and by region.
ISSN: 2041-1723

hal-01204225
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204225
DOI : 10.1038/ncomms7857
PRODINRA : 305614
PUBMED : 25919449

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
Aim To examine variation in the phylogenetic diversity (PD) of tree communities across geographical and environmental gradients in Amazonia.Location Two hundred and eighty-three c.1ha forest inventory plots from across Amazonia.Methods We evaluated PD as the total phylogenetic branch length across species in each plot (PDss), the mean pairwise phylogenetic distance between species (MPD), the mean nearest taxon distance (MNTD) and their equivalents standardized for species richness (ses.PDss, ses.MPD, ses.MNTD). We compared PD of tree communities growing (1) on substrates of varying geological age; and (2) in environments with varying ecophysiological barriers to growth and survival.Results PDss is strongly positively correlated with species richness (SR), whereas MNTD has a negative correlation. Communities on geologically young- and intermediate-aged substrates (western and central Amazonia respectively) have the highest SR, and therefore the highest PDss and the lowest MNTD. We find that the youngest and oldest substrates (the latter on the Brazilian and Guiana Shields) have the highest ses.PDss and ses.MNTD. MPD and ses.MPD are strongly correlated with how evenly taxa are distributed among the three principal angiosperm clades and are both highest in western Amazonia. Meanwhile, seasonally dry tropical forest (SDTF) and forests on white sands have low PD, as evaluated by any metric.Main conclusions High ses.PDss and ses.MNTD reflect greater lineage diversity in communities. We suggest that high ses.PDss and ses.MNTD in western Amazonia results from its favourable, easy-to-colonize environment, whereas high values in the Brazilian and Guianan Shields may be due to accumulation of lineages over a longer period of time. White-sand forests and SDTF are dominated by close relatives from fewer lineages, perhaps reflecting ecophysiological barriers that are difficult to surmount evolutionarily. Because MPD and ses.MPD do not reflect lineage diversity per se, we suggest that PDss, ses.PDss and ses.MNTD may be the most useful diversity metrics for setting large-scale conservation priorities.
ISSN: 1366-9516

hal-01557462
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557462
DOI : 10.1111/ddi.12357

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
Cumulative human impacts have led to the degradation of marine ecosystems and thedecline of biodiversity in the European and contiguous seas. Effective conservationmeasures are urgently needed to reverse these trends. Conservation must entail societalchoices, underpinned by human values and worldviews that differ between the countriesbordering these seas. Social, economic and political heterogeneity adds to the challenge ofbalancing conservation with sustainable use of the seas. Comprehensive macro-regionalcoordination is needed to ensure effective conservation of marine ecosystems andbiodiversity of this region. Under the European Union Horizon 2020 framework programme,the MarCons COST action aims to promote collaborative research to support marinemanagement, conservation planning and policy development. This will be achieved bydeveloping novel methods and tools to close knowledge gaps and advance marineconservation science. This action will provide support for the development of macro-regional and national policies through six key actions: to develop tools to analysecumulative human impacts; to identify critical scientific and technical gaps in conservationefforts; to improve the resilience of the marine environment to global change and biologicalinvasions; to develop frameworks for integrated conservation planning across terrestrial,freshwater, and marine environments; to coordinate marine conservation policy acrossnational boundaries; and to identify effective governance approaches for marine protectedarea management. Achieving the objectives of these actions will facilitate the integration ofmarine conservation policy into macro-regional maritime spatial planning agendas for theEuropean and contiguous seas, thereby offsetting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystemservices in this region.
Research Ideas and Outcomes

hal-01474085
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01474085
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01474085/document
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01474085/file/RIO_article_11884.pdf
DOI : 10.3897/rio.3.e11884

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley Open Access
Résumé : Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species' threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project - and avert - future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups - including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems - ). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.
ISSN: 2045-7758

hal-01204216
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204216
DOI : 10.1002/ece3.1303
PRODINRA : 280886

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
Signatures provide a convenient and widely accepted method of authentication, however they are prone to attack by forgery. This can be mitigated to an extent by analysing both the static and dynamic biometric aspects of construction, however the possibly for accurate forgery from a static image of a genuine signature still exists. In this study we explore initial forgery accuracy of a range of genuine signatures and how accuracy changes as a forger receives feedback from a commercial signature engine in terms of a 'match score'. We also explore the effects of genuine signature complexity on forgery performance alongside the image size of the genuine signature to be forged. Our results show that forgers are able improve performance over time on simple signatures (including those with less pen travel distance) and that a magnified genuine sample enables more accurate forgery for these class of signatures. More complex signatures result in lower forged verification scores and irregular patterns of improvement across the five forgeries. Overall verification match scores were typically less than 80% for most attempts regardless of signature complexity, thus indicating the resilience of dynamic systems to unskilled forgery attempts.
17th Biennial Conference of the International Graphonomics Society
Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe

hal-01165763
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-01165763
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-01165763/document
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-01165763/file/IGS_2015_submission_1.pdf

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : Atmospheric carbon dioxide records indicate that the land surface has acted as a strong global carbon sink over recent decades, with a substantial fraction of this sink probably located in the tropics, particularly in the Amazon. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the terrestrial carbon sink will evolve as climate and atmospheric composition continue to change. Here we analyse the historical evolution of the biomass dynamics of the Amazon rainforest over three decades using a distributed network of 321 plots. While this analysis confirms that Amazon forests have acted as a long-term net biomass sink, we find a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation. Rates of net increase in above-ground biomass declined by one-third during the past decade compared to the 1990s. This is a consequence of growth rate increases levelling off recently, while biomass mortality persistently increased throughout, leading to a shortening of carbon residence times. Potential drivers for the mortality increase include greater climate variability, and feedbacks of faster growth on mortality, resulting in shortened tree longevity. The observed decline of the Amazon sink diverges markedly from the recent increase in terrestrial carbon uptake at the global scale, and is contrary to expectations based on models.
ISSN: 1476-4687

hal-01204223
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204223
DOI : 10.1038/nature14283
PRODINRA : 294797
PUBMED : 25788097