Université de Fribourg

Towards a probabilistic understanding about the context-dependency of species interactions

Song, Chuliang ; Ahn, Sarah Von ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Saavedra, Serguei

In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2020, vol. 35, no. 5, p. 384–396

Observational and experimental studies have shown that an interaction class between two species (be it mutualistic, competitive, antagonistic, or neutral) may switch to a different class, depending on the biotic and abiotic factors within which species are observed. This complexity arising from the evidence of context-dependencies has underscored a difficulty in establishing a systematic ...

Université de Fribourg

Functional similarity and dissimilarity facilitate alien plant invasiveness along biotic and abiotic gradients in an arid protected area

El-Barougy, Reham F. ; Elgamal, Ibrahim ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Probert, Anna F. ; Khedr, Abdel-Hamid A. ; Bacher, Sven

In: Biological Invasions, 2020, vol. 22, no. 6, p. 1997–2016

Two contradictory hypotheses have been put forth to forecast alien invasiveness: being either functionally similar, or dissimilar, to resident natives along environmental gradients. The ‘try-harder’ hypothesis predicts that alien plants will be functionally dissimilar to natives and should thus exhibit exaggerated trait values when compared to natives in respect to resource extraction or...

Université de Fribourg

A guideline to study the feasibility domain of multi-trophic and changing ecological communities

Song, Chuliang ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Saavedra, Serguei

In: Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2018, vol. 450, p. 30–36

The feasibility domain of an ecological community can be described by the set of environmental abiotic and biotic conditions under which all co-occurring and interacting species in a given site and time can have positive abundances. Mathematically, the feasibility domain corresponds to the parameter space compatible with positive (feasible) solutions at equilibrium for all the state variables...

Université de Fribourg

Mismatch in microbial food webs: predators but not prey perform better in their local biotic and abiotic conditions

Parain, Elodie C. ; Gravel, Dominique ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Bersier, Louis-Félix ; Gray, Sarah M.

In: Ecology and Evolution, 2016, vol. 6, no. 14, p. 4885–4897

Understanding how trophic levels respond to changes in abiotic and biotic conditions is key for predicting how food webs will react to environmental perturbations. Different trophic levels may respond disproportionately to change, with lower levels more likely to react faster, as they typically consist of smaller-bodied species with higher reproductive rates. This response could cause a...

Université de Fribourg

Alien plant species with a wider global distribution are better able to capitalize on increased resource availability

Dawson, Wayne ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Kleunen, Mark van ; Fischer, Markus

In: New Phytologist, 2012, vol. 194, no. 3, p. 859–867

A high ability of alien plant species to capitalize on increases in resource availability has been suggested as an explanation for being globally successful. Here, we tested this hypothesis meta-analytically using existing data from experiments manipulating plant resources (light, water and nutrients).From these studies we extracted the response to resource increase of biomass, as an indicator of...

Université de Fribourg

Ecophylogenetics: advances and perspectives

Mouquet, Nicolas ; Devictor, Vincent ; Meynard, Christine N. ; Munoz, Francois ; Bersier, Louis-Félix ; Chave, Jérôme ; Couteron, Pierre ; Dalecky, Ambroise ; Fontaine, Colin ; Gravel, Dominique ; Hardy, Olivier J. ; Jabot, Franck ; Lavergne, Sébastien ; Leibold, Mathew ; Mouillot, David ; Münkemüller, Tamara ; Pavoine, Sandrine ; Prinzing, Andreas ; Rodrigues, Ana S. L. ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Thébault, Elisa ; Thuiller, Wilfried

In: Biologial Review, 2012, vol. 87, no. 4, p. 769-785

Ecophylogenetics can be viewed as an emerging fusion of ecology, biogeography and macroevolution. This new and fast-growing field is promoting the incorporation of evolution and historical contingencies into the ecological research agenda through the widespread use of phylogenetic data. Including phylogeny into ecological thinking represents an opportunity for biologists from different fields...