Jason Fridley, chercheur de l’Université de Syracuse (USA), est invité dans notre Unité grâce à une bourse Chateaubriand. Il nous présentera ses travaux le lundi 9 mars 2020 de 15h30 à 17h30 (salle des thèse, Minimes, Pôle Sciences).

Sa présentation est intitulée : A Darwinian approach to plant invasions of temperate forests

Résumé : Biological invasions are a principal driver of ecosystem change worldwide, but are they inevitable? As espoused by Darwin himself, there are compelling reasons to view invasions as a predictable consequence of natural selection operating in historically isolated environments; such a ‘pre-adaptation’ perspective is often neglected by biologists but may offer unique tools for prevention and management. I put invasion patterns of north temperate zone plants in a Darwinian context, and offer evidence of physiological mechanisms that may pre-adapt some introduced plants to be successful in deciduous forests of Eastern North America, a region increasingly dominated by understory shrubs and vines from East Asia. At the same time, some behaviors of invasive species have evolved in their introduced range, and involve interactions with soil microbes. These latest results suggest dependencies between root and shoot traits in woody plants that help explain both their invasiveness and ecosystem impacts.