Research

A growing number of ecologists embrace a balanced view of community ecology that integrates regional and historical processes, as well as species interactions within local habitats. This broadened perspective is largely based on non-experimental, comparative approaches that frequently use “natural experiments” for identifying factors shaping community structure. Strictly freshwater organisms are particularly well suited to this type of study since, rivers (or lakes), are separated from one another by insurmountable barriers (oceans, or land). Thus river basins (or lakes) are to some extent independent entities that could be used in comparative analysis to explore the factors that shape community organization between and within them.

In our team we use this natural experiment framework to analyze the relative role of local, regional and continental features in determining community structure. Community richness, composition and dynamics are approached using several research axes: large scale biodiversity gradients, community saturation, community convergence, density compensation and temporal dynamics. In a more applied context we use this framework to answer questions that are currently being asked by society including the spread of alien invasive species, and the effects of global climate changes and natural habitats fragmentation on the maintenance of aquatic biodiversity.