Role in FIRE-ADAPT: researcher
Organisation: Sorbonne Université
Country: France
What motivated me to join FIRE-ADAPT
The possibility to do fieldwork in other kinds of systems than the ones I usually work with and know very well. I work in savannahs in Africa, but I was interested to see what happens in other fire-prone ecosystems. My interest is in the reaction of plants to fire and their adaptations to it, and I want to model this so that I can predict the behaviour of populations and communities from individual traits and reactions to fire. So, for example, you can have some traits that will cause a population to have every year big events of reproduction or, on the contrary, little events. These are completely different in terms of the dynamics of the population, but it’s based on individual traits that you can measure on single plants.
About my secondment with CTFC in Spain, during the project´s gathering at its Spain Study Hub
What the objectives of my secondment were
I went to participate in the gathering and do fieldwork in the area. We sampled some plants and measured particular traits that will tell us if they are adapted to fire or herbivory, or are just competing for light, like forest trees. These are things that Tristan-Charles Dominique has determined for the savannah region, so tropical region, but we want to see how this changes in the Mediterranean region.
How it benefited us
We got more data on fire ecology and Tristan is doing the kind of big analysis he does. I´m trying to infer mechanistic processes of contraction in response to fire and put that into models. For my host institution means more papers.
How similar and different the realities of wildfires in France and Spain are
I think it’s the same problem in France and Spain because it’s the same kind of ecosystem with Mediterranean vegetation, which is very fire-prone, especially trees. The African savannahs, where I work, are different because the trees don’t burn, just the big grass layer that exists. The trees resist fire even at very high frequencies. The savannah burns a few times every year, but the trees stay there and grow happily. It’s completely different, and that’s why it’s interesting to compare.
What caught my attention about Spain
I found that it´s very wooded, it´s all forest everywhere and I didn’t expect that. Also, France is flat, but you also have the Pyrenees. I expected the Spanish side to also be a flat land, but it’s not flat at all.
This is me
Favourite food: French food
Favourite movie genre: Japanese anime
Favourite music: classical music
In France, I´d take you to: Mont Saint-Michel