Current research interests :

- Understand relationships between environmental variability (in space and time), behavior, population dynamics and life history strategies among large mammals.

- Determine the functional role and the fate of large herbivore communities in the context of global change (climate, landscape, human demands, come back of predators).

The focus of my research activities can be split at three interacting levels :

- the inter-specific level, where I mainly work as part of a team with Jean-Michel Gaillard (gaillard@biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr) and others. Our aim is to compare life history traits of different species and to understand why different species respond differently or similarly to different sources of variation.

- the population level, where I work mainly with chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), comparing three sites with long-term monitoring (>20 years) of marked individuals. At this level, I deal with questions related to individual behavior (e.g. mating behavior, social behavior), population dynamics (e.g. survival and reproduction patterns according to age, sex, sites, body weight) and population spatial structure (e.g. wih the use of genetics and multi-site CMR).

- the ecosystem level, which I work on in one study sites in the Alps, the mountain massif of “Les Bauges”, where all west-European ungulates (but ibex) coexist. My aim are (1) to better understand how populations of different species sharing the same environment respond to the same patterns of environmental heterogeneity in space and variability through time, (2) how individuals of different species coexists and interact throughout the year, (3) elaborate models of community dynamics in time and space through hierarchical spatial scales. In addition, I am leading with Herve Fritz (fritz@biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr) the French herbivory network, which aim is two-fold : (1) to concentrate effort of several research teams on one site (Les Bauges mountain massif) that is suited to study the community of domestic and wild herbivores, their interactive relationships with changing landscape and changing plant community structures, their role in the ecosystem services, according to specific demands of diverse human stakeholders ; (2) to link the different sites and research teams interested by the role of herbivores on landscape features and dynamics - and vice versa- so that common protocols and questions can emerge.

Past research interests :

- Population dynamics and management plans of caribou and muskox in Greenland : I worked with the Greenland Nature Institute from 1999 to 2002 to (1) synthetise the knowledge and need for knowlegde about caribou and muskox populations, (2) set up quotas based on models including the sparse data available, and (3) participate to field work on Inglefield Land to determine the population status and contribute to determine monitoring plans and hunting quotas.
- Conservation of arctic foxes : Arctic foxes populations in southern Scnadinavia are not doing well, and I contributed to the research program going on on this species by modeling whether isolated populations with different patterns of stochasticity in reproduction could be viable or alternatively, at high risks of extinction.
- Population dynamics and management of moose in collaboration with Erling Johan Solberg (Norwegian Institute for Nature Research) and Bernt-Erik Saether (Norwegian Science and Technology University). The aim of the study led by my norwegian colleagues is to better understand the causes of variation in the population dynamics of moose, using counts, body weights, reproductive status, of moose culled throughout Norway. A hot topic is also to determine the impact of hunting schemes on the demographic patterns and life history traits of moose.
- Development of a collaborative research program between Tanzania (Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, Dar es Salaam university) and Norway (Norwegian Institute for Nature Research) to study the impact of human encroachment on the Serengeti biodiversity and more specifically, on some targeted keystone ungulate species.

CV :

1995 : PhD Approches intra- et inter-spécifiques de la dynamique des populations : l’exemple du chamois.

1996-1997 : Post Doc at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Trondheim.

1998-1999 : Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Trondheim.

2000-2007 : Researcher at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in the Biometry and Population Biology lab in Lyon, France.

2008-onwards : Researcher at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in the Alpine Ecology lab in Grenoble, France.