Objectives

To assess the resilience of biodiversity, especially fish communities, in the face of global change, past research has mainly focused on the role of climate change (e.g. temperature), or even land use (e.g. urbanization). However, a major challenge remains in the understanding of the role of connectivity (e.g. dams, low water levels) and of the landscape context (e.g. riparian vegetation, natural reserves) which will strongly condition movement, dispersion, and therefore the response of species to changes in their environment.

Thus, this PhD project aims at producing prospective forecasts of fish diversity in the near and further future based on scenarios of hydroclimatic change (e.g. flows), river network management (e.g. for navigation) and land use (e.g. agriculture) taking explicitly into account physical and ecological connectivity within watersheds.
This interdisciplinary work, combining predictive ecology and hydroclimatology, will allow policymakers to make educated management decisions while ensuring the consistency of relevant measures across the territory at the core of our study – the Seine Basin.