Professor Frederik De Laender is a researcher in the Department of Biology and a member of the research institutes ILEE and naXys. He was awarded a NARC fellowship from October 2018 to September 2020. This funding allowed him to organize several workshops as part of a research project around multiple drivers of global change on ecological systems.
The published paper, entitled "Predicting effects of multiple interacting global change drivers across trophic levels" proposes a new methodological approach to analyze changes in biodiversity, which is a major challenge for ecology and conservation.
I am grateful to the UNamur and the NARC for providing me with the opportunity to bring together around a table an international team of researchers from several institutions and at various career levels. Our work has been fruitful. The proof is in the article we have just published in Global Change Biology. And a second one has just been submitted!
Professor Frédérik De Laender
Predicting effects of multiple interacting global change drivers across trophic levels
Ecosystems are under multiple stresses. The traditional method used by researchers consists of careful observation of highly controlled experiments. For example, one would observe how a field of grass reacts to the stress caused by a heat wave combined with pollution. But observation does not predict what will happen. The method presented in this article combines theoretical ecology, mathematical modelling, experiments, and (re)analysis of existing field and experimental data. It proposes that the relationships between the different factors at play allow us to understand the underlying mechanisms at the scale of a community (animal, plant, etc.) and therefore to predict the interactions at a higher level, that of the community and the entire ecosystem.
The research team involved
- Sofia Van Moorsel, University of Zürich
- Elisa Thébault, Sorbonne University, CNRS
- Viktoriia Radchuk, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany
- Anita Narwani, Eawag
- José M. Montoya, CNRS
- Vasilis Dakos, University of Montpellier
- Mark Holmes, University of Namur
- Frank Pennekamp, University of Zürich
- Frederik De Laender, University of Namur
The Namur Research College (NARC)
The NARC was established by the UNamur in 2012 to provide an environment where a few outstanding young researchers can devote most of their working time to research, while being free from administrative, logistical and other daily burdens. It ensures the visibility of researchers inside and outside UNamur. NARC Fellows are selected on their own merits, based on a set of rigorous criteria.
Express CV
Frederik De Laender is Professor in the Department of Biology since 2013, where he conducts research in theoretical ecology to better understand the causes and consequences of biodiversity, as well as the ecological impacts of global change. He is (co-)author of more than 100 scientific papers, including articles in prestigious journals.