Date : 14/02/2011

Laboratory
Ecologie, Systematique & Evolution
UMR CNRS 8079 University Paris XI - Agroparistech
Bat 362 - Université Paris XI
91405 ORSAY cedex
Director : Paul Leadley
Main discipline : Ecology
Lab's website


PhD Supervisor
Franck Courchamp
email : This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
phone : +33 1 69 15 56 85

Subjects
1.: Conservation Biology
2.: Biodiversity
3.: Human and Social Sciences

Tools-Methodologies:
1.: Mathematical modelling (eg. in ecology and/or economics)
2.: Large dataset statistical analyses
3.: Experimental settings

Available funding for this project
The PhD student will benefit from the funding of the ANR on this subject during the totality of his/her PhD thesis

Summary of lab's interests

The ESE Lab is a large, multi-disciplinary Department whose members conduct research and teaching in areas ranging from cellular biology to ecology (including genetics, biomathematics, ecophysiology, evolution, population biology, systematics and biodiversity conservation). By all criteria this is a thriving research and teaching Institution, which has consistently received the highest ratings by both the CNRS and the University in the context of their independent quadrennial evaluations. The Laboratory occupies more than 3300 m2, in two buildings on the University Paris XI Orsay Campus, to which are associated greenhouses and semi-natural mesocoms. ESE consists of over 100 people, about a quarter of which are graduate students studying for Ph.D. degrees. The University has recently been distinguished as the second French University, ranking 23th at the world level by the (in)famous Shangai University Ranking. It is one of the largest in France, with about 30000 students, 1800 teachers and researchers, 1300 engineers, technical, administrative and services staff, 500 000 m2 of buildings, half of which are devoted to research, 118 laboratories of international reputation. There are about 650 theses a year (5% of all French theses and more than 10% of the scientific and medical theses in France).

Summary of project

The Allee effect describes a positive relationship between population size and fitness (either population growth rate or individual fitness components). This process concerns many plant and animal species and is increasingly important in ecology and conservation biology. Our project will focus on a particular type of Allee effects, one that is entirely artificial and caused by human activities : the anthropogenic Allee effect. We also refer to it as "rarity effect", as it is primarily driven by the (seemingly irrational) tendency of humans to confer value to rarity. As rare species are especially valued, they are subject to continuing exploitation, which renders them even rarer, and therefore even more valuable, thus more exploited and so on. This precipitates rare species into a vortex of extinction. Examples include wildlife collection (e.g., insects, orchids), ownership of exotic pets or plants (e.g., reptiles, cacti), traditional medicine and luxury markets (e.g., exotic woods, caviar, red tuna, etc...). We will aim at better understanding the mechanism that allow human populations to threaten rare species through overexploitation. We will focus on several activities, such as hobby collection or amateur ownership, and will decipher the rationale, modalities and impact of acquisition through a combination of empirical, experimental and theoretical approaches linked to biological conservation.

Interdisciplinarity of the project

Conservation biology is by essence an interdisciplinary domain, but is often restricted to ecology. In this project, we aim at integrating ecology into human and social sciences. We have already started this program four years ago, and have already conducted (and published- in Nature, PLoS Biology, etc) studies intermingling ecology with environmental economics, with psycho-sociology and with anthropology. With this project, we aim at getting further into the understanding of the Anthropogenic Allee effect, and will do so by mixing ecology with human and social sciences, including economics, psycho-sociology and law. These three aspects will be weighted according to the sensibility of the candidate.