Safaa WASOF
PhD Student
Speciality: Ecology of plant community
Team: GEP
safaa.wasof@u-picardie.fr
Topic of the thesis
Etude of shifts in Ecological niche of understory plants in the context of climate change.
Key words
Ecological niche, global warming, plant communities, herbaceous species, forests, mountains.
Summary of the thesis
Considerable debate has emerged in the recent literature as to whether or not niches are conserved. The theory of niche conservation (i.e., the tendency of species to retain their components of fundamental niche unchanged over time and space) has often assumed in the study that show a latitudinal and altitudinal shift in species distributional range as a response to climate change. In my studies, I work primarily with herbaceous forest communities, which play an important role in maintaining the structure and function of temperate forests. Yet many of these species forest herbs are probably not able to track climate change in space due to their poor dispersal ability. The acclimation potential in currently occupied habitat will therefore play an important role in their ability to persist in the short and long term and shifts in their ecological niche might be possible. My research aims to:
- Study the shift of understory plants along a latitudinal gradient of temperate deciduous forests (submitted work),
- Compare the realized niche width of plant species between the European Alps (Flora Alpina) and Scandinavia (Flora Nordica).