Clément Violet's thesis defense

Clément VIOLET, a doctoral student in the Coastal Benthic Ecology laboratory of the Coastal Ecosystem Dynamics unit, will defend his thesis on Monday 18 December 2023 at 2 pm at the IUEM in Plouzané (amphitheatre A):

Developing digital tools to better understand the structure and dynamics of coastal marine ecosystems.

 

Abstract:

This thesis aims at better understanding and predicting coastal benthic biodiversity with a specific focus on the role of biogenic habitats in maintaining ecosystem  structure and functioning. This thesis explored how different innovative and complementary numeric tools and pipelines can address these objectives at different scales: 1) joint species distribution modelling  across two biogenic habitats at a regional scale, and 2) using Machine Learning approaches, defining and modelling the distribution of benthic habitats states at a global and at a national scale. These complementary approaches quantify the relative influence of the environmental and anthropogenic factors (including marine heatwaves and fishing intensity) that determine coastal biodiversity and the state of benthic habitats. While in both case studies the predictability of the considered species or states was low, these studies have identified future avenues to optimise models  inference and prediction of benthic communities. Thus, this thesis provides a critical perspective on existing approaches available to  study and characterise coastal biodiversity; and on the future developments required to better anticipate future ecological responses related to anthropogenic impacts.

Composition of the Jury :

Emmanuelle CAM (chair of the jury - examiner), professor, université́ de Bretagne Occidentale
Stéphane DRAY (rapporteur), Director of Research, université́ Lyon 1
David MOUILLOT (rapporteur), Professor, University of Montpellier
Sakina-Dorothée AYATA (examiner), Senior Lecturer, Sorbonne University
Thibault DE BETTIGNIE (examiner), project leader, UMR PatriNat
Stanislas DUBOIS (supervisor), Research Executive, Ifremer Centre Bretagne
Martin MARZLOFF (thesis co-supervisor), research manager, Ifremer Centre Bretagne
Aurélien BOYÉ (thesis co-supervisor), Research Executive, Ifremer Centre Bretagne
Mathieu CHEVALIER (thesis co-supervisor), Research Executive, Ifremer Centre Bretagne