Most attempts to monitor the effects of introductions of Genetically Modified Microorganisms (GMMs) have centred on the enumeration of specific populations. However for a significant perturbation to be measured, changes of between 100% and 300% (0.3 and 0.5 on a log scale) are necessary for the impact to be significant. Standard population measurements, assessing the survival, dissemination and...

Methodologies based on indicators occupy a prevalent place when assessing ecosystem functioning and monitoring desertification processes because they are affordable yet do not compromise accuracy. The landscape function analysis (LFA), developed in Australia by David Tongway (CSIRO), uses soil surface indicators to assess the condition of a given ecosystem by producing three numerical indices (...

The dynamic soil model SAFE was calibrated and validated in a small hardwood forest of southern Quebec as a function of its ability to reproduce current soil chemistry and similar pre-industrial soil conditions despite the difference in forest history. SAFE was relatively accurate for reproducing soil chemistry, but comparison of pre-industrial soil conditions between unburned and burned stands...

This study examined nutrient, water and carbon cycling processes and biodiversity patterns within replicated sub-watersheds that comprised different configurations of annual and perennial plant communities, ranging from conventional row crops to mixed annual and perennial systems to reconstructed native plant

Boreal ecosystems store one-third of global soil organic carbon (SOC) and are particularly sensitive to climate warming and higher nutrient inputs. Thus, a better description of how forest managements such as nutrient fertilization impact soil carbon (C) and its temperature sensitivity is needed to better predict feedbacks between C cycling and climate. The temperature sensitivity of in situ so...

As a result of climate change, streams are warming and their runoff has been decreasing in most temperate areas. These changes can affect consumers directly by increasing their metabolic rates and modifying their physiology and indirectly by changing the quality of the resources on which organisms depend. In this study, a common stream detritivore (Echinogammarus berilloni Catta) was reared at ...

Aboveground-belowground linkages are recognized as divers of community dynamics and ecosystem processes, but the impacts of plant-neighbor interactions on these linkages are virtually unknown. Plant-neighbor interactions are a type of interspecific indirect genetic effect (IIGE) if the focal plant's phenotype is altered by the expression of genes in a neighboring heterospecific plant, and IIGEs...