# An overview of the 2017 report of the French academy of Sciences on biodiversity

Sandra Lavorel, Jean-Dominique Lebreton, Yvon Le Maho

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Sandra Lavorel, Jean-Dominique Lebreton, Yvon Le Maho. An overview of the 2017 report of the French academy of Sciences on biodiversity. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências, 2019, 91 (suppl 3), pp.e2019215. 10.1590/0001-3765201920190215. hal-02408888

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# An overview of the 2017 report of the French academy of Sciences on biodiversity

SANDRA LAVOREL<sup>1,2</sup>, JEAN-DOMINIQUE LEBRETON<sup>1,3</sup> and YVON LE MAHO<sup>1,4</sup>

*Manuscript received on February 21, 2019; accepted for publication on April 15, 2019*

**How to cite:** LAVOREL S, LEBRETON JD AND LE MAHO Y. 2019. An overview of the 2017 report of the French Academy of Sciences on biodiversity. An Acad Bras Cienc 91: e20190215. DOI 10.1590/0001-3765201920190215.

**Abstract:** In the present context of concerns for biodiversity, the French Academy of Sciences produced in 2017 a report entitled “Mechanisms of adaptation of biodiversity to climate change and their limits”. We briefly review here the production process and structure of the report, and summarize its conclusions and recommendations.

The conclusions emphasize the role of habitat fragmentation in the expected impact of climate change on biodiversity, in particular for organisms with limited dispersal abilities, and the disparities in species responses which must be taken to understand the future of species assemblages (“communities”) under different scenarios of climate change.

The recommendations cover the organization of biodiversity research and monitoring (development of observatories, key role of embedded time scales and modeling, integration of Human and Social Sciences), as well as critical domains such as Human, animal and plant health, agriculture and forestry policies, and management of the Environment.

**Key words:** biodiversity, climate change, global change, adaptation.

## INTRODUCTION

In the present context of concerns for biodiversity, the French Academy of Sciences produced in 2017 a report entitled “Mechanisms of adaptation of biodiversity to climate change and their limits”. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the production process and structure of the report, and to summarize its conclusions and recommendations, as presented by one of the authors (JDL) at the

Brazil-French Symposium on biodiversity held in Manaus (Amazonas, Brazil) from June 2 to 5 2018. The full version of the report is available (in French) at http://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Raports-ouvrages-avis-et-recommandations-de-l-Academie/mecanismes-adaptation-biodiversite-aux-changements-climatiques.html.

The decision of producing this report obviously stemmed from the current concerns for environmental change. Current environmental issues are dominated by two major phenomena, both resulting from human activities: the ongoing and forecasted climate change (IPCC 2014) and

<footnote n="1"><sup>1</sup>Académie des Sciences, 23 Quai de Conti, 75 006 Paris, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2"><sup>2</sup>LECA, UMR 5553 Université Grenoble-Alpes, Université Savoie-Mont-Blanc, CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, CS 40700, 38 058 Grenoble cedex 9, France</footnote>

<footnote n="3"><sup>3</sup>CEFE, UMR 5175 CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes 1919 Route de Mende, 34 293 Montpellier cedex 5, France</footnote>

<footnote n="4"><sup>4</sup>IPHC, UMR 7178 CNRS, Univ. de Strasbourg, 23 rue du Loess, BP28, 67 037 Strasbourg cedex 2, France</footnote>
the worldwide erosion and homogenization of
biodiversity (Cardinale et al. 2012). The two
phenomena have been analyzed for decades (Diaz
et al. 2006, Stern, 2007) and have been now
recognized as strongly linked (e.g., Bellard et
al. 2012, Bálint et al. 2011, Oliver and Morcroft
2014). The adaptability of the living world to
environmental changes raise a number of questions.
The need of anticipating as much as possible the
consequences on human societies of global change
as a whole lead the Academy to develop this report
to gather information and provide a point of view
complementary to most available reports on global
change. This is why this report is primarily focused
on the adaptability of biodiversity to climate
change. While much is known, as the report shows,
the list of open questions (e.g., role of extreme
climatic events, degree of resilience of a variety
of ecological processes, complex interactions,
predictability of ecological systems...) is large, and
a special attention was put on the uncertainties of
the various mechanisms and issues reviewed.

PRODUCTION OF THE REPORT

The production of the report was coordinated by
Sandra Lavorel, Jean-Dominique Lebreton and
Yvon Le Maho, members of the French Academy
of Sciences.

A preliminary draft was first assembled and
revised in a series of meetings of the Environment
Committee, a permanent committee of the Academy,
which gathers in a strongly pluridisciplinary way
a variety of scientists and scientific fields implied
in environmental science: Ecology, Climatology,
Biology, Earth sciences, Chemistry, Paleontology,
Physics, Hydrology, etc.

This first draft was then polished by a
subcommittee, who met on January 17, 2017, and
submitted for approbation to the Environment
Committee.

The resulting version was amended and
approved by vote by the whole Academy on June
27, 2017, and made available online in September
2017.

STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT

The report consists of 15 pages covering a
general overview of the subject, conclusions, and
recommendations, reviewed below, accompanied
by 26 thematic sheets on specific topics.

These 26 thematic sheets review mechanisms
underlying the degree of adaptability of
biodiversity to climate change. They were prepared
by 33 leading French experts. The 17 first sheets
deal with mechanisms of adaptability at various
levels of organization: individuals (6), populations
(4), Ecosystems (7). The 9 other sheets cover the
interface between biodiversity and human societies:
mitigation (2), exploitation and management (5)
and social adaptation (2). They were prepared
under a common format (3-7 pages, 1 or 2 figures, 1
example) and layout (Description of the mechanism
of topic, limits and solutions, uncertainties). Based
on such expertise, these thematic sheets constitute
a rich and homogeneous source of information on
biodiversity in face of climate change, to be used in
the future. Their full list is given in Box 1.

SUMMARY OF THE REPORT CONCLUSIONS

The main conclusions of the report are based on
the fact that, among ecological mechanisms, “the
dominant phenomenon induced by an increase in
temperature is the shift towards the poles or higher
elevations of the area occupied by each animal of
plant species”. From this basic statement, stem the
following conclusions:

* It is important to consider the capacities of adaptation of living organisms when they cannot move, in particular under the effect of landscape fragmentation.
**Box 1 - Organization, titles and authors of the 26 thematic sheets in the French academy of sciences report on Biodiversity**

# I. The biological mechanisms of adaptation to climate change

## Individual level

1) Physiological adaptations in Vertebrates – *F. Angelier*

2) Mechanisms of adaptation of plants to climate change – *F. Tardieu*

3) Molecular mechanisms of adaptation to climate change: the impact of genomics – *M. Delseny*

4) Soil organisms – *J.-L. Chotte*

5) Phenotypic plasticity – *A. Charmantier*

6) Adaptations of insects change – *J. Casas* & *S. Pincebourde*

## Populations and time scales

1) Adaptive answers to climate change – *O. Ronce*

1) Demographic and genetic mechanisms – *D. Couvet* & *F.Courchamps*

1) Changes in distribution area – *I. Chuine*

2) Biodiversity fluctuations at long time scales: estimation and climate impact – *P. Janvier*

## Ecosystems

1) Mechanisms of re-assemblage in terrestrial communities – *W. Thuiller*

1) Mechanisms of adaptation in marine ecosystems– *D. Mouillot*

1) Adaptation of functioning in terrestrial ecosystems – *S. Lavorel*

1) Freshwater ecosystems biodiversity and climate change – *D. Gerdeaux*

1) Can coral reefs adapt to climate change? – *D. Allemand*

1) Mangrove swamps, anthropic and climatic pressures – *F. Fromard* & *A. Gardel*

2) The role of metagenomics to evaluate the capacity of adaptation of soil to environmental changes, in particular climate change – *P. Simonet*

# II. Management and exploitation of ecosystems

## Mitigation

1) Climate change mitigation by terrestrial ecosystems – *N. Viovy*

2) Mechanisms of mitigation of climate change by biological processes – Ch. Rabouille, *L. Bopp* & *M. Gehlen*

## Exploitation and Management

1) Adaptation of agriculture to climate change – *J.-F. Soussana*

1) Managing soil biodiversity to improve agrosystem resilience and adaptation to climate change – *P. Lavelle*

1) The ecosystemic approach to fisheries for adaptation to the impacts of climate change and overfishing in marine ecosystems – *P. Cury*

2) Top predators in face of anthropogenic changes, overexploitation and climate change – *C. Le Bohec*

3) Management of temperate forests, climate change and biodiversity – *J.-L. Dupouey*

4) Agrobiodiversity, local selection, within - and between - species hybridization for adaptation to global change – *Y.Vigouroux*

## Social adaptation

1) Managing tropical forest ecosystems in a changing climate – *B. Locatelli*, *J. Chave* & *E. Torquebiau*

2) Adaptation of human societies to climate change though coastal and marine ecosystem services – *H. Levrel*
* The individual adaptability through plasticity (...) and genetic adaptation (...) strongly vary among organisms.

* The expected diversity of the response of species to the various parameters of climate change induces disparities in the response of communities (species assemblages).

* Such disparities are already well documented, and taking them into account is absolutely needed to understand the future of species assemblages under different scenarios of climate change

## RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendations in the report were organized under 7 headings, ranging from issues dealing with the acquisition and dissemination of scientific knowledge on the effects of climate change through its consequences for biodiversity (the first 4 recommendations), to broader issues dealing with the consequences for human societies and priorities for adaptation to climate change and potential mitigation. While these recommendations were developed with specific reference to the French context, they are of general interest, would it be only for the responsibility of France towards intertropical biodiversity in overseas departments and territories (see rec. 7), among which what deals with biodiversity in French Guyana is obviously of special interest to Brazil. What follows is an abridged literal translation of the report recommendations.

* (1) *Biodiversity observatories: the complexity of mechanisms and the amplitude and variability of responses to climate change require that biodiversity observatories are developed, with appropriate staff and money resources.* This development should be closely linked to fundamental research and modeling, and be accompanied by an effort on education.

* This effort must include a development of taxonomical skills on animals, plants and microbes. In France, in relation with special responsibilities for biodiversity in overseas territories and in the oceans, these skills, apart a few exceptions such as the National Museum of Natural History<fnref n="1" />, are now in the hands of nonprofessional structures, composed mostly of high level amateurs doing a huge observation work. One must develop participative research and reinforce collaborations between the academic world and this amateur world to help it give maximum value to the scientific data gathered in this way.

* (2) *Embedded time scales: it is of primary importance to take into account recent and current observations, at the scale of the century or less, together with observation at the scale of a millennium and above.* For such an endeavor, interactions among ecologists, historians, archeologists and geologists should be reinforced.

* (3) *Modeling: developing biodiversity scenarios based on observations requires an increased effort in modeling the dynamics of ecosystems, including agro-ecosystems and urban ecosystems.*

* (4) *Human and Social Sciences, and education: to facilitate the adaptation of human societies to responses of biodiversity to climate change, the input of Social and Human Sciences and the development of an appropriate education to sustainable development are needed.*

* (5) *Human, animal and plant health: in face of the increase in emergent pathologies induced by the observed temperature increase of 1°C and the worldwide development of transportation, linking*

<footnote n="1">¹ The "Museum national d'histoire naturelle" in Paris</footnote>
research on public health and pathogen
ecology must be accelerated and broadened.

* (6) *Agriculture and Forestry policies: concerning agriculture, the main problems are the need to develop adapted varieties, the expected distributional shift of pollinators and pests, and the adaptation to climate of perennial cultures such as vine. Concerning forests, "assisted migration" by planting adapted species could help limiting the risks of forest decay, a decay that would unavoidably be accompanied by an increased risk of forest fires.*

* (7) *Environment management: the interaction of potential effects of climate change on biodiversity with other factors, and the risk of threshold effects on some ecosystem services require interventions to limit such factors: fishing quota, protection of marine areas, development of corridors facilitating the dispersal of organisms... Efforts of protection should in particular aim at the most fragile species: specialized species, with little plasticity, with slow demography, megafauna (large mammals, large terrestrial and marine reptiles, large raptors and seabirds...) and on the most sensitive ecosystems (wetlands, marine ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots - for France in particular overseas territories...).*

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank all our colleagues in the Environment
Committee of the French Academy of Sciences, in
particular its president J.-C. Duplessis, and the 33
authors of the thematic sheets (listed in Box 1). We
thank Jean-François Bach and Jean-Yves Chapron
for their help in the preparation of this overview.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Sandra Lavorel, Jean-Dominique Lebreton and Yvon le Maho coordinated the preparation of the report presented in this paper. They edited the thematic sheets written by the external experts, wrote the preliminary versions of the report introduction, and managed the revisions by the environment committee of the French Academy of Sciences.

Jean-Dominique Lebreton prepared an English
summary of the report and presented it at the
June 2018 conference in Manaus. This article is a
revision by the three authors of this summary.

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