Phenotypic plasticity of a large herbivore along environmental gradients: The EUropean ROe deer NETwork

Informations

Funding country

France

Acronym

EUROENET

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2015

End date

-

Budget

69,116 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Global change impacts wildlife by influencing behaviour and demography, ultimately leading to change in abundance and distribution. Phenotypic plasticity is key for understanding how wildlife will respond to environmental modification. The EUROENET project will promote data sharing and international collaboration at the scale of the European continent on an emblematic pan-European large herbivore, the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), in order to better understand how species may adapt to a rapidly changing environment. The central objective is to facilitate the identification of principal drivers of phenotypic plasticity in terms of behavioural and demographic traits, so as to evaluate how future global change will impact their behaviour, performance and spatial distribution. For this, there is a clear need for wide ranging comparative analyses at the continental scale. This will be achieved through promotion of the EURODEER initiative (www.eurodeer.org) which was launched in 2010 to facilitate collaborative work using a shared data base of individual-level behavioural data and other life history information, involving 29 research groups in 14 European countries. The EUROENET project will i/ extend the data base with a variety of additional animal-based data and biophysical information through remote sensing, and ii/ develop collaboration through comparative analyses of these data by financing meetings, workshops and exchanges. Large scale studies and networks can provide significant breakthroughs in evolutionary ecology and are powerful tools for predicting the response of species to future scenarios of environmental change, but surprisingly few examples of this exist in animal ecology. The roe deer is the most common large herbivore in Europe, occupying a wide range of habitats and showing marked ecological and behavioural plasticity. This ecological engineer influences plant dynamics and community structure, nutrient cycles, biodiversity, disease prevalence and distribution. In addition, it has considerable socio-economic impact through hunting, collisions, plant damage and as a reservoir for pathogens. Global change will likely increase human-wildlife interactions and conflicts in the near future. Understanding how roe deer may adapt to environmental modification will help to predict how global change will modify its distribution and impact, promoting better management of the species and associated conflicts. The EUROENET funding proposal will promote collaboration among a multi-disciplinary group of researchers on the drivers of behavioural and demographic variability across environmental gradients. The proposal will be coordinated by Mark Hewison (WP0), in close interaction with a multi-national steering committee, and consists of two main work packages. WP1 will develop the data base and facilitate its exploitation through developing its structure and functionality, providing support and training for users and updating the data base documentation and web site. The second work package (WP2) will stimulate scientific collaboration by building multi-partner projects during annual meetings, thematic virtual workshops and short-term visits between countries. We will initially prioritize analysis of how environmental gradients drive variation in movement behaviour, natal dispersal and mating tactics. For the medium term, we will set up thematic working groups to explore environmental drivers of variation in key demographic parameters, the genetic basis of phenotypic variation, the influence of roe deer movements on tick abundance and pathogens, and the influence of the recent return of large predators and of inter-specific interactions on roe deer life history tactics. EUROENET will promote the role of French scientists within this network and lead to the construction of an ambitious proposal to a European agency in the near future.