Call for proposals

Abstract

During this workshop, we will deal with the forest, a part of our landscapes and a privileged place of interactions between nature and society, between man and wildlife. We will discuss on the past footprint of our activities, their current determinants and their challenges, as well as how forests and associated habitats might change. To achieve that task, we will favour pluridisciplinary approaches taking into account wildlife and forest ecology, their social representations and the tourist attendance associated with these natural and cultural heritages. 

Themes

 1. Environmental and human factors that shaped current animal populations

Which usages, practices and politics have favoured the development of animal populations like wild ungulates? Should we consider hunting as the single option to control their abundance? Would the recolonisation of natural areas by large predators, such as the wolf, modulate the demographic and geographical expansion of these large animals? Would that lead to the social acceptance of this natural comeback? Will hunting or natural predation be efficient tools to preserve forest structure, composition and renewal?

2. Role of wildlife in the functioning of forest ecosystems

Large herbivores lay at the centre of a network of interactions that involves flora, various faunae from the ground to the canopy and that depends on abiotic factors (water, light, temperature…). By selectively feeding on certain plants, they determine the abundance, composition and structure of the vegetation, a common resource that other faunae also use for food, as shelter or reproduction site. These animals contribute to long distance plant dispersal, nutrient fluxes and ecosystem physical engineering, with direct and indirect effects on other forest compartments.

3. Consequences of forest habitat management options on the wildlife

Management choices, changes in the use of forest areas or their assignment to specific uses can reshuffle in space and time resources accessible to the wildlife. How are these changes reorienting wildlife movements and influencing their use of forest habitats and landscape mosaics? And what are the consequences for wildlife-mediated ecological processes?

4. Usages and social practices around wildlife and forest habitats

Large animals interact with human activities and populations (forest and crop damages, zoonoses and traffic accidents…) but also contribute to cultural services (naturalist tourism, recreation activities like hunting and animal photography…). How can we globally tackle the social and economic benefits of this wildlife? How do interdisciplinary research initiatives approach a multifunctional forest, at the same time a place of healing, a naturalistic observatory, a habitat for wildlife and a support for the wood resource?

Accepted oral and posted contributions can address different spatial (from the forest plot to the entire forest) and temporal (from paleohistory to foresight) scales, apply to all forest biomes (boreal, temperate and tropical), and will shed light on at least one of the four identified axes.

Time schedule

November 4^th 2018 : deadline for abstract submission

November 30^th 2018 : date of contribution acceptance

March 18^th 2019 : deadline for manuscript submission for publication in a journal special issue or a collective work

March 26-27^th 2019 : conference 

Download the call for proposals