Welcome Léa Beaumelle - NEW SE

Submitted by editor on 21 August 2023.

Welcome to Léa Beaumelle - our new subject editor!

Keywords: soil biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, above-belowground interactions, global change biology, pollution, agroecology

 

1. What's your main research focus at the moment?

My research aims to better understand how multiple factors of global change affect communities and ecosystems. I study the cascading consequences of changes in biodiversity induced by human activities for ecosystem functioning. I particularly focus on soil biodiversity and their interactions with aboveground communities (plants, arthropods, and vertebrates).

2. Can you describe your research career? Where, what, when?

I became fascinated by soil biodiversity and functioning during my master at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle of Paris. Soils are complex interfaces, where intricate interactions between a wide range of organisms and their abiotic environment not only support aboveground communities, but also promote many ecosystem functions and services.

From 2011 to 2014, I conducted a PhD on the impacts of metal pollutants on earthworms, that are key players in soil ecosystem functioning, at INRAE (the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment) in Versailles. I combined soil biology, chemistry, statistical models and experimental approaches to identify robust proxies of metal bioavailability in soils contaminated by multiple stressors. I delved deeper into the topic of multiple chemical stressors during my first postdoc (IRSN, Cadarache), by modeling the effects of mixtures of chemical and radioactive substances on species assemblages.

In light of my master in functional ecology, my work in ecotoxicology led me to challenge the relevance of reductionist approaches that predominate in this field: can we anticipate the consequences of pollutants on ecosystems from observations at the individual and population scales? Are those predictions able to protect biodiversity given that pollutants elicit indirect effects mediated by biotic interactions in real-world communities? Those questions pushed me to write a proposal to investigate how multiple stressors, including pollutants, affect the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions using meta-analytical approaches. Funded by the synthesis centre (sDiv) of iDiv (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Halle-Jena-Leipzig), I moved to the great city of Leipzig from 2018 to 2020 for my second postdoc.

This work identified important knowledge gaps regarding the ecological consequences of multiple stressors for terrestrial communities and ecosystem functions that motivated me to pursue with my third and current postdocs. My research now integrates multi-trophic and multifunctional approaches in order to reveal the impacts of multiple stressors operating at different spatial scales. For that, I lean on my expertise in soil ecology and I collaborate with experts of other trophic levels and other ecosystem functions in order to quantify multi-trophic biodiversity and the simultaneous provision of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality).

During my third postdoc, I applied this framework in the context of agroecology and vineyard landscapes. Vineyards are intensively managed, notably with extremely high levels of pesticide use. Developing agroecological practices is thus a main challenge in these systems. From 2020 to 2022, at INRAE Bordeaux, I investigated if different agroecological practices (such as organic farming, semi-natural habitats at the landscape scale) could simultaneously conserve multi-trophic biodiversity and maintain multiple ecosystem services (soil quality and fertility, agricultural production, and natural pest regulation).

Today, I continue to develop multi-trophic and multifunctional approaches at CNRS and Toulouse University, in order to reveal the mechanisms by which biodiversity loss and warming interactively affect communities and ecosystems. I study how the removal of a generalist top predator (the common lizard) has cascading effects from above- to belowground communities, and how an experimental warming (+3°C) can alter the strength and direction of this trophic cascade in a seven-years long experiment in large mesocosms.

3. How come that you became a scientist in ecology?

As far as I remember, I always wanted to study biology and become a scientist (even though my child interest was more into large mammals than earthworms!). As an eight-year old child, I remember watching nature documentaries and envying the scientists that would observe lions all day long and were able to explain to us so clearly their biology and behavior. I was also very upset by the detrimental effects of human activities on nature that those documentaries would often showcase. I think that feeling of injustice for other species and nature in general contributed to push me in this direction. I studied biology at the university to pursue that old child dream, and learning basic biology concepts fascinated me. The complexity of life, the intricate combination of scales from genes to molecules to individuals and so on. I was so curious to learn how it all work together. I think that what led me to ecology specifically was a fascination for complex systems, as well as the motivation to create knowledge that could participate to make the world fairer for all species including our own.

4. What do you do when you're not working?

I sing polyphonies in chorale groups, mostly world/folk music. I particularly like polyphonies from the Balkans. I also love literature and I read a lot of novels: classic to contemporary. Some of my favorite authors are Milan Kundera, Toni Morrison, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Fiodor Dostoïevski, Jean Giono, or Virginie Despentes. My favorite thing to do is enjoying the company of my partner and my friends: laugh, have an “apéro”, go to a concert, hike somewhere or play board games.

 

Personal websites

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0CDYI5QAAAAJ&hl=en

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lea-Beaumelle

https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/AAN-8286-2020

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7836-8767

https://ecoevo.social/@LeaBeaumelle

https://twitter.com/LeaBeaumelle

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