Personal profile

Research

I am interested in the impact of species traits and interactions on their response to land use and climate change. I also explore how these changes in the species population and the evolution of their trait (eco-evolutionary dynamics) ripple to the rest of the ecological community.

 

I study mostly terrestrial and freshwater communities, with previous work encompassing amphibians (Cayuela et al., 2019; Weinbach et al., 2018), theoretical food webs (Weinbach et al., 2017; Yacine et al., 2021) and mutualistic communities like plant-pollinator ones (Weinbach et al., 2022; Weyerer et al., 2023). I work using both self-collected and already collected long-term datasets on species communities and interaction and develop mathematical models using adaptive dynamics methods. This technique allows us to follow several species' ecological dynamics whose interactions depend on their trait values. In addition, we observe the long-term evolution of those traits with different environmental conditions. These trait evolutionary trajectories feedback on the population dynamics depending on the interaction types.

 

I currently work on a project using the Swedish National bird inventory. We explore the potential added benefits of considering species functional traits, whether response traits or effect traits, to understand variations in species population dynamics facing different abiotic conditions and land-use and management types. This trait-based approach could in the long run help identify management practices (in farmland and forest systems) that would benefit endangered species and promote specific ecosystem services. Once used on the Swedish bird inventory we hope to extend this method to other species groups like plants or insects to further study specific ecosystem functions.

 

Bibliography:

Cayuela, H., Schmidt, B.R., Weinbach, A., Besnard, A., Joly, P., 2019. Multiple density-dependent processes shape the dynamics of a spatially structured amphibian population. J. Anim. Ecol. 88, 164–177. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12906

Weinbach, A., Allhoff, K.T., Thébault, E., Massol, F., Loeuille, N., 2017. Selective effects of temperature on body mass depend on trophic interactions and network position. https://doi.org/10.1101/233742

Weinbach, A., Cayuela, H., Grolet, O., Besnard, A., Joly, P., 2018. Resilience to climate variation in a spatially structured amphibian population. Sci. Rep. 8, 14607. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33111-9

Weinbach, A., Loeuille, N., Rohr, R.P., 2022. Eco-evolutionary dynamics further weakens mutualistic interaction and coexistence under population decline. Evol. Ecol. 36, 373–387. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-022-10176-7

Weyerer, F., Weinbach, A., Zarfl, C., Allhoff, K.T., 2023. Eco-evolutionary dynamics in two-species mutualistic systems: One-sided population decline triggers joint interaction disinvestment. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.12.528164

Yacine, Y., Allhoff, K.T., Weinbach, A., Loeuille, N., 2021. Collapse and rescue of evolutionary food webs under global warming. J. Anim. Ecol. 90, 710–722. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13405

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
  • SDG 15 - Life on Land

UKÄ subject classification

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology

Free keywords

  • Theoretical Ecology
  • Community assembly
  • Eco-evolutionary dynamics
  • Ecological modelling
  • Interaction
  • Long-term dataset analysis
  • pollination
  • Functional diversity
  • Functional traits
  • land-use change
  • Climate change
  • ecosystem functions

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