Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Franck Courchamp is Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). He works at University Paris Saclay, where he leads a research team: “Biodiversity Dynamics & MacroEcology”.
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Franck Courchamp is Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). He works at University Paris Saclay, where he leads a research team: “Biodiversity Dynamics & MacroEcology”.
Franck Courchamp did his Ph D thesis in Lyons, France, on the epidemiology of Feline AIDS. He then did a first postdoc at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of UCSD, where he worked on the effects of invasive species on trophic relationships and a second postdoc in Cambridge, UK, on the inverse density dependence. In addition to these two ongoing topics, he now also works on the overexploitation of rare species, on the effects of climate change on biodiversity, and on the perception of biodiverisity in conservation.
Franck Courchamp has published over 200 scientific studies, and three books, among which two directed to the general public and he has presented his work in over 50 international conferences. He is lead author in reports for intergovernmental panels such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Biodiversity Outlook, the IPCC and the IPBES. He supervised over 100 students at different study levels. He is also very active in popularization, notably with several documentaries, motion design movies, books and comic books.
He has been awarded the Silver Medal of the CNRS and elected as a Member at the European Academy of Science, as well as the Knighthood of the French National Order of Merit. He has been selected three times for the list of “Highly Cited Researcher” of the “Clarivate Analytics” international ranking. These correspond to the top 1% most cited researchers worldwide in each discipline. He now holds the AXA Chair of Invasion Biology at University Paris Saclay. In 2021 he is named Knight of the National Order of Merit, and in 2023 he receives the Grand Prix of the French Society of Ecology and Evolution.
The science of species, their interactions with their environment and with other species.
The science of understanding the causes of species decline and of managing them to avoid extinction.
Attention directed at different species by society and science is particularly relevant within the field of conservation, as societal preferences will strongly impact support for conservation initiatives and their success. Here, we assess the association between societal and research interests in four charismatic and threatened species groups, derived from a range of different online sources and social media platforms as well as scientific publications. We found a high level of concordance between scientific and societal taxonomic attention, which was consistent among assessed species groups and media sources. Results indicate that research is apparently not as disconnected from the interests of society as it is often reproached, and that societal support for current research objectives should be adequate. While the high degree of similarity between scientific and societal interest is both striking and satisfying, the dissimilarities are also interesting, as new scientific findings may constitute a constant source of novel interest for the society.
Charisma is a term commonly used in conservation biology to describe species. However, as the term “charismatic species” has never been properly defined, it needs to be better characterized to fully meet its potential in conservation biology. To provide a more complete depiction, we collected information from four different sources to define the species currently considered to be the most charismatic and to understand what they represent to the Western public. First, we asked respondents of two separate surveys to identify the 10 animal species that they considered to be the most charismatic and associate them with one to six traits: Rare, Endangered, Beautiful, Cute, Impressive, and Dangerous. We then identified the wild animals featured on the website homepages of the zoos situated in the world’s 100 largest cities as well as on the film posters of all Disney and Pixar films, assuming in both cases that the most charismatic species were generally chosen to attract viewers. By combining the four approaches, we set up a ranked list of the 20 most charismatic animals. The majority are large exotic, terrestrial mammals. These species were deemed charismatic, mainly because they were regarded as beautiful, impressive, or endangered, although no particular trait was discriminated, and species were heterogeneously associated with most of the traits. The main social characteristics of respondents did not have a significant effect on their choices. These results provide a concrete list of the most charismatic species and offer insights into the Western public’s perception of charismatic species, both of which could be helpful to target new species for conservation campaigns.
The global loss of biodiversity can be attributed to numerous threats. While pioneer studies have investigated their relative importance, the majority of those studies are restricted to specific geographic regions and/or taxonomic groups and only consider a small subset of threats, generally in isolation despite their frequent interaction. Here, we investigated 11 major threats responsible for species decline on islands worldwide. We applied an innovative method of network analyses to disentangle the associations of multiple threats on vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants in 15 insular regions. Biological invasions, wildlife exploitation, and cultivation, either alone or in association, were found to be the three most important drivers of species extinction and decline on islands. Specifically, wildlife exploitation and cultivation are largely associated with the decline of threatened plants and terrestrial vertebrates, whereas biological invasions mostly threaten invertebrates and freshwater fish. Furthermore, biodiversity in the Indian Ocean and near the Asian coasts is mostly affected by wildlife exploitation and cultivation compared to biological invasions in the Pacific and Atlantic insular regions. We highlighted specific associations of threats at different scales, showing that the analysis of each threat in isolation might be inadequate for developing effective conservation policies and managements.
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