Rudolf Philippe Rohr
rudolf.rohr@unifr.ch
+41 26 300 8851
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6440-2696
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Senior Researcher,
Department of Biology
PER 23 bu. 1.06
Ch. Du Musée 15
1700 Fribourg
Lecturer, Group Leader, Theoretical Ecology and Evolution
Biography
- 2019: Privatdozent in Biology, University of Fribourg Switzerland.
- Since 2016: Lecturer, Dept. of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
- 2014-2015: Post-doc, Dept. of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
- 2011-2013: Post-doc, Biological Station of Donaña, Spain.
- 2008-2011: Post-doc, Dept. of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
- 2008: PhD in Interdisciplinary Science, mathematics-physics, Dept. of Mathematics, University of Geneva Switzerland.
- 2003: M.Sc. in Physics, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
- 1998: Diploma of ETS engineer in electricity with orientation in applied physics, Geneva, Switzerland.
Research and publications
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list of publications
57 publications
Effects of evolution on niche displacement and emergent population properties, a discussion on optimality
Rudolf P. Rohr, Nicolas Loeuille, Oikos (2023) | Journal articleRobustness vs productivity during evolutionary community assembly: short-term synergies and long-term trade-offs
Vasco J. Lepori, Nicolas Loeuille, Rudolf P. Rohr, (2022) | PreprintCombining food web theory and population dynamics to assess the impact of invasive species
Chloé Vagnon and Rudolf P. Rohr and Louis-Félix Bersier and Franck Cattanéo and Jean Guillard and Victor Frossard, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2022) | Journal articleTowards a system-level causative knowledge of pollinator communities
Serguei Saavedra, Ignasi Bartomeus, Oscar Godoy, Rudolf P. Rohr, Penguan Zu, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022) | Journal articleEco-evolutionary dynamics further weakens mutualistic interaction and coexistence under population decline
Avril Weinbach and Nicolas Loeuille and Rudolf P. Rohr, Evolutionary Ecology (2022) | Journal articleThe Dimensions and Units of the Population Interaction Coefficients
Roger Arditi and Yuri V. Tyutyunov and Lyudmila I. Titova and Rudolf P. Rohr and Louis-Félix Bersier, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2021) | Journal articleExperimental evidence of the importance of multitrophic structure for species persistence
Ignasi Bartomeus, Serguei Saavedra, Rudolf P. Rohr, Oscar Godoy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021) | Journal articleDisentangling the effects of external perturbations on coexistence and priority effects
Chuliang Song, Rudolf P. Rohr, David Vasseur, Serguei Saavedra, Akiko Satake, Journal of Ecology (2020) | Journal articleCo-formulation of Beauveria bassiana with natural substances to control pollen beetles – Synergy between fungal spores and colza oil
Biological Control (2020) | Journal articleLinking Comparative Genomics of Nine Potato-Associated Pseudomonas Isolates With Their Differing Biocontrol Potential Against Late Blight
De Vrieze, M. and Varadarajan, A.R. and Schneeberger, K. and Bailly, A. and Rohr, R.P. and Ahrens, C.H. and Weisskopf, L., Frontiers in Microbiology (2020) | Journal article -
Research projects
Coexistence theory: revisiting the invasion criterion for multispecies communities
Status: CompletedStart 01.07.2020 End 31.08.2020 Funding SNSF Open project sheet The invasion criterion has been a central framework to infer species coexistence in ecological communities. This criterion states that if in a given community, each species can be reintroduced in low abundance and invade the remainder species, then all species can coexist. In a community of two species, it has been proved that coexistence can only emerge when the invasion criterion is satisfied and, consequently, coexistence conditions are equivalent to the invasion criterion. However, it has been shown that this equivalence is not always true when considering communities of more than two species (multispecies communities). Recently, the structural approach to coexistence theory has provided new tools to study geometrically the conditions for coexistence. In particular, it has been shown that indirect effects, appearing only in multispecies communities, lead to coexistence conditions that cannot be inferred from the invasion criterion alone. This proposal aims to understand and identify the conditions under which the coexistence conditions are equivalent to the invasion criterion in multispecies communities. The hypothesis is that the configuration of species in the niche space holds the key for the differences and equivalences between the two criteria. The results of this proposal will provide a deeper understanding of the ecological mechanisms behind multispecies coexistence, and will open up new approaches to tackle the big challenge of invasion predictability in ecological research. Consequences of Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics on Biodiversity Maintenance, Ecosystem Functioning, and Network Architecture
Status: CompletedStart 01.07.2019 End 30.06.2024 Funding SNSF Open project sheet Eco-evolutionary dynamics and, especially, the adaptive dynamics framework (Eshel 1983; Geritz et al. 1998) are major tools in linking the ecological dynamics of communities to species coevolution dynamics. In particular, evolutive branching points are central in studying the emergence of polymorphic populations and of biodiversity (Leimar 2005). A significantly large number of studies have identified conditions for evolution that promote biodiversity emergence, which are key in understanding theoretically community mechanisms leading to sympatric speciation (Dieckmann and Doebeli 1999). Interestingly, the conditions for the maintenance of biodiversity and the implication for ecosystem functioning have attracted less attention so far. One can, of course, naively assume that the process underling biodiversity emergence is the same as for biodiversity maintenance, but so far this has not been examined. What are the implications of theses conditions on ecosystem functioning? Can coevolution impose trade-offs between biodiversity maintenance and ecosystem functioning or is there a positive relationship between them? Community dynamics is in part determined by the structure of ecological networks comprised of the species interactions and, it has been shown that specific network structures positively or negatively affect species persistence (Thébault and Fontaine 2010). However, it remains largely unknown how eco-evolutionary dynamics selects for those specific structures and, in turn, how they relate to biodiversity maintenance and ecosystem function under coevolution. The project aims to answer those open questions within a common and unifying framework. Specifically, we will extensively study the effects of coevolutionary trajectories on coexistence conditions and on ecosystem functioning. This will unravel the relationships imposed by eco-evolutionary dynamics between coexistence conditions and ecosystem functioning. Significantly, we will separate the evolutive scenarios leading to a positive relation from the ones leading to a trade-off between coexistence conditions and ecosystem functioning. Then, we aim at disentangling the role of coevolutionary dynamics from community dynamics in selecting specific network structures. Once the emergence of specific systems is understood, we will study whether the structures that favour species persistence under a pure community dynamics are also the ones favouring biodiversity once the coevolutive process is added. The ultimate aim of this project is to develop a general theory explaining patterns in community ecology that emerge from eco-evolutionary dynamics. We expect the results to attract attention of empiricist as well, as we will provide mechanistic understanding on how ecological dynamics and coevolution result in the observed community patterns. Finally, the results may also have important consequence on community management and conservation.