Jason Vleminckx

I am a community ecologist with long-standing field, theoretical, and analytical expertise and vibrant interest in the factors explaining spatial and temporal patterns of alpha and multi-scale beta-diversity in tropical plant communities, and more recently among fungi (Basidiomycota) and invertebrate groups (ants, spiders, earthworms). More specifically, my interests focus on three axes:

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(1) Global change and tropical forests ► Studying how plant species fitness changes with different climate variables in Western Amazonian forests, using a 19-year survey (435 censuses) of flower and fruit production, as well as seedling mortality (Yasuní National Park, Ecuador). These data have allowed me to emphasize a negative effect of rising night-time temperature and relative humidity on plant reproductive performance, both at the community and the species level, in a region that we thought would be more buffered from intensifying drying out occurring in the eastern Amazon basin (article under final revision for submission). This is a highly collaborative work bridging my former institution (Yale university), the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Lewis & Clark College (Portland, OR) and the Southern Illinois University.

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(2) Plant species coexistence and natural enemies ► A second axis that I have been working on is to examine how natural enemies of plants (pathogens, herbivores) contribute to maintaining species coexistence in tropical forests and how they may promote speciation events across habitat gradients (enemy-escape hypothesis). My interest for this subject originates from my first postdoctoral experience with Prof Paul Fine at IB (2016-2017), who has been at the forefront of the research on this subject in Neotropical forests.

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(3) Theoretical modeling ► My past research has pushed me to get acquainted and accumulate a strong expertise in a wide range of statistical skills, including the most advanced frequentist and Bayesian methods used to analyze spatial, temporal, functional and phylogenetic data. I also benefited from two training experiences with Prof Pierre Legendre (Université de Montréal) during my PhD. These skills pushed me to develop a growing interest in resolving some theoretical issues in ecology, in particular regarding how to better describe and explain spatial structures in nature, which is a fundamental objective for many ecologists examining the determinants of Beta-diversity. In one of my articles, I had developed an R function (envspace.test, adespatial package) that tests the contribution of spatially structured environmental variables on any geo-referenced response variables, while avoiding inflation of type I error rate by taking spatial autocorrelation into account. I am currently developing a new function in R (envtime.test, to be included in the adespatial package) that allows testing the same effect but mediated by temporally structured environmental variables, at different time lags between the response(s) and the potential driver(s), and with the possibility of distinguishing between seasonal or inter-annual trend

effects. The function should greatly facilitate the exploration of the determinants of any forest dynamics response to a single or multiple fluctuating environmental variables, such as climate variables. This will be particularly useful, for instance, to survey the impact of climate changes on different ecosystem responses but also in any fields (economics, social science…) interested in examining the drivers of any type of dynamics patterns.

My main professional objective is to pursue an academic career and I am seeking for a tenure-track faculty position (I am currently not in a tenure-track position) in a public institution that would provide me great academic visibility, while maintaining active collaborations with my former academic affiliations which are mainly located in the US.