Paul SAVARY
I am Assistant Professor in ecology and spatial modelling at Université de Franche-Comté. My research is mainly about species movements in spatial ecological networks. I particularly focus on dispersal and gene flow, two eco-evolutionary processes shaping the species diversity of communities and genetic structure of populations at landscape scale.
I aim to improve our understanding of pattern-process relationships in ecology and evolution, and to develop tools for strategic decision making toward biodiversity conservation. Spatial modelling, graph theory, and demo-genetic simulations are central to my research methods. I also work on statistical methods used in ecology and evolution for capturing the spatial signal emerging from the configuration of habitat networks.
My research finds application in urban ecosystems. I study their biodiversity and the imprint let by human-driven land use dynamics on it, using citizen science data and global land cover datasets.
BlueSky: @psavary.bsky.social / Gitlab / Research Gate / Google Scholar
- Ph.D. in population biology and ecology at Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté (doctoral thesis from 2017 to 2021)
- Engineer in Management of Natural Areas (Master degree equivalent), AgroParisTech (training from 2013 to 2017)
- Master student as part of an Erasmus exchange at Wagening University, Netherlands (2015)
- Undergraduate student in biology at Université de Bordeaux 1 (2011-2013)
- Since 2024 - Assistant professor in ecology and spatial modelling at Université de Franche-Comté in the ThéMA lab, Besançon, France
- 2024 - Post-doctoral researcher funded by Fonds de Recherche du Québec Nature et Technologie - Hosted by the Department of Biology of Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada
- 2022-2024 - Post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Biology of Concordia University (Horizon Post-Doctoral Fellowship), Montréal, QC, Canada
- 2021-2022 - Post-doctoral researcher, REFUGE project - Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté (UMR ThéMA, Besançon ; UMR Biogéosciences, Dijon). Funded by ARP-Astrance (Paris), France
- 2017-2021 - Ph.D. candidate, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté (UMR ThéMA, Besançon ; UMR Biogéosciences, Dijon) - ARP-Astrance (Paris), CIFRE funding, France
- 2017 - Intern researcher at INRAE, UMR BAGAP, Rennes, France
- 2016 - Intern engineer at Asociacion de Ciencias Ambientales, Madrid, Espagne
- 2015 - Intern engineer at Puyehue National Park, Chile
- Post-Doctoral Fellowship of Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Nature et Technologie (FRQ-NT) (2024)
- Excellence award of Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science (2023)
- Horizon Post-Doctoral Fellowship of Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada (2022-2024)
- Ph.D. candidates' representative at the Council of ThéMA lab (2019-2021)
- Member of the Graphab team and instructor in the professional training for the use of this software program (Formations CNRS-Entreprise)
- Development of the 'graph4lg' R package, dedicated to graph-based analyses in landscape ecology and population genetics
- Member of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science (QCBS), Societé Française d’Écologie et d’Évolution, and of the International Biogeography Society
- Scientific divulgation: Cafés Géo, webinars organised by ARP-Astrance, Université Populaire de Montréal, newspaper articles)
- Reviewer for peer-reviewed journals (Molecular Ecology, Molecular Ecology Resources, Landscape Ecology, Global Change Biology, Ecological Monographs, Journal of Animal Ecology, Landscape & Urban Planning, etc.)
- Expert for the Fondation pour la Recherche sur la Biodiversité (FRB)
- Participation in workshops for promoting open science at Concordia University
- Habitat ecological connectivity
- Landscape genetics
- Community ecology
- Urban ecology
- Spatial statistics
Methods and software tools for modelling for habitat connectivity
- Savary, P., Clauzel, C., Foltête, J. C., Vuidel, G., Girardet, X., Bourgeois, M., Martin, F.M., Ropars, L. & Garnier, S. (2024). Multiple habitat graphs: how connectivity brings forth landscape ecological processes. Landscape Ecology, 39(9), 168. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-024-01947-4
- Savary, P., Foltête, J.C., Moal, H., Vuidel, G. & Garnier, S. 2021. graph4lg: a package for constructing and analysing graphs for landscape genetics in R. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 12, 539-547. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13530
Urban ecology
- Savary, P., Tannier, C., Foltête, J. C., Bourgeois, M., Vuidel, G., Khimoun, A., ... & Garnier, S. (2024). How does dispersal shape the genetic patterns of animal populations in European cities? A simulation approach. Peer Community Journal, 4. https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.407
Community ecology
- Khattar, G., Savary, P. & Peres-Neto, P.R. (2024). The biotic and abiotic contexts of ecological selection mediate the dominance of distinct dispersal strategies in competitive metacommunities. Phil.Trans.R.Soc.B. 37920230132. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0132
- Savary, P., Lessard, J.P. & Peres-Neto, P. R. (2024). Heterogeneous dispersal networks to improve biodiversity science. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 39(3), 229-238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2023.10.002
Landscape genetics
- Daniel, A., Savary, P., Foltête, J. C., Vuidel, G., Faivre, B., Garnier, S., & Khimoun, A. (2024). What can optimized cost distances based on genetic distances offer? A simulation study on the use and misuse of ResistanceGA. Molecular Ecology Resources, e14024. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.14024
- Daniel, A.* , Savary, P.* , Foltête, J.C., Khimoun, A., Faivre, B., Ollivier, A., Éraud, C., Moal, H., Vuidel, G., & Garnier, S. 2023. Validating graph-based connectivity models with independent presence-absence and genetic data sets. Conservation Biology. (*: contributions égales) https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14047
- Savary, P., Foltête, J.C., Moal, H., Vuidel, G. & Garnier, S. 2021. Analysing landscape effects on dispersal networks and gene flow with genetic graphs. Molecular Ecology Resources. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13333
For an exhaustive list of my works: