![Dr. Lova Marline]()
DAAD climapAfrica Postdoctoral Fellow
Université d'Antananarivo Madagascar
Lova’s long-standing taxonomist interest has been in bryophytes. For the past few year, She has been focusing her research on bryophytes, an ecologically important but poorly studied group of plant in tropical ecosystems.
She is originally from Madagascar where she did her undergraduate study and master at the University of Antananarivo, with a background in Botany and Ecology. She completed her PhD on the bryophyte of Madagascar, at the University of Cape Town in 2018. To date, her PhD was the first detailed study on the bryoflora of Madagascar.
Climate change expertise and interests
Lova is a tropical biologist broadly interested in the ecological and evolutionary processes that determine community assembly and patterns of biodiversity at local, landscape, and biogeographic scales. She uses tropical mountain massifs as model to study bryophyte diversity and distribution patterns. She is interested in investigating potential ecological processes that underlie bryophyte community assembly and to link bryophyte functional traits to ecosystem processes.
This study is important because these organisms are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Crucial information is lacking regarding bryophytes responses to climate changes, and that knowledge on ecosystem services provided by bryophytes is particularly limited in the tropics
Publications (most recent)
Marline L., Ah-Peng C. & Hedderson T. 2020. Bryophyte diversity and range distributions along an elevational gradient in Marojejy, Madagascar. Biotropica 00: 1-12. http://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12781
Reeb C., Marline L., Rabeau L., Andriamanantena A., Andriamiarisoa R., Ranarijaona H.T. & Pócs T. 2018. A survey of Marchantiales from Madagascar. Acta Biologica Plantarum Agriensis 6: 3–72. http://doi.org/10.21406/abpa.2018.6.3
Ah-Peng C., Flores O., Wilding N., Bardat J., Marline L., Hedderson T. & Strasberg D. 2014. Functional diversity of subalpine bryophyte communities in an oceanic island (La Réunion). Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 46(4):841-851. http://doi.org/10.1657/1938-4246-46.4.841.
I participate at climapAfrica because...
Firstly, the DAAD climapAfrica program offers many opportunities for early career researcher from the South to broaden their network not only with German institutions but also with other fellow from many other African country. This platform gives us the opportunity to work together toward empowering science communities in Africa.
Secondly, I wish to develop a cross-disciplinary and comprehensive research program to study a “hidden” but ecologically important group of land plants – bryophytes. To do so I sick collaborations with African early career scholars.
Finally, I am always happy to showcase my ongoing study on a very poorly known group of plant to a broader research community.
