David Bauman

(He/Him)

0

Research Scientist in Plant Ecology, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)

David Bauman studied Biology and specialised in Plant Ecology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), where he earned his PhD. He continued in Tropical Forest and Global Change Ecology through postdoctoral fellowships at Oxford University (UK), the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (USA), and the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD, France), where he is now a research scientist.

His work investigates how environmental change shapes tropical forest diversity and dynamics by studying tree growth and survival (tree demography). Using Bayesian modelling, simulations, and causal inference, he explores how climate, soil, topography, biotic interactions, and species’ functional traits drive demographic variation and the dynamics of forests and savannas.

Experience

2023–present

Research scientist, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
2021–2023

Postdoctoral fellow, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
2020–2021

Postdoctoral fellow, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
2019–2020

Postdoctoral fellow, University of Oxford
2014–2018

PhD Student, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Education

2018

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Doctorate in Science
2014

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Master in Biology of Organisms and Ecology
2011

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Bachelor in Biological Sciences

Publications

2025

Aboveground biomass in Australian tropical forests now a net carbon source, Nature
2025

Mosaic of size-dependent mortality in three ecologically and economically important pine species reveals patterns across space and time, Global Ecology and Biogeography
2025

Growth–survival trade-off in temperate trees is weak and restricted to late-successional stages, Journal of Ecology
2025

The unexpected influence of legacy conspecific density dependence, Ecology Letters
2025

Memories of Trees Past: Coexistence Implications of Legacy Conspecific Density Dependence, Ecology Letters
2024

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities, Journal of Biogeography
2024

Ectomycorrhizal fungi are influenced by ecoregion boundaries across Europe, Global Ecology and Biogeography
2024

Human land occupation regulates the effect of the climate on the burned area of the Brazilian Cerrado, Communications Earth & Environment
2024

Winner–loser plant trait replacements in human-modified tropical forests, Nature Ecology & Evolution
2024

Damage to tropical forests caused by cyclones is driven by wind speed but mediated by topographical exposure and tree characteristics, Global Change Biology
2022

Tropical tree growth sensitivity to climate is driven by species intrinsic growth rate and leaf traits, Global Change Biology
2022

Tropical tree mortality has increased with rising atmospheric water stress, Nature
2020

Interspecific trait integration increases with environmental harshness: A case study along a metal toxicity gradient, Functional Ecology
2020

Tree growth, recruitment, and survival in a tropical dry woodland: The importance of soil and functional identity of the neighbourhood, Forest Ecology and Management
2019

Testing and interpreting the shared space-environment fraction in variation partitioning analyses of ecological data, Oikos
2018

Disentangling good from bad practices in the selection of spatial or phylogenetic eigenvectors, Ecography
2018

Optimizing the choice of a spatial weighting matrix in eigenvector-based methods, Ecology
2017

Fine-scale habitats influence tree species assemblage in a miombo forest, Journal of Plant Ecology
2016

Multiscale assemblage of an ectomycorrhizal fungal community: The influence of host functional traits and soil properties in a 10-ha miombo forest, FEMS Microbiology Ecology

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