During her PhD studies, Celesté Maré explored the effects of wildlife grazing on grass root biomass in an African savanna system. Savannas cover a large portion of the Earth’s terrestrial biosphere and store large amounts of carbon in their soil. Grazing can influence soil organic carbon through direct and indirect effects on plant biomass and soil processes. Celesté Maré used a mechanistic approach that combines field-based surveys with controlled experiments to untangle how wild grazers shape grass root systems and influence carbon storage in fire-prone savannas.

The new research findings improve our mechanistic understanding of how savanna grasses respond to grazing disturbances and highlight an important but underappreciated pathway by which wild grazers influence savanna functioning and ecosystem carbon storage.

The PhD study was completed at the Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Tuesday, 2 September 2025 at 08:00
Place: Building 1532, room 122, Lecture Theatre Auditorium G2, Biology Department, Aarhus University, 114 Ny Munkegade, 8000 Aarhus C
Title of PhD thesis: Rooted in Disturbance: Untangling the effects of grazing on grass root biomass in fire-prone savannas
Contact information: Celesté Maré, e-mail: celeste.mare@bio.au.dk, tel.: +45 52 72 92 09
Members of the assessment committee:
Professor Caroline Lehmann, School of Geosciences, The University of Edinburgh, UK
Associate Professor Elise Buisson, Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology, Avignon Université, France
Associate Professor Alejandro Ordonez Gloria (chair), Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Denmark
Main supervisor: Associate Professor Elizabeth le Roux, Biology Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Co-supervisor: Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, Biology Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.
The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Natural Sciences/GSNS, Ny Munkegade 120, building 1521, 8000 Aarhus C