Diversifying crop rotations with temporary grasslands - Université de ...

THESIS ORGANISATION
This thesis entitled ‘Diversifying crop rotations with temporary grasslands: potentials for
weed management and farmland biodiversity’ is composed of four parts (A-D). Part A
(‘General Introduction’) exposes the problem, introduces possible solutions arising from a
literature review, and defines the research questions. These questions are studied using four
empirical approaches that are summarized in part B (‘Overview of Materials & Methods’).
The results are presented in part C, which is divided in four chapters (C.I - C.IV)
corresponding to the four empirical approaches. Each of them is constituted of one, two, or
three scientific articles or manuscripts (Articles 1-8), where the present author figures as the
first author (6) or as a co-author (2). The contribution of the present author to these eight
articles and manuscripts is detailed in Table 1. Most of the articles have already been
published or accepted for publication, others are ‘in preparation’. Published articles are
reproduced with kind permission from EDP Sciences (Article 1), John Wiley and Sons (Aricle
2), Eugen Ulmer (Articles 4 and 6), and Elsevier (Article 8). Of course, each article has its
own introduction, methods, results and discussion sections. A General Discussion (part D)
summarizes and links the different findings presented in the articles, shows the strength and
limits of the methods and discusses some perspectives. The Reference section (part E)
contains the literature sources cited in the whole thesis including the articles. The Annexes
comprise (i) a translation of about 35 key words and other technical expressions in English,
French and German, (ii) a short definition and discussion of the term ‘weed’, and (iii) a list of
all weed species observed in the large-scale surveys, their frequency of occurrence, and
information on the species functional groups.
17 http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr, accessed on 11 Mars 2010.
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