Google Scholar profile

I am a researcher in complex ecological networks, especially plant microbiomes and food webs, at the Plant Health Insitute Montpellier (CIRAD) in France.

My research employs the language of statistical mechanics to find simplicity in the apparent intricacy of ecosystems, and my long-term goal is to use this language to change the way that we think about and model biological function.

More generally, my interests are vague enough to appear interesting in a variety of social contexts. I work in physics for ecologists, linguistics for physicists, and anthropology for linguists, so as to always avoid expertise. My current aim in life is to mathematically define "aims", and perhaps also "life".
I'd like to make interdisciplinary research less of a buzzword, and more of a method.
All real-world results obtained along the way are incidental, but appreciated.

  1. M. Barbier, J. Arnoldi, G. Bunin, M. Loreau, "Generic assembly patterns in complex ecological communities". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018) 115, 2156--2161.
    https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710352115
  2. C. T. Monk, M. Barbier, P. Romanczuk, J. R. Watson, J. Alós, S. Nakayama, D. I. Rubenstein, S. A. Levin, R. Arlinghaus, "How ecology shapes exploitation: a framework to predict the behavioural response of human and animal foragers along exploration--exploitation trade-offs". Ecology letters (2018) 21, 779--793.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12949
  3. M. Barbier, D. Lee, "Urn model for products' shares in international trade". Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (2017) 2017, 123403.
    https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-5468/aa9bb9
  4. M. Barbier, D. Villamaina, E. Trizac, "Blast dynamics in a dissipative gas". Physical review letters (2015) 115, 214301.
    https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.115.214301