Invitation to two workshops on Methodological and technical aspects of population genetics

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

INRA Nancy-Lorraine Center, Champenoux

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The thematic areas included in the EFPA (Department of Forest, Grassland and Freshwater Ecology) “Genetics” network cover a full range of variations concerning genetics: population genetics, quantitative genetics and improved genetics for all types of models; animal, plant, microbial, and theoretical.

As part of the annual meeting of geneticiens, the EFPA Department of INRA, with additional support by LabEx ARBRE, has organized two training workshops for November 18 on methodological aspects of analyzing genetic population data.

Two Workshops :

• Inference with simulations in evolutionary genetics using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) – hosted by Miguel Navascuès (INRA, Montpellier)

• Detection of loci selected through genomic scans – presented by Simon Boitard (ISYEB – UMR L’Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité / CNRS / Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle de Paris).

For more details on these two workshops, follow this link : EFPA Genetics Network Meeting – Workshops

Ten places have been reserved for interested members of the joint research labs within LabEx. This training is open to researchers and engineers, as well as doctoral and post-doctoral students. Knowledge of base principals of population genetics will be useful for understanding concepts that will be addressed during these workshops, but their primary focus will be on practical methodological application.

If you think you might like to attend, please contact Stéphane De Mita (sdemita@nancy.inra.fr) before 15 October.  If you are only able to come to one workshop, please specify which one that will be.

The First Meeting Exploring Alternative Mushrooms

Saturday 4 October
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On the occasion of the Champi’Parc innauguration

The Petits Débrouillards of the East have the pleasure of announcing the First Meeting Exploring Alternative Mushrooms.  In cooperation with their numerous active partners, this science education festival will take place during the official innauguration of Champi’Parc (Saturday, 4 October at 18h00).  The Champi’Parc is a collaborative mushroom farm where mushrooms are grown, where experiments are held and perfect location to hold scientific presentations.

The Meetings Exploring Alternative Mushrooms will be take place at the Site des Brasseries in Maxeville :

• Wednesday, 1 October  : 13h00 -19h00
• Saturday, 4 October :  13h00 – 23h00
• Sunday,  5 Octobrer : 13h00 – 19h00

The program will include :

• Animations / workshops on manipulation and construction (of digital sensors, fungus, lombricomposteur trays, insect hives ..)
• Participatory biodiversity surveys
• Outings to collect and identify mushrooms in the Haye forest
• Film projections and debates
• Evening concert and danse ..

For more informatoin, follow this link ..
The Petits Débrouillards

Click here to read the detailed program : Program

Call for contributions for a symposium on the theme:
Multifunctionality in the forestry sector in a changing and uncertain context.

19 and 20 November, FCBA – Paris

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The forestry sector is currently facing major societal challenges, prompting it to:

• Meet multiple expectations of professionals, private users and the general public, to
• Cope with diverse changes as well as associated risks and uncertainties, and to
• Contribute openly and visibly to the bio-economy in the context of environmental and energy transitions.

Economic, human and social sciences have a major role to play alongside other sciences to meet these challenges. Notably they are essential for providing knowledge necessary for for decision making when weighing different expectations, integrating changes and assessing risks and uncertainties in forest-related policies and strategies, promoting more environmentally-friendly environment.

The ECOFOR Network of Economic, Human and Social sciences (SEHS) invites you to join the discussion surrounding these issues on 19 and 20 November in Paris.

This conference is aimed at researchers, managers, and all stakeholders concerned with the link between the forest and society. It will aim to address specifically concerns of members of the the ECOFOR SEHS network, but also more widely all network members who are interested in economic, human and social sciences, their applications and interdisciplinarity.

General program :
Wednesday, 19 November – 9 h 30 – 18 h 00
Thursday, 20 November – 9 h 30-17 h 00 (depending on participant contributions)

Inscriptions
Register for the Symposium by following this link : Inscriptions

Call for contributions
This symposium is organized on the basis of voluntary contributions. You may submit proposals for such a contribution online up to October 17, 2014.

Symposium Location :
Technological Institute FCBA, 10 avenue de Saint-Mandé, 75012 Paris

Nate has just completed three weeks in France working in the LERFoB unit. This visit was funded LabEx ARBRE and allowed Nate to work on :

Follow this link to read the interview Nate agreed to grant us : ARBRE Interview – Nate Osborne

How do we balance intensifying exploitation of forests with preserving biodiversity? What are the indicators to monitor and evaluate the state of forest biodiversity? How do fauna and flora respond to changes occurring in forests?

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Three synthesis papers for forest managers and policy makers combine key response issues from 16 research projects for the research “Biodiversity, forest management and public policy” (BGF) program funded by the French Ministry of Ecology:

• Synthesis n ° 1 – Boundaries, connectivity, colonization: temporal and spatial biodiversity in forests.
• Synthesis n ° 2 – Evaluating sustainable forest management: what are the indicators for forest biodiversity?
• Synthesis n ° 3 – Biodiversity, production and other forest services: what are the trade-offs for forest management?

These three syntheses are downloadable on the website of the MC program: http://bgf.gip-ecofor.org

The ‘Biodiversity, forest management and public policy’ Program :

Moderated by the public interest grouping ECOFOR and supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, the incentive research program “Biodiversity, forest management and public policy” aims to develop knowledge necessary for effectively considering biodiversity in the broader context of forest management, from forest exploitation or logging to managing protected woodlands. Since its creation in 1996, the program has supported 39 projects and has generated numerous publications, books and summary papers that contribute to informing public policy. In 2014, five new and diverse student projects have been launched focused on key factors involved in interactions between adaptation of forests, climate change and biodiversity conservation.

The organizers

Maxime Toussaint, Yoran Bornot, Alexandre Fruleux, Henri Cuny, Estelle Noyer, Emiline Hily, Aurélie Deroy

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This two-day seminar was organized by a team of PhD candidates and postdoctoral students supported by LabEx ARBRE. It was a first, and it was very clearly a success thanks to the professionalism of this young team. The program was organized around three highlights: presentations of ongoing research open to all, workshops for PhD  and postdoctoral students, and a hosted seminar.

Eighteen doctoral and postdoctoral students presented their research in short presentations divided into three sessions. While the presentations themselves were brief, everyone agreed that it was hands down interesting to see what others are working on; their objectives, challenges they faced, their results. Discussions that followed went further than just methodological approaches and experimental techniques, and led to an interesting exchange of views and perspectives.

Three workshops were used to address three key themes proposed by the organizing team (Workshop I: Climate change and wood quality – what are the impacts? what are the management solutions?,  Workshop II: Understanding tree-microbe interactions with a view to improved production and valorization, Workshop III: Climatic changes and the phenomenon of species migration). These workshops prompted particularly rich discussions between the PhD and postdoctoral students who prepared three overviews of these exchanges which were presented to everyone at the end of the seminar. To read the  workshop overviews in French, follow this link – Restitution des ateliers

Special guest Jean-Marc Galan gave an engaging presentation on scientific mediation. A researcher with the CNRS and a biologist by training, Mr. Galan has successfully refocused his career on scientific mediation, on communicating scientific issues to broader audiences – even non-scientific audiences – and addressed the notion of conceptualizing science in a broader context, on the point of contact between ‘those who know and those who don’t know’.  Ultimately, how to creatively and intelligently capture the interest of others when presenting scientific information. Using his personal experiences as examples, he presented the main issues involved in scientific mediation, for the public but also for researchers.

LabEx ARBRE aims to study the functioning and productivity of forest ecosystems. The main objectives are to understand their mechanisms, to predict their responses to global changes and to identify new avenues for the preservation and valuation of these ecosystems. One of the principle strengths of LabEx ARBRE is that it is structured to bring together a wide range of disciplinary expertise to understand how forest ecosystems function and to analyze their resources, from the molecular level to the landscape level.

This symposium will highlight the work of young and upcoming researchers; doctoral and post-doctoral students working with eight LabEx partner research units. It is designed to bring together the different disciplines and levels of research and to promote an exchange of ideas through as series of presentations, workshops and a scientific poster exhibition. In this spirit of open dialogue and exchange, a conference on “talking about science” and scientific mediation will be presented by Jean-Marc Galan (CNRS, Jaques-Monod Institute, University of Paris Diderot).

This two-day seminar will take place on 8-9 September, 2014 at the INRA center in Champenoux.

For more information and the full program, please follow this link : Detailed Program

Its back to school !

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In early June of this year, four classes of students from the College of Einville-au-Jard (5th term) took part in a defoliation experiment on young beech trees in the framework of the LabEx ARBRE project MEPIB-DEATH. This event was supported by the EFPA department at INRA and EUREKA Lorraine. With school beginning again this month, Cathy Massonet and Nathalie Bréda with the Joint Research unit EEF, Pascale Frey-Klett with LabEx ARBRE and Cyril Galley with CPIE of Nancy-Champenoux will meet with teachers whose students participated in SURVIVORS to organize the next follow-up phases of the collaborative research project. This will include proposing exercises using dendrometric measurements taken for these young trees, as well as leaf area and chlorophyll levels, which will involve teachers in mathematics, life sciences, physics and technology. The young up and coming researchers will discover how research can simultaneously spur knowledge in a variety of disciplines.  Students now in their 4th term will meet with researchers this coming autumn who will talk about the first wave of research results and will present the projects next steps.

photo @ P Frey-Klett

Collaborating on Douglas-fir with Oregon State University

31 August – 21 September

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We have the pleasure of welcoming Nate Osborne this week to INRA in Champenoux. Nate is a visiting doctoral researcher who will work with the LEFoB unit for three weeks this month until September 21. Nate is working towards his PhD under the supervision of Professor Doug Maguire of Oregon State University, a Guistina Professor of Forest Managment and Director of the Center for Intensive Planted-Forest Silviculture (CIPS), which inspired our GIS “Cooperative data on the growth of forest stands”. Both are specialists in growth, yield and wood quality modeling for Douglas-fir and attended together the MoMoWood conference in early November 2013.

Nate describes his objectives during his brief stay in France:

Our first project is to integrate the ORGANON model into the Capsis platform.  Organon is an individual tree growth, yield and wood quality model for Douglas-fir in the Pacific Northwest developed at Oregon State University by the Center for Intensive Planted-forest Silviculture.  

Our second project is to scan Douglas-fir trees from France using computer tomography (CT).  With processed CT images, we plan to refit models developed in the Pacific Northwest for macroscopic wood structures in Douglas-fir.  Currently, we are in the experimental design phase of this project.  During my three week stay, I will work in Nancy and Montpellier.  On Monday, September 8, I will describe some work done at Oregon State University to model branch angles and implied branch pith curvature at the Doc/Post-Doctorate seminar hosted by LABEX.  On September 19 of my stay, I’ll make a presentation within the LERFoB about how to use the Organon growth and yield model.

Nate will come back to INRA next year to take part in the tomographic analysis of trees sampled in the GIS plots. Nate’s visit is supported by LabEx ARBRE.