The Laboratory of Forest Economics will hold its biennial workshop this coming Thursday, 30 June

9h00 – Jacamon conference room
AgroParisTech, 14 rue Girardet, Nancy
Scientific program

Guest speakers :

• Maarit Kallio (LUKE – Natural Resources Institute Finland)
  “Reducing the non-ETS GHG emissions with wood-based fuels – impacts and trade-offs within wood-using sectors”
• Frank Wätzold (Brandenburgische Technische Universität, Cottbus)
  “Costs of uncoordinated site selection with multiple ecosystem services”
• Jette Bredahl Jacobsen (University of Copenhagen)
  “Which portfolio mix do Danish forest owners apply?”
• Marc Hanewinkel (University of Freiburg)
  “The Socio-Economics of Forest Adaptation to Climate Change”
• Charles palmer (London School of Economics)
  “Was von Thünen right? Cattle intensification and deforestation in Brazil”
• Mikolaj Czaijkowski (Université de Varsovie)
  “Using geographically weighted choice models to account for spatial heterogeneity of preferences”
• Philippe Delacote (LEF)
  “Climate change impacts on the forest sector: the role of adaptation”

Yan-Shih Lin

Postdoctoral researcher

24 June 2016

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Yan-Shih Lin is an ecophysiologist and a modeler. Her research is centered on bridging the gaps between the experimentalists’ and the modelers’ worlds.  She has recently joined the EEF unit to direct the INTERDROUGHT project, a collaborative project between INRA (Nancy-Lorraine), the University of Lorraine and the WSL institute in Switzerland.

Yan-Shih was kind enough to talk with us recently about her science and her path as a researcher.  Follow this link to read the full interview : ARBRE Interview — Yan-Shih Lin

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The International Workshop on Edible Mycorrhizal Mushrooms (IWEMM)

10-17 October 2016
Cahors, France

The International Workshop on Edible Mycorrhizal Mushrooms (IWEMM) was intitially proposed at a workshop called “Ecology, physiology, and fruit-body formation of edible ectomycorrhizal fungi” at the International Congress on Mycorrhiza 1 (ICOM1) held in 1996 in Berkeley, California. The first edition was held in Sweden in 1998 and was followed by six workshops in New Zealand (2001), Canada (2003), Spain (2005), China (2007), Morocco (2011) and Guatemala (2013). The next workshop, IWEMM8, will be held for the first time in France (Cahors)10-17 October 2016 (http://www.iwemm8-cahors.com/).

This week-long workshop will address all areas of research focused on edible mycorrhizal fungi (e.g. truffles and forest mushrooms) and will showcase the potential of South West France in this respect. Its aim is to support work in this field by bringing together specialized scientists, industry stakeholders, and end-users from all over the world. The overarching vision of the IWEMM is to protect, understand (taxonomy, phylogeny, biology, ecology etc.), grow, and sustainably use edible mycorrhizal fungi for the good of people and natural ecosystems alike.

The IWEMM8 International Scientific Committee (made up of over 25 scientists) and congress participants will consider the ecological, social, and economic potential of these organisms, particularly with regard to the context of a changing world with multiple socio-economic and environmental threats. Active research and increased knowledge in this field promises to offer significant solutions to long-term challenges affecting tree plantations and forest ecosystems.

For more information, visit the IWEMM8 website : IWEMM8

AnaEE-France: an infrastructure for experimentation on continental ecosystems examines the sustainability of biological resources and ecological services

AnaEE-France (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems) is a national research infrastructure for the study of continental ecosystems and their biodiversity. In a single integrated network it provides all the tools required to study, understand and model biological systems and conduct innovative biological research on gene-environment interactions, biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems. The infrastructure includes an Internet platform used to manage access to these facilities, share databases and house modeling tools. These digital tools offer services that can be used to simulate scenarios and are an effective means of transferring scientific results to the socio-economic sector. By bringing together experimental ecosystem research facilities, state-of-the-art in silico analytical platforms and modeling tools, and coordinating these facilities in a shared, and common direction while developing new tools and methods, this pan-European project promises to play a key role in improving European research on continental ecosystems.

Dr. André Chanzy, Research Director of the EMMAH Unit at the INRA PACA Research Center in Avignon and a coordinator for AnaEE-France, will present this infrastructure on Monday, June 27 at 13h15 in the main conference room at the INRA Center in Champenoux.

What exactly causes trees to die? This question has become increasingly important in the current context of global climatic changes and it is precisely what some 80 middle school students from the Collège C-M Duvivier d’Einville-au-Jard have spent three years trying to answer. Working alongside researchers from the INRA Nancy-Lorraine center, these students have played an active role in the participatory research project called SURVIVORS, a project supported by two additional partners, the Laboratory of Excellence ARBRE and the local Center for Environmental Initiatives CPIE Nancy-Champenoux.

In 2014, researchers working on this specific question invited local middle school students to take part in a large scale experiment with the view of testing two primary hypotheses to explain how trees die when exposed to certain hazards: they either die of hunger due to depletion of their carbohydrate reserves generated by their leaves, or they die of thirst after an irreversible failure of circulation transporting xylem sap from the soil to the leaves.

Nearly 1,000 young beech trees from seeds harvested from forests in southern and northern Lorraine were planted 10 years ago in a specially designed nursery at the INRA Center in Champenoux where they were covered by a 500 square meter roof specially designed to intercept rain and to control the water supply. The experiment was designed to follow the growth and survivability of the beech trees in three contrasting conditions: watered beech trees without leaves removed (as the control), unwatered beech trees, and watered beech trees with leaves removed. Over a period of three years, the students followed the progress of this experiment as researchers. Each student was assigned their “own” beech tree to sponsor which they would monitor throughout the experiment; specifically this meant tracking its growth and conducting leaf removal each spring. They learned how to take precise measurements, attended workshop presentations where they learned about scientific methods specific to their experiment, but also about the diverse range of jobs and professions in the scientific community, and what kind of training is required to enter these professions. The final step for these young researchers was formatting and analyzing their results — and to try to answer the original question.

These students are now preparing to finish their third year (or last year of middle-school). To thank them for their participation and to celebrate with them for having been awarded several prizes (two being the 2015 Science and Society Prize awarded by the Lorraine Regional Council and the 2016 Prize for Academic Innovation), a ceremony was held on June 16 on site at the Collège d’Einville-au-Jard.

Come discover the “All researchers in Lorraine” project

Since its launch, LabEx ARBRE has committed to supporting projects aimed at developing training and dissemination to non-scientific audiences and promoting participatory research. On June 24, Pascale Frey-Klett and Annick Brun-Jacob (from the IAM research unit) will present an overview of one such project which perfectly illustrates this theme :

“All Researchers in Lorraine – from education to participatory scientific research”
Friday, 24 June — 13h30
INRA, Champenoux — main conference room

Focus on Lorraine

The Tous Chercheurs project aims to establish research laboratories in Lorraine specifically designed for hosting middle school students and high school students for on-site visits of research centers, ultimately to introduce them to the scientific process through active participation. Tous Chercheurs (first launched 12 years ago in Marseille by Constance Hammond, Research Director at INSERM) is a multi-partner project between the University of Lorraine, INRA, the Laboratory of Excellence “ARBRE”, the Vigie de l’eau association and the Rectorate of the Grand-Est educational district. The project is specifically designed to offer support for integrating the investigative approach into science education and establishing continuity between high school and university level coursework. A parallel objective is to make ongoing research more accessible for non-specialist audiences (professionals, the general public, associations) by strengthening links between society and the scientific community. The research work experience program is supervised by PhD students and postdoctoral fellows who receive special training in the “All Researchers” educational approach. For doctoral students, this training is part of a transversal module offered by the University of Lorraine in partnership with INRA. A large part of the project’s success has been that it offers these students valuable teaching experience and the opportunity to reflect on their own careers in science.

Dr. Frank Wätzold
Friday, 1 July 2016
11h00 — Main conference room, INRA (Champenoux)

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Prof. Dr. Frank Wätzold is the Head of the Chair of Environmental Economics at Brandenburg University of Technology (Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany) where
research is focused on applying economic knowledge to problems related to environmental and resource management, in particular to the preservation of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. Dr. Wätzold will present a conference entitled :

A Novel, Spaciotemporally Explicit Ecological-Economic Modeling Procedure for the Design of Cost-Effective Agri-Environment Schemes to Conserve Biodiversity

Abstract :

Unit — Research Unit for the Study and Research of Wood Materials (LERMAB)

Abstract

Variations in the natural density of European oak wood affect thermal degradation during thermal modification
Hamada J, Pétrissans A, Mothe F, Ruelle J, Pétrissans M, Gérardin P. June 2015. Annals of Forest Science.

Thermogravimetric analysis, performed on small samples of earlywood (5EW) or latewood (LW), indicated that earlywood is more susceptible to thermal degredation than latewood. These results suggest a direct relationship between wood density (which depends on the EW/LW ratio and indirectly on silviculture) and the response of wood during thermomodification processes. One of the main difficulties in developing thermomodified wood products at an industrial scale lies in the difficulty of obtaining consistent products which are stable in quality (durability, dimensional stability, color). This may be due either to the thermal treatment process itself or to intra-specific heterogeneity of wood properties. We investigated the effect of the natural variability of oak wood, particularly in density, on the degree of thermodegradation during thermal treatments. X-ray computed topography was used to assess the effect of initial wood density of oak boards on their thermo-degradation. Intra-ring wood density was estimated using thermogravimetric analysis and microdensitometry.

Friday, 29 April
INRA Nancy-Lorraine (Champenoux)
11h — Main conference room

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Dr. Matthias Saurer, a researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) will present a seminar entitled :“Stable isotopes in tree-rings: from process-based studies to large spatial scales”.  This conference is a part of the international doctoral course ‘SIFER’ (with support from LabEx ARBRE) and is open to all staff.

The homogenization of forest ecosystems and the decline in tree diversity are diminishing the ability of forests to supply essential ecosystem services such as wood production or carbon storage. A collective of European research scientists, involving INRA and CNRS has just published these findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Their results are based on a comparative modeling approach applied to forests in six European countries.

During recent decades, human activities have led to the extinction of numerous species, at both the local and global levels.  In parallel, these activities, such as agricultural and forest plantations, and the introduction and expansion of exotic species, have also generated an increasing homogenization of ecosystems at a global scale, in terms of their composition in plant and animal species.  This biotic homogenization phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “MacDonald’s effect”, by analogy with large shopping centers that are increasingly being dominated by a small number of franchises, leading to a standardization of supply and a drop in quality.  In European forests, the decline of tree diversity and biotic homogenization are two very widespread phenomena.   However, although numerous scientific studies have focused on the effects of species depletion on human well-being, no research had previously demonstrated the consequences of biotic homogenization with respect to the diversity of ecosystem services, benefits that are generated for human societies by natural ecosystems.

By means of a major European collaborative project involving 29 research teams (FunDivEUROPE), the scientists combined data on forests in six countries (Germany, Spain, Finland, Italy, Poland and Romania).  They first of all collected a large quantity of data on the different functions and services fulfilled by forest ecosystems, before using computer simulations to test the effects of biotic homogenization and the decline in tree diversity on the ability of forest ecosystems to assure sixteen essential functions, such as the production of construction timber, carbon storage, pest resistance or maintaining bird diversity.

Their study showed that the effects of the decline in tree species are very variable, while under almost all the scenarios studied, biotic homogenization is having a negative impact on the ability of forests to supply numerous ecosystem services.  This can be explained by the fact that not all tree species supply the same services to the same degree.  For example, in Polish forests, the European spruce produces construction timber of very good quality, while hornbeam forests foster the presence of a diversity of plants that will be favorable to ecotourism, for example.  Landscapes that comprise different types of forest are thus more capable of supplying a diversified range of ecosystem services than those where forests are dominated by the same tree species.

These effects suggest that minimizing the “MacDonald’s effect”, for example by preventing invasion by exotic species or using a broader diversity of trees in forest plantations, might favor the multifunctionality of forests and thus find a response to environmental, economic and social demands.

For more information ..