Trilateral symposium for Integrative Plant Biology

INRA — UPSC — CRAG

6-8 October 2015

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On October 6-8, the first trilateral European symposium on integrative plant biology will take place at the INRA Nancy-Lorraine center in Champenoux. This meeting will bring together scientists from three institutions: the Umeå Plant Science Center in Umeå, Sweden (UPSC), the Center for Agricultural Genomics Research in Barcelona, Spain (CRAG) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). This symposium is part of a cooperation agreement between UPSC and INRA who together have created a “European Open Laboratory”, or UPRA.

In 2005, increasing connections between research projects at UPSC and INRA on biology and plant genomics lead to the creation of this virtual European laboratory. The objectives of this French-Swedish partnership were twofold. It aimed to bring together researchers to work jointly on projects on plant biology, principally by facilitating knowledge transfer and facilitating the use of common tools for modeling species such as Arabiodopsis thaliana, and even poplar. A parallel objective was to promote training programs for young scientists by organizing regular exchanges between laboratories in France and Sweden, ultimately to enable them to expand their networks.

As 2015 marks the end of the commitment period for the framework convention signed in 2005, a new convention will be signed at this upcoming symposium. This cooperation agreement will welcome CRAG as a new partner. The extension of UPRA to include Spain is an excellent opportunity to promote exchanges across Europe by providing a framework to coordinate future European projects such as those requested by the directorate of INRA.

Registation for the symposium is open until September 15, 2015.

• Link to the symposium website (online pre-registration is mandatory)

Science on the plaza celebrates authors from INRA & ARBRE !

Place de la Carrière in Nancy
11 to 13 September

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A literary space dedicated to Science on the Plaza will be a part of the annually held book fair, Books on the Plaza (“Le livre sur la place”). This not to be missed event will give visitors the chance to discover recently published books and news about science, specifically designed to open the world of science to the general public. Collaborative scientific projects relying on pooled resources are becoming more and more common among public scientific institutions and involve a range of mixed research units (UMR), competitive clusters and scientific networks specialized in a range of topics. Actors in Lorraine involved in research, higher education and scientific culture will come together for this unique event to present both their work and the teams that make their projects successful. Partner actors participating in this year’s 2015 edition of Le livre sur la place include the AgroParis Tech Center in Nancy – the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and their Eastern Regional Office and the French Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (INIST) – the Nancy Conservatory and Botanical Gardens – the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA, Centre de Nancy-Lorraine) – the Greater East delegation of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) – The Museum Aquarium of Nancy – the University of Lorraine – and PUN, the university publishing house for Lorraine.

As many as 150 scientific titles intended for the general public, some 15 of which were written by INRA authors, will be for sale on-site at the Place Carrière in Nancy. A total of 30 authors will participate in the event and will be available to meet with the public for book signings, or just to talk in person about science. Four of these authors are INRA researchers and engineers. Two of whom received support from LabEx ARBRE for their books (published by Éditions Quae); Marie-Christine Trouy and Francis Martin.

Friday 11 September from 14h to 19h — Francis Martin will be on site to sign his recent book ” Tous les champignons portent-ils un chapeau ? 90 clés pour comprendre les champignons” (“Do all mushrooms have caps? 90 keys to understanding mushrooms”)

Sunday 13 September from 10h to 14h — Marie-Christine Trouy will be available to sign her own recent book  “Anatomie du bois — Formation, fonctions et identification” (“The anatomy of wood: Formation, functions and identification”)

Researchers from the INRA Nancy-Lorraine Center will also prepare a specially designed exhibit for school children on Friday, September 11 (Place Stanislas) on the “Hidden life of soils”. To help illustrate the book “Do all mushrooms have caps?”, researchers from two joint research labs from INRA and the University of Lorraine (the Joint Research Unit for Tree/Microorganism Interactions — IAM, and the Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment — LAE) will take students on a visual voyage to discover the infinitely small scale of this fascinating environment. Using magnifying glasses, microscopes and an original experimentation tool, students will be transported to the world of mushrooms. And not the world of just any mushrooms, but the world of Truffles! Also on the program will be a guided dive into the cobwebbed universe of plant roots..!

For more information ..
Visit the homepage for  Sciences sur la Place
Follow this link to download the Program — Sciences sur la Place

On Tuesday, September 8, LabEx ARBRE welcomed Alistair Jump, professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Stirling in Scotland. A plant ecologist focussing on the impacts of environmental change, professor Jump presented a seminar entitled :

“Differential impacts of chronic and acute drought across the geographic range of tree species”

INRA Nancy-Lorraine Center

Résumé :
Ongoing changes in temperature and precipitation regimes are driving shifts in species distributions and community composition. In forest trees, the most conspicuous changes are occurring at the range edges, where expansion to higher altitudes and latitudes is frequently observed. Range retractions at low altitudes and latitudes are less commonly reported, partly since expansion occurs through rapid establishment, whereas contraction is associated with the typically slower death of existing adults. However repeated reproductive failure despite continued adult growth can predispose populations to rapid future decline, while in a community context, differential impacts of climate change on co-occurring species can lead to sudden and unpredictable shifts in competitive dominance between species. I will discuss recent experimental and observational work on temperate tree species in which we have assessed impacts of both chronic and acute changes in climate across different populations and genotypes. Mechanisms including altered phenology, biomass allocation, and carbon economy lead to differences in fitness at the population level. However, even within populations, individual variation in drought resistance can translate into significant community-level impacts. Understanding the scale and pattern of variation in drought resistance within species is key to predicting their presence and abundance over future decades.

For more information ..
Read more about Alistair Jump, professor  at the University of Stirling
Read an article Alistair co-authored on the subject, published in 2013 in Functional Ecology : Extreme drought alters competitive dominance within and between tree species in a mixed forest stand

Dr. Kambiz Pourtahmasi presents :
“Wood Biology Research at the University of Tehran, Iran”

Salle Tilleuil, INRA Champenoux
Thursday, 27 August 2015
13h30

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Dr. Kambiz Pourtahmasi, associate professor at the University of Tehran, Department of Wood & Paper Science and Technology, Faculty of Natural Resources, will be presenting a seminar before leaving INRA.

Dr. Pourtahmasi specializes in wood formation (anatomy) and dendrochronnolgy. He has worked in the past with colleagues in Germany and Switzerland with the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). He has also been actively involved with several PhD projects with our own colleagues in Montpellier (such as Jospeh Gril, CNRS) concerning the broader implications of wood science. Currently, Dr. Pourtahmasi is working in collaboration with the LERFOB unit (the PhD project of Masoumeh Saderi, supervised by Cyrille Rathgeber).  Dr. Pourtahmasi’s visit was made possible by support from LabEx ARBRE.

Francis Martin followed Josh Neufeld for his interests in microbial ecology and developing new approaches in microbial metagenomics. Josh followed Francis for his agile use of the social media tool employing visual descriptions to communicate his expertise and passion for mycorrhizae and the mycology/ecogenomics link. They met for the first time on July 24 when Josh, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada – presented a seminar to the IAM team at the INRA center in Champenoux.

The Title : Unearthing soil biogeochemistry through stable-isoptope probing and metagenomics.

Abstract:
Exploring microbial diversity represents an exciting frontier of biological research. Recent developments in molecular methods have enabled unprecedented access to microbial community composition, including active, uncultivated, and novel microorganisms. This talk will highlight two stable-isotope probing studies from my research group that are anticipated to interest scientists at INRA, including a) exploring degraders of plant-derived substrates in order to retrieve novel glycoside hydrolases from functional metagenomic libraries, and b) targeting denitrifying bacteria in agricultural soils to identify denitrifiers that would likely not have been detected with existing probes and primers. These studies demonstrate the value of isotope-based enrichment of active microbial community members for exploring soil biogeochemical cycling, while generating new enzyme targets with potential biofuel and bioproduct applications.

On Twitter

Josh expressed his appreciation for how Twitter is an excellent tool for encouraging students to engage in science within a framework that can be maintained professionally – but while also providing a platform for experienced researchers to exchange expertise – or like what took place here, to learn about what’s happening in other labs. “It connects us when we would not have otherwise crossed paths”.

To learn more about how this meeting came about, read the short  Interview with Francis Martin

The primary objectives of the ARBRE 2016 Call for proposals are to strengthen international development within the LabEx and to provide funding for innovative projects aligned with ARBRE’s four thematic axes (integrative biology, functional ecology, wood-material and forest economics), which propose to advance science or which present significant valorization potential.

ARBRE also prioritizes supporting projects linking research and education. Projects which propose to incorporate training and scientific mediation with activities of LabEx research units are strongly encouraged.

Deadline to submit proposals : 30 September 2015
by e-mail to: klett@nancy.inra.fr

For more information

• 2016 Call for proposals – Full text
• Application forms
  

Christine Strullu-Derrien is a visiting researcher from the Museum of Natural History in London working for 6 months with the IAM research unit with support from LabEx ARBRE. Her research focuses on the origin and evolution of Fungi and fungi-like microorganisms (oomycetes) associated with plants. She is interested in developing a multidisciplinary approach to bridge palaeomycology (study of fossil fungi), phylogenetics and genomics. Another focus of her research is the evolution of the various components of the vascular system in plants. Through this coupling of paleobotany and phylogenomics, Christine brings a modern vision to a discipline which is in the process of redefining itself thanks to developments in laser microscopy and synchrotron microtomography.

Follow this link to read the interview Christine granted us recently.
ARBRE Interview — Christine Strullu-Derrien

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Passing through Bouzule — a breath away from the INRA campus in Champenoux — don’t miss discovering a new experimental site… It is an instrumented agroforestry experimental research site managed by the Joint Research Unit (INRA-UL) for Forest Ecology and Ecophysiology (EEF) in close collaboration with the Joint Research Unit (INRA-UL) Agronomy and Environment Laboratory (LAE). Its installation began one year ago as part a project funded by LabEx ABRE, Agro-TCR.

What is agroforestry?
Agroforestry is defined as an intensive land management system that optimizes the benefits from the biological interactions created when trees and/or shrubs are deliberately combined with crops and/or livestock. This innovative practice is emerging in the European agricultural context as a way to promote ecologically diversified farming systems.

What is the objective of the project?
The objective is to establish an instrumented plantation associating nitrogen-fixing species (alder, alfalfa) with economically viable species (poplar, wheat) planted on an agricultural plot on the experimental farm La Bouzule in the town of Amance. The 5-hectare plantation consists of strictly ‘forest’ plots (pure poplar, pure alfalfa, mixed aspen/alder), strictly agricultural plots (pure wheat, pure alfalfa) and agroforestry plots associating trees with agricultural crops (mixed poplar/alfalfa, mixed alder/wheat) to evaluate the fertilizing effect of nitrogen fixatives versus non-fixatives. Additionally, two herbaceous cover mixtures were planted in plots composed solely of trees to estimate their effect on the growth of trees, and vice versa, as well as the effect the plantation has on the overall diversity of plant association and its dynamics during the plantations operational period. This last objective aims to study ways to compensate for two negative aspects of the highly discredited monocultures: their low biodiversity and their impact on the landscape.

While full instrumentation of the experimental site is currently ongoing, the site has already includes a weather station for continuous measurements of atmospheric moisture levels and temperature, and sensors have been placed at varying depths in the different plots to track changes in the moisture and temperature of the soil.

What are the challenges?
The experimental site challenges are threefold, as it is at once an experimental research site, a site used for student training and a functioning showcase for Lorraine farmers who have questions or concerns about the technical feasibility of these systems.

Still in its construction phase, within the next few years this experimentation site may prove to be an important support for numerous projects and research partnerships.

Learn More ..

• Download the project brochure : Agro-TCR Agroforestry Project

Peter Oviatt is a doctoral student in the program History, Anthropology, and Science & Technology Studies (HASTS), at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He studies the interactions of fungi, plants and people, typically in soils of high human impact. Whether found in urban gardens, truffle orchards or vast swaths of industrial monocultures, his area of focus is the rhizosphere: the vital underground where roots meet fungi. Peter investigates the formation of knowledge and shifting perceptions of soil-dwelling fungi and their symbionts. He pays close attention to scientific and non-scientific collaborations, particularly where applications of such knowledge impact societies, livelihoods and landscapes.

His central subject is mycorrhiza, a symbiosis between filamentous fungi and the roots of most terrestrial plants. With the management of mycorrhizal fungi that act as plant fertilizers, soil “remediators,” or producers of edible mushrooms, a mycorrhiza economy has taken shape whose complexities demand investigation. Similarly, with expanding interest in functional fungi, the ways in which various publics perceive and interact with landscapes, microbes, and soils continue to change. Through this work with mycorrhiza, Peter hopes to shed new empirical light on topics as diverse as agro-ecology, land use, and environmental perceptions writ large.

Peter earned an MA in Politics from The New School for Social Research in New York. He is currently working towards his PhD at MIT — Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Peter spent three weeks at the INRA Nancy-Lorraine center this summer to work with Labex ARBRE researchers in the Tree-Microbe Interactions Joint Research Unit (IAM) including François Le Tacon, Francis Martin, and Claude Murat. As he is still in the preliminary stage of his dissertation research, his current aim is to meet with many different researchers and gain a deeper understanding of their work, its influences and the broader network.

Peter was kind enough to talk with us recently about his science and his path as a researcher. To read the full interview, please follow this link —
ARBRE Interview — Peter Oviatt

The Results Seminar for the ONF-INRA Interface Project was presented on June 23 by Paulina Pinto, Dr. Forest Sciences of AgroParisTech and project manager for the interface project “New tools for forest decision making in the context of climate change”.

This seminar was attended by 40 participants: INRA researchers, IGN researchers, Professor-researchers from AgroParisTech, members of the RDI and ONF managers, as well as representatives of the private forest owners.

Quentin Ponette, Professor of the University of Louvain, Olivier Picard, Director of the IDF-CNPF and the RMT Aforce and Eric Lacombe, Professor of forestry at AgroParisTech lead lively discussions on three topics related to: (i) new description methods for forestry stations using bioindication, (ii) prediciton of species distribution as a decision support tool in the context of climate change and (iii) application of these new tools on the scale of forest management.

Three presentations from this seminar (in French) are available via the following links :

• Presentation — session 1
  New characterization methods for forestry sites
  
• Presentation — session 2
  Distribution models as tools for species selection
  
• Presentation — session 3
  Application on the local scale
  

Crédit photo:  M. Meuret – INRA