RARe scientific seminar "Contribution of Biological Resources to climate change adaptation and mitigation".

Jean-François Soussana is INRAE's Vice-President in charge of international policy, after having been Scientific Director for the Environment. An agricultural engineer with a doctorate in plant physiology, he headed a research laboratory on ecosystems and global change. A member of the IPCC as lead author since 1998, he coordinates national and European research projects, as well as international programs on agriculture, soils and climate change. A highly cited researcher (2018), he has published over 150 articles in international scientific journals. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with the authors of the IPCC, and has received several national and international awards.

• Jean-François Soussana, architect of open international science | INRAE

Hélène Soubelet is a veterinary doctor with a postgraduate diploma in plant pathology. She was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in December 2019. She began her career in 1998 as head of department at the departmental veterinary services of the Puy-de Dôme and then, five years later, of the Sarthe. Three years later, she joined the national plant protection laboratory, where she was in charge, at national level, of developing methods for detecting and identifying plant pests. In 2010, she joined the Ministry of the Environment as Deputy Head of the Biotechnology and Agriculture Office, before becoming Head of the Biodiversity and Sustainable Environmental Management Mission in the Ministry's Research Directorate.  Since April 1, 2017, Hélène Soubelet has taken over as Managing Director of the Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB).

• Hélène SOUBELET - Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversité (fondationbiodiversite.fr)

Stéphane Joost is a geographer (MSc University of Lausanne) and Doctor of Science (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), interested in the application of geographic information science to molecular ecology. In particular, he studies how species adapt to their local environment, using statistical models capable of relating the genetic variability of individuals to the characteristics of the environments in which they evolve.

• Stéphane Joost, Senior Lecturer, EPFL

Michel Naves is an INRAE research engineer at the Agroecology, Genetics and Tropical Livestock Systems (ASSET) research unit in Petit-Bourg (Guadeloupe). His work focuses on the adaptation of cattle to tropical environments. He explores the variability of zootechnical traits in tropical cattle, in relation to their adaptation to the multiple constraints of this environment, with a view to developing and implementing breeding programs..

• Unité de recherches en Agroécologie, Génétique et Systèmes d’Élevage Tropicaux, - Naves Michel (inrae.fr)

My thesis project is part of the European SAMARCH project (Interreg FMA program) which brings together 10 French and English partners, with the aim of improving scientific expertise and the effectiveness of the management of migratory salmonid populations in the Channel area. My research is based on the analysis of historical collections of salmonid scales from 5 index rivers in the Channel (Scorff, Oir, Bresle, Frome and Tamar) to describe changes in growth patterns at sea over space and time. I am investigating whether synchronous growth patterns can be detected between populations breeding in different rivers but sharing a common marine environment during the marine migration phase, and how changes in the marine environment influence life-history strategies in migrating salmonids.

• Research profile (researchgate.net)

Bruno Fady is INRAE Research Director at the Ecology of Mediterranean Forests research unit (URFM). He is a population geneticist with basic training in ecology and 25 years' experience of Mediterranean forest ecosystems. He has worked in many areas of forest genetics and ecology, from genetic improvement to the conservation of rare and endangered species. Bruno Fady's current research activities concern the study of biodiversity at the gene level in Mediterranean forest trees and populations at ecological margins. More specifically, he is interested in how genetic and phenotypic diversity is structured at different biogeographical scales and under the effect of natural or human-induced constraints. Other functions: Coordinator of the European H2020 GenTree project; numerous partnership activities at the interface between science, society and management; member of the French program for the conservation of forest genetic resources; etc.

• Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes - FADY Bruno (inrae.fr)

Marie Pegard's work mobilizes genetic resource collections of forage species to gain a better understanding of the genetic structure of the main grassland species (natural populations and varieties). She identifies original alleles in the collections to improve the environmental adaptation of grasslands and the ecosystem services they offer, and contributes to the analysis of the genetic determinism of environmental adaptation and ecosystem service traits, as well as assessing the possibilities of jointly improving these two types of trait. This will enable us to design and launch projects to enhance original genetic resources (pre-breeding, introgression of original alleles) in collaboration with breeders..

• INRAE - Unité de recherche pluridisciplinaire Prairies et Plantes fourragères - Accueil URP3F

Véronique Jorge is a Research Associate at the UMR BioForA "Biologie intégrée pour la valorisation de la diversité des arbres et de la forêt". She works on the genetic architecture of complex poplar traits, with a view to using this information in breeding programs, and also on the diversity and genetic structure of black poplar populations. As part of European and national collaborative projects (EVOLTREE, Noveltree, GenTree), Véronique Jorge has contributed to the acquisition of whole genome sequence, polymorphism and genotyping data to characterize biological resources in poplars.

• https://www6.val-de-loire.inrae.fr/biofora/

Anne-Marie Chèvre is an INRAE research director at the Institut de Génétique Environnement et Protection des Plantes in the Equipe: Diversité, Evolution et génomique des Interactions Biotiques team. Her research focuses mainly on Brassiceae species, analyzing diversity in diploids and meiotic mixing by studying the regulation of homologous and homeologous recombination in Brassica. This knowledge is useful for inserting genes of interest from related species into crops.

• Institut de Génétique, Environnement et Protection des Plantes - Chèvre Anne-Marie (inrae.fr)

Right from the start of his university career at Université Paris Sud, Samuel Mondy knew he wanted to become a researcher. He was particularly drawn to the mysterious yet familiar world of microbes. His thesis, which he defended in 2004, focused on the symbiosis between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Then, in 2005, he began a post-doctorate at the Cadarache research center (CEA) to study plant responses to pathogenic organisms and heavy metal toxicity.

He then returned to the Institut des Sciences du Végétal, where he had worked during his PhD, on a project to study the impact of GMOs on their environment. Over the years, he gradually abandoned the bench to specialize in bioinformatics. Powerful digital tools enable him to study not just a few genes and mechanisms, but entire ecosystems. Samuel Mondy is thus entering the era of metagenomics: the sequencing and analysis of all the genomes present in a given environment.

• Samuel Mondy, soil DNA | INRAE

Michel-Yves MISTOU is Director of Research at INRAE's MaIAGE unit (https://maiage.inrae.fr/). A biochemist by training, his scientific interests focus on the exploration of bacterial biodiversity. He has worked in various institutions (Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Institut Pasteur, Anses) and INRAE research groups. He is coordinator of CIRM, and of the microbial pillar of the RARe infrastructure (https://www.agrobrc-rare.org/) and represents France on the European MIRRI infrastructure (https://www.mirri.org/).

• Research profile (researchgate.net)

Paule Térès is in charge of the GAMéT BRC, within the UMR Amélioration Génétique et Adaptation des Plantes méditerranéennes et tropicales (AGAP) in Montpellier. This CRB holds 10 collections of Mediterranean and tropical seeds (Rice, Sorghum, Corn and Cotton for the main ones, then Fonio, Millet, Cowpea, Groundnut, Forest Resources and Medicago).

• AGAP Institut - Amélioration génétique et adaptation des plantes méditerranéennes et tropicales (cirad.fr)