Decades of overexploitation, habitat destruction, contamination of ecosystems and air pollution have led to a global biodiversity crisis.
In different parts of the world, more or less comparable national action plans and policies are being implemented to address the same problem: if development brings considerable benefits to the citizens of nations, it has a considerable impact, Linked to climate change or the dynamics and toxic effects of anthropogenic or natural agents, on biodiversity in the broad sense, from genes to ecosystems and processes. In particular, it is recognized that loss of biodiversity aggravates global change problems, and that the two phenomena are mutually reinforcing.
Species do not have a heritage or socio-economic value, they also have an impact on functional processes that support or affect human populations. In terms of support, for example, species are also involved in the capture, conversion and transfer of energy and nutrients within ecosystems. In terms of risk, species generate, directly or indirectly, nuisances with considerable ecological, health and / or economic consequences (eg invasive species, vectors).
It is evident that global changes have begun to affect the distribution of species, the functioning of ecosystems and consequently the services rendered for man. However, many questions remain unresolved, such as how these changes will impact biogeochemical cycles, energy and nutrient flows within ecosystems.
Consequently, these uncertainties reflect our ignorance of the relationships between global change, the structure of interactions networks and ecosystem functions, and call for the emergence of a scientific approach integrating various approaches and concepts of paleoecology, organism biology, Ecotoxicology, community ecology, conservation biology, biogeochemistry, and quantitative and functional ecology.
It is the object of the organization of this colloquium that will be structured around the cross-cutting themes of research of the laboratory EcoLab which this year celebrates its 10 years of research in ecology and environment .
This event brings together regional, national, European and international researchers working on these themes and will make it possible to give a noticeable readability to the research work of our laboratory. Master students will be invited to attend the scientific sessions.
Language of the conference: English