Cours dans le cadre du Master Biosciences : session mai-juin 2014

Biological Resources and Biodiversity 2014
(an eco-evo-devo view on processes shaping the biosphere)

Organizers : Morgane Ollivier et Ioan Negrutiu (Pr). Contact : ioan.negrutiu-at-ens-lyon.fr, Master BioSciences, ENS Lyon

http://biologie.ens-lyon.fr/masterbiosciences/presentation-des-ue/les-ue-europe/biodiversity

This advanced course provides a state-of-the-art knowledge on the conceptual and methodological advances in the field of bio-resources. Biodiversity is considered as a dynamic driver and marker of bio-resource systems in a highly anthropized biosphere. The issue of biodiversity is dealt with from various standpoints : significance, means of quantification, losses and causes, conservation strategies, its value.

In order to understand how evolution is producing such an astonishing adaptive diversity through co-evolutionary processes, a variety of tools presently available are being used to evaluate the underlying functions and to decipher the mechanisms at work at various scales of organization, such as molecular, organismic, population and ecosystemic. In parallel, the issue of agriculture is discussed, with emphasis on the domestication processes. A fundamental and controversial question will be that of the directed selection which has generated a broad range of adapted and specialized genetic variants for extensive human use. Breeders are now solicited in the frame of global planetary needs (demographic evolution, hunger, poverty, trade) to increase bio-resource productivity. In this context, we need to understand what is the overall potential, but also what are the actual limits, of the available genetic resources in order to ensure their sustainable management. We will therefore question the consequences of agro-economy in terms of breakdown of nutrient cycles and resource regeneration capacity (biocapacity). This raises the problem of developmental models our society is based upon. In this respect, the course investigates the area of ecosystem services and the associated methods used to provide monetary value to functions provided by the biosphere (CO2 captation, air and water purification, soil fertility, food and feed production, biodiversity per se etc). This makes it possible to evaluate the environmental costs of human activities and integrate them in economic and political decisions. In such a new frame of thinking, a series of rare resources might acquire increased monetary and social values, i.e. become public goods. Therefore, the juridical dimensions are integrated to the course. Finally, collective scientific expertise is becoming current practice (see for ex. GIEC, MEA, IAASTD, INRA…) in a process in which interdisciplinary thinking and acting provides support to economic and political decision making with emphasis on long term approaches in conservation and restoration ecology / engineering.

Ce cours est assorti d’une sortie sur le terrain.