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[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 14 CESAB – February 2026

A few words from Aude Vialatte, Scientific Director of the FRB-CESAB

 

Research Director at INRAE, I am pleased and honored to join the FRB-CESAB centre as its Scientific Director, succeeding Nicolas Mouquet, whom I sincerely thank for all the work accomplished for the development of CESAB: you are handing over the keys to a centre with well-established operations and international recognition, and I will strive to live up to it.

Calls for projects, hosting international scientific working groups with dedicated postdoctoral researchers, synthesis publications, high-level training, seminars… Cesab indeed offers, thanks to a particularly committed team of managers, communication officers and data scientists, a unique working environment in France to advance international knowledge on biodiversity and contribute to halting its decline, notably by supporting public policies.

My motivation to take on these new responsibilities has been largely nourished by my experience as the coordinator of a Cesab project, with week-long collective and friendly working sessions that I found magically organized and exceptionally productive scientifically. Simply put, they are rare moments of pure research in our daily lives as researchers. As a member of the CESAB Scientific Committee (CS) for two terms, I was also able to witness the richness of the proposals and the scientific excellence co-led by French scientists from all fields of ecology. I would like to take this opportunity to warmly thank the outgoing SC for its commitment over the past four years. Now as Scientific Director of CESAB, I aim to enable the scientific community and project teams to reach the most ambitious and impactful scientific objectives. Supporting the postdoctoral researchers involved in CESAB projects in their daily work and scientific careers, in complement to the projects’ PIs, is another managerial responsibility that I particularly value. My dual experience in leading scientific syntheses for ministries and directing a research laboratory gives me the initial confidence to take on these new missions, even though the challenge appears very great! While working for Cesab half of my time, I continue my research activities in landscape agroecology at Dynafor in Toulouse.

 

Aude Vialatte – Scientific Director of the FRB-Cesab

>> Interview with Aude Vialatte

 

More information about Cesab

 

 

 

 

[CALL FOR TENDER] the appointment of a service provider to carry out a literature review on the use of soil biodiversity indicators to assess soil degradation processes

Under the objective “Connecting R&I programs, results and experts to policy” of the Biodiversa+ Partnership, the subtask 4.1.2 “Desk studies and production of knowledge syntheses” led by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) is subcontracting a service provider to develop a evidence synthesis in order to review the state of knowledge on the impacts human pressures (e.g., but not limited to, soil erosion, pollution, loss of carbon, and soil compaction) on soil health. The FRB will appoint the third party service provider – after the evaluation process – on the 13th of April 2026.

 

 

TO APPLY 

 

The deadline to apply to this call for tender is set at midnight 3rd of April 2026.

 

All applications should be submitted in English and sent by email to :

 

More information : 

>> Desk study specifications  

>> Proposal form.  

Interview with Aude Vialatte: New Scientific Director of the CESAB of the FRB

  • Hello Aude, congratulations on your appointment as Scientific Director of the CESAB and welcome to the adventure! Could you please introduce your background and your field of scientific expertise in a few words?

 

I am delighted to be joining the CESAB, which offers truly ideal scientific working conditions for researchers!

I have been a Research Director at INRAE for a few years now, after spending 11 years as a lecturer-researcher at ENSAT (which later became AgroToulouse). My research focuses on agroecology, biodiversity, and collective action at the landscape scale. I take part in interdisciplinary projects combining ecology and social geography. I use semi-experimental and observational approaches, as well as spatially explicit modelling, to develop knowledge and tools that support changes in practices.

For example, I recently led a collective scientific assessment for government ministries on crop protection through plant diversification over a four-year period. Mobilising both fundamental theoretical knowledge and context-specific knowledge, this was an intense experience of interdisciplinary scientific synthesis within a group of 30 scientists, accompanied by rich and varied communication and dissemination activities.

 

I am currently completing my term as Unit Director of DYNAFOR, after eight years in its leadership as Deputy Director and then DU.

Working on the scientific strategy of an interdisciplinary research-action laboratory is both stimulating and enriching, with its management challenges and the responsibility of supporting colleagues and the collective.

 

 

 

  • How did you come to know the FRB and its CESAB, and what motivated you to join us?

 

I know the CESAB, the FRB’s synthesis centre, in two ways. First, as a member of its Scientific Committee, with responsibilities that include advising on scientific strategy, organising calls for projects, selecting projects, and mentoring postdoctoral researchers.

Second, for the past year, as a member of a project hosted at the CESAB, with the unique experience of working under optimal conditions during one-week residencies with a group of colleagues on a scientific topic. It feels so good to experience these 100% scientific and convivial moments! This made me want to contribute to the long-term sustainability of the centre, all the more so given the biodiversity-related challenges.

 

 

 

  • What would you like to develop during this term alongside us?

 

The CESAB is well structured and has an organisation that works well thanks to a committed, motivated, and motivating team!

The centre is well recognised within the scientific community in ecology. I mainly wish to develop the scientific themes of the nexus, as developed by IPBES and adopted by the FRB, which appear relevant for advancing ecological knowledge and strengthening the consideration of biodiversity-related issues, particularly to inform public policies. The challenge of diversifying financial resources in line with this thematic development is therefore an important one. Coordination with new research schemes, such as the PEPR, is also a current need associated with this mandate, as well as a genuine opportunity in the research landscape.

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 13 CESAB – September 2025

 few words from Hélène Soubelet, FRB’s Executive Director

 

FRB-Helene-Soubelet-2023

 

Thinking about sustainability through the Nexus lens — a new challenge for CESAB 2026

The year 2025 ends with a strong record for the FRB and its CESAB. With the help and under the leadership of its scientific director, Nicolas Mouquet, we successfully achieved the goal of revitalizing the synthesis center by relocating it from Aix-en-Provence to Montpellier, while maintaining an annual call for projects. 2025 was no exception, with the Datashare call, which was expanded this year to include a new type of project, Ideashare. This program supports projects that focus on creating new concepts, models, and methods through interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together biodiversity experts and specialists from other fields to explore new perspectives and frameworks for thinking. 2025 also saw the launch of a new training course on artificial intelligence for ecologists, which was highly successful. Finally, the workshop meetings of the research program “impacts of human activities on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene” brought together researchers and stakeholders to reflect on transdisciplinarity and the transfer of scientific knowledge to public and private actors.

 

The year 2025 marks a period of many changes for the CESAB, both within its Scientific Council and its scientific leadership. After six years in this position, Nicolas Mouquet, whom we thank for his dedication, will hand over the role to Aude Vialatte in 2026. This appointment opens a new chapter for the FRB. A research director at INRAE and head of the Dynafor unit, Aude brings a strong interest in the synthesis between ecology, agriculture, and society. In the years to come, the FRB aims to position CESAB’s work within an evolving biodiversity science landscape, guided by international frameworks and IPBES assessments. One of the key challenges will be to align CESAB’s missions with these frameworks by encouraging projects that simultaneously integrate biodiversity, food, water, health, and climate, while maintaining the center’s analytical excellence and its hallmark interdisciplinarity. Breaking down research silos, strengthening interactions between natural and social sciences, developing data interoperability and open science, and promoting the co-production of knowledge are the core missions of the FRB. CESAB is a leading platform for the analysis and valorization of research data. As such, it contributes to this dynamic, combining scientific excellence with the political relevance of ecological research across all areas of society.

 

 

More information about the Cesab

 

 

 

[Call for experts] Which practices are the most effective for biodiversity enhancement ? Your expertise is required !

The platform Puzzling Biodiversity is OPEN ! 

 

 

You are an experienced ecologist currently working in the biodiversity and environment sector (academic research, private company, nature management and conservation…)? You have an opinion on biodiversity-friendly practices efficiency in forest management or agriculture in temperate climate of Western Europe ? Work out your own ranking of biodiversity-friendly practices on the Puzzling Biodiversity platform. 

 

 

The Puzzling Biodiversity Platform 

 

 

Puzzling Biodiversity is a platform specifically design to allow you to share your expertise. Thanks to your contribution, we will be able to test the degree of consensus between experts and attempt to publish a reference ranking of biodiversity-friendly practices in open access that could change the game in assessment tools currently available. 

 

The platform especially design to provide the most fluid experience for users will allow you to produce quality data based on your knowledge, skills and intuition. More than just an online form to fill out Puzzling Biodiversity is built to look like a real personal work space available until the 30th of June 2025 meaning the end of this first experimentation. 

 

It’s now your turn to act !

The most people will contribute, the stronger the results will be ! Thank you for sharing the news as widely as possible through your networks …

 

 

🔎 Find out more…

 

A scientific consortium composed of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN) (The French National Natural History Museum), Carbone 4 and the Fondation pour la recherché sur la biodiversité (FRB) (French Biodiversity Research Foundation) launched, in early 2024, a methodological research project based on biodiversity-friendly practices certification. The assessment of the expected biodiversity gains associated with the maintenance or set-up of these practices will be achieved thanks to expert consultation and consensus building.

 

  • Webinar : Many of you attended the webinar presenting the project and the method for assessing biodiversity gains! If you were unable to attend or would like to see it again, the video of the webinar is now online : https://youtu.be/y7ycfKzuqQc

 

  • Expert consultation : open to academic and non-academic experts. A particular attention will be given to quantifying the degree of consensus to the underlying assumptions of additivity of the various practices listed and the conditions of validity of associating an average gain in biodiversity with the maintenance and/or implementation of a given practice. A critical examination of the results from the statistical analysis of the data collected during the study will be carried out, including the profile of the respondents. The whole assessment process will take place on the Puzzling Biodiversity platform specifically developed for the matter. It has been specifically designed to provide an easy and fluid experience for the users.

 

  • The wider project : The research project lead by the scientific consortium was built to achieve two main objectives :

➣ The development of an assessment methodology to test the degree of consensus between experts on expected biodiversity gains associated with the maintenance or set-up of biodiversity-friendly practices. The lists of forest management and agricultural practices used in this evaluation thanks to the Puzzling Biodiversity platform were elaborated in consultation with practitioners and academic researchers. The whole methodology as well as the reference rankings of practices that will be published at the end of the critical examination of the results could be applied to many purposes: building practices lists and elaboration of reference rankings for other sectors; utilization in projects of practices improvement; targets identification and set-up levels for plan or strategy design …

➣ The mapping of risks, opportunities and use cases associated with the set-up of a practices certification mechanism. This work led to the undermentioned publication: Publication_ Biodiversity certificates – risks and opportunities

Results from the Puzzling Biodiversity platform would supply this type of mechanism.

Does a consensus on biodiversity-friendly practices effectiveness exist ?

 

As part of the discussions during the Conference of the Parties on the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Colombia last November, biodiversity protection and restauration are confronted with financial issues. Furthermore, questions about effectiveness assessment of measures established to restore and maintain biodiversity in a social-ecosystem are also raised.

 

A scientific consortium composed of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN) (The French National Natural History Museum), the Fondation pour la recherché sur la biodiversité (FRB) (French Biodiversity Research Foundation) and Carbone 4 launched, in early 2024, a methodological research project based on biodiversity-friendly practices certification. The assessment of the anticipated biodiversity gains associated with the maintenance or set-up of these practices will be achieved thanks to expert consultation and consensus building.

 

The scientific consortium has designed a method to assess the biodiversity gains associated with biodiversity-friendly practices. It is launching the compendium for two case studies: ‘Arable land and permanent grassland’ and ‘Utilised forests’ in Western Europe. The assessment of gains will be reached thanks to a platform developed in order to allow semi-quantitative ranking of the practices relative to each other. A large-scale expert consultation will be launched soon to validate the hypothesis that a sufficiently robust consensus exists in order to publish the first biodiversity-friendly practices’ ranking.

 

Temperate mixed-farming or forestry associated biodiversity is in your field of expertise?

We invite you to take part in this assessment on biodiversity gains associated with biodiversity-friendly practices.

The more people who contribute, the stronger the results will be!

 

Many of you attended the webinar presenting the project and the method for assessing biodiversity gains! If you were unable to attend or would like to see it again, the video of the webinar is now online.

 

(Re)discover the webinar

 

­
📆 See you in spring

 

The Puzzling Biodiversity platform, which will enable biodiversity gains associated with forestry and agricultural practices to be assessed, will open in spring 2025.

 

 

🔎 More informations about … 

 

Experts consultation : open to academic and non-academic experts. A particular attention will be given to quantifying the degree of consensus to the underlying assumptions of additivity of the various practices listed and the conditions of validity of associating an average gain in biodiversity with the maintenance and/or implementation of a given practice. A critical analysis of the results from the statistical analysis of the data collected during the study will be carried out, including the profile of the respondents. The whole assessment process will take place on an online platform specifically developed for the matter. It has been specifically designed to provide an easy and fluid experience for the users.  

 

The project : the scientific consortium is developing a methodology to evaluate biodiversity-friendly practices. Another part of the project is dedicated to mapping the risks, opportunities, and use cases in connection with a certification process. 

 
 

[CALL FOR TENDER] the appointment of a service provider to carry out a literature review on the impacts of European seafood production-consumption chains on biodiversity and society

Under the objective “Connecting R&I programs, results and experts to policy” of the Biodiversa+ Partnership, the subtask 4.1.2 “Desk studies and production of knowledge syntheses” led by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) is subcontracting a service provider to develop a evidence synthesis in order to review the state of knowledge on the impacts of European seafood production-consumption chains on biodiversity and society. The FRB will appoint the third party service provider – after the evaluation process – on February 7th, 2025. 

 

 

TO APPLY 

 

The deadline to apply to this call for tender is set at midnight 27th of January 2025.

 

All applications should be submitted in English and sent by email to :

 

More information : 

>> Desk study specifications  

>> Proposal form.  

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 11 CESAB – September 2024

A few words from Denis Couvet, President of the FRB, and Nicolas Mouquet, Scientific Director of CESAB

 

The CESAB – Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity – is an original, innovative program of the FRB, internationally recognized thanks to the work of an entire team and the support of the founding members of the FRB and the Ministry in charge of research. It provides researchers with a space and time to contribute to addressing the challenges related to biodiversity loss and to implement transformative change. The complexity of these challenges has led the FRB and its board of directors to focus on intermediation, which means connecting knowledge, researchers, and research with stakeholders and society. Innovation is also needed in this area so that knowledge circulates and is embraced by both public and private decision-makers. We can envision the FRB being a driving force in accelerating this flow of knowledge, particularly through the projects funded or hosted by the CESAB, which produce groundbreaking and highly relevant knowledge. This is because the young researchers recruited come from diverse backgrounds and countries, because the project leaders at CESAB are top-level researchers, because the FRB encourages translating these findings into societal issues, and because of its unique position in the research world. Its links with stakeholders make the FRB and its CESAB a laboratory where innovation in science-based messaging is fostered. Next December, two major reports will be published by the IPBES: the first on transformative change, and the second on the Biodiversity Nexus, which includes biodiversity, food, climate, water, and health. It will be interesting to explore how the projects and research results published within the CESAB framework contribute to the intermediation of the key messages from these reports.

Denis Couvet, President of the FRB and Professor at the MNHN

 

 

We are at a key stage in the trajectory of the CESAB, which is now asserting itself as a major player in biodiversity research. We have reached true maturity, with the stabilization of numerous research groups (over 30 active groups in 2024; 500 researchers involved) producing scientific syntheses of remarkable scope. This positive dynamic also extends to our postdoctoral researchers, several of whom have secured research positions, such as Aurore Receveur from the MAESTRO group, now a research scientist at IRD, Kevin Hoeffner from the LANDWORM group, now a research scientist at INRAE, and Aaron Sexton from the NAVIDIV group, now an assistant professor at Cornell University. Congratulations to them!

At the same time, we launched the CESABinars, a new format of virtual exchanges that has been very successful. These webinars provide a platform where our researchers can share their progress and engage with the international scientific community, further strengthening our network and impact. We are also organizing an international conference in Montpellier in December with the FISHGLOB group, “Fish Biodiversity Facing Global Change.” Finally, we will be welcoming a new data scientist dedicated to the groups formed through the Synthesis call “Human Pressures and Impacts on Terrestrial Biodiversity,” in partnership with MTECT and OFB, where more than 10 groups are creating a true ecosystem within the CESAB. The coming months promise to be just as exciting, with the selection of new groups as part of our 2024 General Call for Synthesis Projects. But it will be in 2025 that we reach a new milestone with the launch of “IdeaShare,” an innovative project call format designed to stimulate creativity and explore new research avenues.

This positive momentum is made possible thanks to the FRB team dedicated to the CESAB, the true driving force of our center. Their expertise, dedication, and passion are at the heart of our success. Thank you to them! We invite you to follow these exciting developments and continue to actively participate in the life of the CESAB.

Nicolas Mouquet, Scientific Director of the CESAB and Research Director at CNRS

 

 

More informations about the CESAB

 

 

[CALL FOR TENDER] Appointment of a service provider to carry out a report on the best solutions for data interoperability and data storage in Europe.

Under the objective “Harmonise databases and data interoperability” of Biodiversa+, the European Biodiversity Partnership is subcontracting a service provider to undertake a report on the best solutions for data interoperability and data storage in Europe.

 

TO APPLY

 

The deadline to apply to this call for tender is set at on the 25th of September 2024 – 10:00 am (CEST).

 

For any questions on the application process, please reach out to :

 

More information :

>> Call for tender

>> Application form

[FRB-Cesab] Newsletter 10 CESAB – January 2024

Editorial

CESAB_inviter les chercheurs

 

Faced with the booming of environmental challenges, the need to carry out rigorous and independent synthesis on biodiversity data has never been so high. With CESAB, the Foundation for Biodiversity Research is proud to offer a place where this synthesis is made possible, with the support of its founding members. We can now provide the scientific community with regular calls for proposals, combining “classical” SYNTHESIS calls and DATASHARE calls. The latter opened in 2023 and has proved very popular among the scientific community, once again showing its maturity regarding the importance of bringing together open access biodiversity databases to the biggest number.

 

We’d also like to celebrate the success of Sandra Lavorel, former member of FRB’s scientific council and member of CESAB DIVGRASS group, who recently won the prestigious CNRS gold medal, and Lucie Mahaut, post-doc for the FREE2 group, and winner of the young researcher award for the French society of ecology and evolution. These prizes are showcasing the cutting edge biodiversity research carried out in France, the maturity level of its scientific community and its recognition by the most regarded scientific bodies, an excellence to which FRB and its CESAB, are contributing.

 

Finally, FRB’s and CESAB’s heads would like to address their warmest wishes to the whole of CESAB’s team, which constitutes the buzzing heart of our center. Their expertise, engagement and passion, contribute to making CESAB a dynamic and innovative place for biodiversity research: they are the pillars of our successes and advances. To all, huge thanks for your constant work and engagement in our mission. Finally, we’d like to warmly welcome Maija Mikkola, who recently joined our administrative team, welcome Maija!

 

Together, the FRB and its CESAB, thanks to the continuous support and its founding members and partners, will continue its mission and provide the scientific community with the direct and indirect means to advance biodiversity synthesis, which is key to the wider community of stakeholders. The key role of data synthesis and biodiversity knowledge makes CESAB more relevant than ever.

 

 

Plus d'informations sur le Cesab

 

[Appel à candidatures] En vue de compléter le conseil scientifique de la FRB

Le Conseil scientifique :

 

  • Fournit un avis sur les grandes orientations et le programme d’action annuel de la FRB.
  • Assure une fonction de veille scientifique et constitue une force de proposition en ce qui concerne les thématiques, les enjeux de connaissances et les fronts de sciences dans le champ de la recherche sur la biodiversité.

 

Selon leurs expertises et disponibilités, ses membres :

 

  • Contribuent aux appels à projets et /ou aux projets pilotés par la FRB (par ex. rédaction, évaluation, comité de pilotage…).
  • Contribuent aux demandes d’informations des ministères (par ex. « biodiversité et démographie », « biodiversité et changement climatique »…) et aux saisines de la FRB (par ex. « prospective pour la recherche française sur la biodiversité », « intégrité écologique », « affichage environnemental »…).

 

Il est appuyé par l’équipe de la FRB dans ces activités.
Ils agissent comme “tête de réseau” au sein de leurs communautés respectives. Ils assurent un lien avec d’autres instances scientifiques.

 

Le Conseil scientifique dialogue avec le Comité d’orientation stratégique (Cos) de la FRB ainsi qu’avec l’Assemblée des parties prenantes (APP) et le Conseil d’administration. Le programme de travail du CS est complété par les sujets d’auto-saisine.

 

POUR CANDIDATER

Les candidatures sont à transmettre avant le 9 mars 2024, minuit CET.

 

1/ Renseigner le formulaire de candidature accessible ici (clic) ou sur le site web FRB – ww.fondationbiodiversite.fr

 

2/ Envoyer un CV et une lettre de motivation aux adresses suivantes :
aurelie.delavaud@fondationbiodiversite.fr, cc cecile.thiaucourt@fondationbiodiversite.fr

 

COMPOSITION

 

Le Conseil scientifique est pluridisciplinaire. Il est composé de 20 membres français ou étrangers (francophones). Ses membres sont nommés intuitu personæ, reconnus pour leurs savoirs et compétences dans les domaines d’action de la FRB.

 

Compétences, expertises et disciplines complémentaires recherchées :

 

Compte-tenu du caractère systémique de la biodiversité et de la diversité des sciences, sont souhaitées des personnes ayant des compétences et expertises dans des domaines variés : fonctionnement des écosystèmes et dynamiques de la biodiversité, socio-écosystèmes et gestion durable de la biodiversité…
A titre d’exemple, peuvent être citées les disciplines telles : santé, sciences politiques, climatologie, sociologie, hydrologie, philosophie, géographie, géologie, droit, économie, écologie. Les croisements disciplinaires sont privilégiés.

 

Parmi les profils recherchés, la valence « santé » et la valence « sciences politiques » sont particulièrement souhaitées. Mais les candidatures portant d’autres thèmes seront analysées avec grand intérêt, sachant que 4 personnes doivent être recrutées.

 

FONCTIONNEMENT

 

Les membres sont nommés par le Conseil d’administration sur proposition du Président de la Fondation. Le mandat est établi pour une durée de 4 ans. La mandature actuelle court de décembre 2021 à décembre 2025. Les membres peuvent être renouvelés une fois.

 

La présidence et la vice-présidence sont élues par les membres du CS en son sein. Ophélie RONCE préside le conseil et Philippe BILLET co-préside le conseil de la mandature actuelle.

 

Le conseil scientifique se réunit en session plénière 4 fois par an. Il est attendu des membres qu’ils assistent régulièrement aux plénières et qu’ils soient disponibles pour réaliser les rôles et activités du conseil, incluant des consultations, voire réunions spécifiques, intersessions.

 

Indemnités et frais de déplacements

 

Les fonctions de membre du conseil scientifique sont exercées à titre gratuit. Ces fonctions ouvrent droit à la prise en charge des déplacements (transport, hébergement, frais de bouche) selon les règles applicables au sein de la FRB.

[CALL FOR TENDERS] the appointment of a service provider to carry out a literature review on how the effectiveness of terrestrial protected areas is measured.

Under the objective “Connecting R&I programs, results and experts to policy” of the Biodiversa+ Partnership, the subtask 4.1.2 “Desk studies and production of knowledge syntheses” led by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) is subcontracting a service provider to develop a evidence synthesis on the subject of biodiversity monitoring in the support of the evaluation of protected area effectiveness. The FRB will appoint the third-party service provider – after the evaluation/selection process – on February 6th, 2023.

 

The deadline to apply to this call for tender is set at midnight 27th of January 2023.

 

All applications should be submitted in English and must follow the application form, and be sent by email to Joseph LANGRIDGE (joseph.langridge@fondationbiodiversite.fr) before this deadline with Cécile MANDON (cecile.mandon@fondationbiodiversite.fr) in copy.

La date de clôture des candidatures pour ce marché est fixée au 27 janvier 2024 à minuit.

 

More information: 

[FRB-Cesab] This summer at CESAB, researchers from the three continents gathered to advance knowledge on soil macrofauna in the tropics

The FAUNASERVICES CESAB group, which research looks at the links between biodiversity of soil macrofauna and the delivery of ecosystem services in the tropics, brings together scientists from Southern America, Europe and Canada during four workshops, two being held at CESAB offices, France and two in São Paulo state, Brazil. This partnership is allowing a first data synthesis looking at the links between soil biodiversity and five major ecosystem services delivered by soils, such as fertility, carbon sequestration, water retention or pest and parasite control.

 

 

This unique partnership benefitted, this year, from the additional contribution of the French embassy in Canada, which funded the participation of a Canadian researcher to a workshop. From the University of Western Ontario, Canada, Zoe Lindo specializes in soil biodiversity and ecosystem function and provided major contributions to the group’s research, more specifically by sharing recently published R packages modelling food webs in soil ecology.

 

 

This second workshop, during which experts in soil ecology shared their complementary skills for a week, could not have happened without the support of the partners involved in the project.

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 9 CESAB – July 2023

A word from Claire SALOMON, CESAB’s deputy director

FRB - Claire Salomon

Since its creation in 2010 within the Foundation for Biodiversity Research (I was there!), CESAB has passed several milestones. Firstly seen as a non-identified, yet relevant, object by some in the biodiversity research community, CESAB appeared very abstract to others. The first few groups who stayed at CESAB sometimes doubted themselves of the added-value of gathering in “one place, one time for biodiversity research”. Yet, results were quick to emerge and far beyond our hopes! New networks were created, young researchers acquired an international experience, not to mention all the publications at the cutting edge of research. The biodiversity crisis and IPBES have also, unfortunately, shed light on the relevance of synthesis centers, increasing the appeal of the industry and stakeholders. The number of co-funding opportunities, requests and projects grew from year to year, bringing closer together stakeholders and the scientific community and vice versa.

 

From the 4 initial CESAB groups, we have now reached 30 today, corresponding to a community of 450 researchers of all nationalities spending two weeks a year at CESAB offices. To ensure the best possible working conditions during the entire length of the projects, CESAB is necessarily run by teams from the FRB in Montpellier and Paris, with a new administrative support this year to maintain the same quality of work. CESAB is also a cohort of post-docs, and will welcome four new members at the start of the academic year within the groups ACOUCENE, BIOFOREST, FOOD-WEBS and IMAPCTS. And to keep all this work consistent, CESAB’s scientific committee keeps an oversight and anticipation of the scientific work conducted, the administrative council of the Foundation and its funding members drive the development of the center and give us the means to act via a wide variety of calls for proposals: from the DATASHARE to OPEN calls, not to mention targeted calls.

 

 

More information about CESAB

 

[BISON project] The results will be presented on 6 June at an international seminar

Transport infrastructure is one of the drivers of global economic development. It is also one of the main causes of climate change and biodiversity decline. In order to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement, heavy investments are being made to make infrastructure more resilient and sustainable. However, the impact on biodiversity is much less well known and understood by the sector. In light of growing global concern about biodiversity loss, new regulations and approaches with higher biodiversity standards are expected in the wake of the COP15 negotiations.

In order to address concerns about the integration of biodiversity into transport infrastructure development, there has so far been no general consensus on how to create a biodiversity-friendly transport sector based on research.

 

After two and a half years of work, under the joint auspices of the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the United Nations Environment Programme-led Sustainable Infrastructure Partnership (SIP), the members of the BISON consortium are organising an international seminar that will bring together a range of actors and stakeholders at national, regional and international levels to engage in a dialogue on the topic of infrastructure and biodiversity.

The main results of the BISON project will be presented on 6 June. A whole day will be dedicated to the links between the results of the BISON project and the wider sustainable infrastructure community.
In collaboration with SIP and international partners, the joint seminar on 7 June will explore ways to integrate research findings into policy making and investment decisions, and to catalyse next steps.

 

The event will be held in a hybrid format to facilitate dissemination, but speakers will be present. For more information, please visit the BISON website.

[Call for proposals FRB-MTE-OFB 2022] Nine projects selected within the call “Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene”

As part of the implementation of the national “terrestrial biodiversity monitoring” programme carried out by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which aims to measure, identify and monitor the influence of human activities on biodiversity and the best practices to be promoted, the Ministry of Ecological Transition (MTE) and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) launched a call for research projects on the “Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene“. 

 

Three types of projects are funded by this 2022-call:

 

SYNTHESIS PROJECTS

 

  • Discar – Population consequences of human DISturbance on small CARnivores ; Olivier Gimenez (CNRS) and Sandrine Ruete (OFB),
  • Dragon – Dragonflies as bellwether for the human impact on interface ecosystems ; Colin Fontaine (CNRS) and Reto Schmuki (UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology),
  • Motiver – Developing agri-environmental Indicators to MOnitor The Impact of human-driven landscape changes on biodiVERsity in European farmland ; Gaël Caro (Univ de Lorraine) and Ronan Marrec (Univ de Picardie)

 

These 3-years projects will develop syntheses of ideas and/or concepts, analyses of existing data, and will focus on factors affecting the state, evolution and dynamics of biodiversity.

 

SYNERGY PROJECTS

 

  • Comepi – COmprendre les patrons de biodiversité et leurs impacts fonctionnels, MEsurer des indicateurs pour PIloter les habitats par la gestion anthropique ; Anne BONNIS (CNRS)
  • Indicators – Plant reproductive strategies as new diversity indicators – proof of concept in agricultural landscapes ; Sylvain GLEMIN (CNRS)
  • Pppirec – Pollinisateurs, Pesticides, et Paysages : Indicateurs de Réponses, des Espèces aux Communautés ; Nicolas DEGUINES (CNRS, Université de Poitiers)
  • Rodexpo – Anticoagulant rodenticides in rodent communities sampled along a gradient of forest anthropisation : exposure and resistance ; Virginie LATTARD (Vet-Agrosup)

 

These 1-year projects will provide complementary answers to a question that emerges from research projects that has been finalized or is underway and will help stakeholders with indicators and practices to be promoted or abandoned to preserve biodiversity.

 

SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS PROJECTS

 

  • Desybel – A SYstematic review on the impact of anthropogenic noise on terrestrial biodiversity ; Yorick REYJOL (MNHN)
  • Tres-Pratic – Trait-based responses of soil fauna to agricultural practices & agricultural management strategies: a systematic review and meta-analysis ; Mickael HEDDE (Inrae)

 

[Call for proposals] Two calls on biodiversity opening «DataShare» and «Anthropogenic pressures and impacts on terrestrial biodiversity»

Two calls for proposals will fund 1 to 3-years research projects on biodiversity.

 

Call for proposals DataShare 2023

 

The aim of this DATASHARE joint call is to accelerate the sharing of open-access and large scale ‘novel’ biodiversity related datasets. This call complements classical biodiversity synthesis calls, which aim at fostering the analysis of existing data and the synthesis of ideas and concepts, with a specific focus on data compilation and sharing. It can be considered as a preliminary step, but not mandatory, before submitting a research proposal to a classical biodiversity synthesis call (e.g. CESAB, sDiv, NCEAS). 

 

For its second 2023 edition, the DATASHARE joint call will fund four 2-year projects.

 

More information

 

 

Call for proposals Anthropogenic pressures and impacts on terrestrial biodiversity 2023

 

As part of the implementation of the national “terrestrial biodiversity monitoring” programme carried out by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which aims to measure, identify and monitor the influence of human activities on biodiversity and the best practices to be promoted, the Ministry of Ecological Transition (MTE) and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) are launching a call for research projects on the “Anthropogenic pressures and impacts on terrestrial biodiversity“. The call aims to characterize the positive, negative or non-existent impacts of human activities and induced pressures on the state and dynamics of terrestrial biodiversity.

 

The results of the research funded by the programme should help to strengthen the actions of society as a whole, to halt the decline of biodiversity and promote sustainable human development. 

 

This call for proposals will allow the funding of:

  • 3 data SYNTHESIS projects of three years – these projects should develop syntheses of ideas and/or concepts, analyses of existing data, and should focus on factors affecting the state, evolution and dynamics of biodiversity.
  • 4 to 6 one-year SYNERGY projects – these projects should provide complementary answers to a question that emerges from a research project that has been finalized or is underway, and should help stakeholders with indicators and practices to be promoted or abandoned to preserve biodiversity.
  • 1 to 2 SYSTEMATIC REVIEW projects of two years – these projects must present an inventory of human practices that have an impact on biodiversity and a summary of the state of knowledge on the impacts considered.

 

More information

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 8 CESAB – January 2023

A word from Nicolas MOUQUET, CESAB’s scientific director

Left: graph showing the number of research groups hosted by the CESAB and the yearly calls for proposals. Right: bar showing the cumulated funds secured towards CESAB projects since its arrival in Montpellier in 2019.

The year of 2022 has been particularly prosperous for the CESAB. We have:

 

  • Gained in maturity. After the move to Montpellier in 2019, we’ve explored several patterns for the synthesis groups with news partners. This has enabled us to considerably increase the number of active groups from 8 in 2019 to 28 in 2023. We are now working on consolidating this model to make it self-sustaining in the long-run.
  • Started up again with in person meetings. The COVID period has allowed us to improve our ability to guide groups in their online work, but also to see the limits of what is conceivable online. Biodiversity data synthesis is a human adventure above all, made of contacts and surprises, which mostly take place when groups gather and live together during an entire week!
  • Renewed the scientific council of the CESAB, which has very quickly been involved in the assessment of the applications for the call for proposals.
  • Finally, we’ve experimented the setup of a new call for proposals, the Datashare, which focuses on the gathering of biodiversity data and should be reconducted in 2023.

 

I am convinced that 2023 will be a pivotal year for us to reach another stepping stone in our development, with initiatives already in preparation, and, I hope, the realisation of a joint call for proposals with several synthesis centres supported by Biodiversa+.

In the past four years since the arrival of the CESAB in Montpellier, more than 6 million euros have been secured for the synthesis of data on biodiversity, thereby allowing 474 academics to work in the best possible conditions.

 

In addition to the synthesis groups, we organise three annual workshops from which 115 PhD students and post-docs have benefitted. In 2023, a new workshop will be introduced on artificial intelligence and biodiversity.

This enthusiasm is possible thanks to the unconditional support of the FRB, its founding members, our partners and the FRB staff involved in the CESAB, whose professionalism and efficiency most often go hand in hand with benevolence and cheerfulness! I thank them dearly for what they bring to the CESAB with its scientific community in particular and biodiversity in general.

 

Happy new year 2023!

 

 

Learn more about CESAB

 

[Course] Opening of pre-registration for the training course “Theory-driven Analysis of Ecological Data” – 2023

This 5-days training course, organized by the CESAB and the GdR TheoMoDive aims to train young researchers in mathematical modelling (differential equations, Lotka-Volterra, Jacobian matrices), and the statistical links between models and biodiversity data. 

 

The training course, in English, will take place from the 3rd to the 7th of April 2022 in the CESAB premises in Montpellier. Its price is 100 € for the week, including lunch. Travel, accommodation and evening meals are at the expense of the participants. 

 

You can pre-register for this course by filling in the form available on the event page until Wednesday 8th of February at midnight (CET). As the number of places is limited, registrations will be confirmed in February. 

 

 

Pre-registration and programme

[Call for tenders] The appointment of a service provider to carry out a literature review on NBS and transformative change

Under the objective “Connecting R&I programs, results and experts to policy” of the Biodiversa+ Partnership, the subtask 4.1.2 “Desk studies and production of knowledge syntheses” led by the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB) is subcontracting a service provider to develop a evidence synthesis in order to review the state of knowledge on the capacity of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to induce transformative change for the sustainable use and management of biodiversity. The FRB will appoint the third party service provider – after the evaluation/selection process – on February 6th, 2023.

 

The deadline to apply to this call for tender is set at midnight 27th of January 2023. All applications should be submitted in English and sent by email to Joseph LANGRIDGE (joseph.langridge@fondationbiodiversite.fr) before this deadline with Cécile MANDON (cecile.mandon@fondationbiodiversite.fr) in copy.

 

More information:

 

Desk study specifications

 

 

[Call for projects FRB-CESAB 2022 and DataShare] Five projects selected

Five innovative projects have been selected for the synthesis of ideas and concepts and the analysis of currently existing biodiversity data.

 

Three in the context of the call for proposals FRB-CESAB 2022. The selected projects will be funded for a duration of three years, including the recruitment of a post-doctoral researcher for two years, the organisation of 6 meetings at the CESAB, the promotion of results, and a logistical, technical and administrative support.

 

 

  • Bioforest

 

Interactions between tree Biodiversity, Forest dynamics and climate in managed tropical forests: a pan tropical approach.

Principal Investigators: Maria PEÑA-CLAROS (Wageningen University, NL), et Camille PIPONIOT (Cirad, France)

 

 

 

  • Food-Webs

 

Food-webs in the Anthropocene: a stable isotope synthesis to understand the global response of freshwater ecosystems.

Principal Investigators: Julien CUCHEROUSSET (CNRS, France), and Michelle JACKSON (Oxford University, UK)

 

 

 

  • Rivage

 

Revisit Island Vulnerability during the Anthropocene Geologic Era.

Principal Investigators: Céline BELLARD (Paris-Saclay University, France), et Daniel KISSLING (Amsterdam University, NL)

 

 

AAP_DATASHARE_web

 

Two in the context of the call for proposals DataShare. The selected projects will be funded for a duration of two years.

 

 

  • Islets

 

ISland Leaf Ecophysiological Trait Synthesis.

Principal investigators: Kasey BARTON (Hawaii University, United States), et Claire FORTUNEL (IRD, France)

 

 

 

  • Phenofish

 

Creating a global database of fish functional traits: integrating physiology and ecology across aquatic ecosystems.

Principal investigators: Sébastien BROSS (Toulouse University, France), et Nicolas LOISEAU (CNRS, France)

 

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 7 CESAB- Septembre 2022

A word from Verena TRENKEL and François MASSOL, co-presidents of CESAB scientific committee

 

The 22 members of the new CESAB Scientific Committee (CS) have recently started their work for a four-year term. We are honored to lead this multidisciplinary (and parity!) committee as co-presidents. This is the first time that the CESAB CS is led by a co-chair and we intend to demonstrate that two co-chairs are more than the sum of two. We would like to start this mandate by thanking the CS members for their trust and the FRB for the freedom and the human and financial means made available to the CS to carry out efficiently the evaluation and monitoring of projects.

 

Our co-presidency comes at a time when the support of the FRB, the founding members and the collaboration with other funders allow CESAB to expand its role as a catalyst for science and international collaborations. 22 projects are underway at CESAB and many more are to come. The dynamics of the projects at CESAB and its partnerships with other institutions around the world, largely driven by its director Nicolas Mouquet, is a sign of good health and we are proud to be able to contribute to it in the four years to come. The international training courses offered by CESAB, notably on reproducibility, the use of theories and meta-analyses in ecology and environmental sciences, are also the mark of a stronger involvement of CESAB in the scientific ecology landscape. Finally, other CESAB activities, such as hosting researchers on sabbatical or conference days around a project, also contribute to CESAB’s influence in the context of research on biodiversity and the environment, both in France and internationally.

 

The CS is currently following the 2022 CESAB call for proposals which will allow, at the end of the evaluation procedure, three new projects to gather and compare their data and ideas. Other calls for projects are already open, including an FRB-MTE-OFB call “Impacts on Biodiversity in the Anthropocene” and an FRB-TULIP-PNDB-BiodivOc call “Datashare”. As in previous years, CESAB will fund about 15 projects that will contribute to building scientific consensus on a large number of crucial issues in view of the current climate and ecological crisis. To meet the challenges posed by the Agenda 2030 and its 17 sustainable development goals, the contributions of CESAB projects will be needed.

 

Without wishing to give away too much about the program of the future CS meetings, and beyond the management of calls for projects, we can already announce that the CS will be thinking about new ideas to contribute to the advancement of science, based on the synthesis of data, models, concepts… One of our wishes is also to create more opportunities to disseminate the results of Cesab projects to the public. Let’s hope that the next four years of the CS will allow us to work in this direction.

 

We wish you all a good start to the new school year and look forward to seeing you soon at Cesab.

Verena Trenkel and François Massol

 

 

More information about CESAB

 

[Press release] A new method to assess ecosystem vulnerability and protect biodiversity

As states committed to creating protected areas on at least 30% of their land and sea territories by 2030, an international team of researchers has developed a new tool to quantify the vulnerability of species communities. Combined with future ecosystem risk assessment studies, this tool should help decision-makers identify management priorities and guide protection efforts where they are most needed. Setting appropriate conservation strategies is a challenging goal, especially because of the complexity of threats and responses from species, and budget limitations. To overcome this challenge, the team of scientists, including researchers from CNRS, IFREMER, IRD and international organizations, has simulated the response of species communities to a wide range of disturbances, providing a robust estimation of their vulnerability, in a world where future threats are diverse and difficult to predict.

 

Quantifying the vulnerability of biodiversity is crucial to safeguard the most threatened ecosystems. Published in Nature Communications on the 1st of September 2022, this new tool stands out from previous work as it estimates the degree to which functional diversity, that is biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions, is likely to change when exposed to multiple pressures. It was developed as part of two projects funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) within its Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB) and with the support of Electricité de France (EDF) and France Filière Pêche (FFP).

 

 

Read the press release

[Call for proposals] Two calls on biodiversity opening «DataShare» and «Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene»

Two calls for proposals will fund 1 to 3-years research projects on biodiversity. deadline on the 22nd of September 2022.

 

Call for proposals DataShare 2022

 

The aim of this DATASHARE joint call between the CEntre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) of the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB), the Laboratory of Excellence (LabEX) TULIP, the National Center for Biodiversity Data (PNDB) and the challenge BiodivOc, supported by the Occitanie region and the University of Montpellier is to accelerate the sharing of open-access and large scale ‘novel’ biodiversity related datasets. This call complements classical biodiversity synthesis calls, which aim at fostering the analysis of existing data and the synthesis of ideas and concepts, with a specific focus on data compilation and sharing. It can be considered as a preliminary step, but not mandatory, before submitting a research proposal to a classical biodiversity synthesis call (e.g. CESAB, sDiv, NCEAS).

 

For its first 2022 edition, the DATASHARE joint call will fund two 2-years projects.

 

More information

 

 

Call for proposals Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene 2022

 

As part of the implementation of the national “terrestrial biodiversity monitoring” programme carried out by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which aims to measure, identify and monitor the influence of human activities on biodiversity and the best practices to be promoted, the Ministry of Ecological Transition (MTE) and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) are launching a call for research projects on the “Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene “. The call aims to characterize the positive, negative or non-existent impacts of human activities and induced pressures on the state and dynamics of terrestrial biodiversity.

 

The results of the research funded by the programme should help to strengthen the actions of society as a whole, to halt the decline of biodiversity and promote sustainable human development. 

 

This call for proposals will allow the funding of:

  • 3 data SYNTHESIS projects of three years – these projects should develop syntheses of ideas and/or concepts, analyses of existing data, and should focus on factors affecting the state, evolution and dynamics of biodiversity.
  • 4 to 6 one-year SYNERGY projects – these projects should provide complementary answers to a question that emerges from a research project that has been finalized or is underway, and should help stakeholders with indicators and practices to be promoted or abandoned to preserve biodiversity.
  • 1 to 2 SYSTEMATIC REVIEW projects of two years – these projects must present an inventory of human practices that have an impact on biodiversity and a summary of the state of knowledge on the impacts considered.

 

More information

[CALL FOR TENDERS] Desk study on the role of biodiversity in Nature-Based Solutions

Under the objective “Connecting R&I programs, results and experts to policy” of the Biodiversa+ Partnership, the subtask 4.1.2 “Desk studies and production of knowledge syntheses” led by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) is subcontracting a service provider to develop a scoping review in order to summarise the state of knowledge on the role of biodiversity in Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). The FRB will appoint the service provider – after the evaluation/selection process – on July 1st, 2022.

 

The deadline to apply to this call for tender is midnight 22nd of June. All applications should be submitted in English and sent by email to :

Joseph LANGRIDGE <joseph.langridge@fondationbiodiversite.fr> before this deadline with Cécile MANDON <cecile.mandon@fondationbiodiversite.fr> in copy.

 

 

[Joint call SYNERGY FRB-CESAB / SinBiose / FAPESP / CEBA] Two new projects on biodiversity in the neotropical realm

Two innovative projects relating to biodiversity in the neotropical realm were selected withing the call for proposals from the CEntre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity of the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB-CESAB), the Brazilian Synthesis Center on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (SinBiose), the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the French Laboratory of Excellence CEBA (CEnter for the study of Biodiversity in Amazonia).

 

 

The relationship between soil macrofauna biodiversity and ecosystem services delivery across land use systems in neotropical rainforest biomes

Principal investigators: Jérôme MATHIEU (Sorbonne Université, France) and Miguel COOPER (University of Sao Paulo, Brésil)

 

Networks of Fungal Interactions in the Neotropics

Principal investigators: Mélanie ROY (Université de Toulouse, France) and Paulo GUIMARAES (University of Sao Paulo, Brésil)

 

The two projects will be funded for a period of three years, including: the recruitment of a post-doctoral fellow based in Brazil and working on the project for two years, the organization of four meetings (two in France, at CESAB in Montpellier and two in Brazil in the state of São Paulo) and the promotion and publication of the results. Logistical, technical and administrative support will also be provided all along the project.  

[Call for proposals FRB-MTE-OFB 2021] Eight projects selected within the call “Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene”

As part of the implementation of the national “terrestrial biodiversity monitoring” programme carried out by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which aims to measure, identify and monitor the influence of human activities on biodiversity and the best practices to be promoted, the Ministry of Ecological Transition (MTE) and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) launched a call for research projects on the “Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene“. 

 

Three types of projects are funded by this 2021-call:

 

SYNTHESIS PROJECTS

 

  • ACOUCENE, led by Jean-Yves BARNAGAUD (EPHE, France) and Solène CROCI (CNRS, France) – Towards a silent spring? Modeling and projecting the impacts of the Anthropocene on soundscapes with birds as an acoustic ecological indicator
  • IMPACTS, led by Wilfried THUILLER (CNRS, France) and Franziska SCHRODT (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom) – French biodiversity in the Anthropocene – impacts and drivers of spatial and temporal response
  • LANDWORM, led by Daniel CLUZEAU (University of Rennes, France) and Céline PELOSI (INRAE, France) – Impact of Land use and management on earthworm communities
  • SPATMAN, led by Isabelle BOULANGEAT (INRAE, France) and Mohamed HILAL (INRAE, France) – What role for the spatial organisation of human societies to modulate their pressures on biodiversity?

 

These 3-years projects will develop syntheses of ideas and/or concepts, analyses of existing data, and will focus on factors affecting the state, evolution and dynamics of biodiversity.

 

SYNERGY PROJECTS

 

  • FUNINDIC, led by Cyrille Violle (CEFE-CNRS, France) – Functional rarity as a marker of land use intensification and ecosystem functions in French permanent grasslands: towards new indicators for the monitoring and conservation of the French flora.
  • INTERFACE, led by Céline Clauzel (University Paris Diderot, France) – Multi-habitat network modelling for integrated conservation of interface environments.
  • LANBIO, led by Cendrine Mony (University of Rennes, France) –  Effect of human-driven landscape modification on biodiversity in bocage landscapes: toward integrative indicators. 

 

These 1-year projects will provide complementary answers to a question that emerges from research projects that has been finalized or is underway and will help stakeholders with indicators and practices to be promoted or abandoned to preserve biodiversity.

 

SYSTEMATIC MAP PROJECT 

 

  • SOLAIRE-BP, led by Yorick Reyjol (UMS PatriNat OFB-CNRS-MNHN, France) – Systematic overview of literature about the impacts of renewable energy : photovoltaic and biodiversity.

 

This 1-year project is a preliminary step to the “systematic review” and will  focus on pressure-impact links related to human practices in order to highlight whether the impacts on biodiversity are well established or suffer from a lack of data or literature.

[Call for proposals FRB-CESAB 2022] Opening of the call!

Through its Center for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research opens its 2022 call for research proposals, to fund three innovative projects relating to the synthesis of ideas and concepts and/or the analysis of existing data. The main aim of these projects should be to improve scientific knowledge of biodiversity and demonstrate how we can use this knowledge to better protect it. 

 

The submitted projects can deal with any topic related to biodiversity, in the fields of natural sciences and/or human and social sciences.

 

The selected projects will be funded for three years, including: the recruitment of a post-doctoral fellow for 24 months, the organization of six meetings of the working group at CESAB and the promotion and publication of the results. CESAB will also provide logistical, technical and administrative support all along the project.

 

  • Pre-proposal deadline : 19th May 2022, 18:00 CEST

 

 

More information

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 6 CESAB – January 2022

A WORD FROM BRUNO FADY, PRESIDENT OF CESAB’S SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

 

It is worth recalling that CESAB is an infrastructure of the FRB, a unique and original tool in the French research landscape. It is one of the rare scientific tools that have been created in the world over the last 30 years, based on the observation that the data generated, and collected during short-term projects, that classically finance research in ecology and biodiversity, are not very well used (Baron et al., 2017). We can only welcome this decision, given the scientific production of the working groups funded with the CESAB, the career path of the young scientists who have been part of and are often the core of these working groups, and the recognition of the work published by many private and institutional actors to improve biodiversity protection (see “CESAB in a Zoom in 2021”). 

 

The Covid-19 pandemic pointed out that scientific advances are not the work of an isolated individual, of an (unrecognized) genius who emerges in the midst of a crisis, but rather the work of collectives, manipulating and analyzing data that must be compiled and verified, re-testing and re-verifying hypotheses and concepts. A scientific fact only really becomes so when it finally emerges as an evidence, a consensus (in the statistical sense of the term) for the whole scientific community. At a time when the scientific approach and its results are being questioned by part of society, and beyond a relevant (re)development of data, concepts and their analysis for its scientific discipline, the role of CESAB is to disseminate scientific facts to better understand and protect biodiversity. 

 

After two mandates as president of the CESAB scientific committee, it is time for me to hand over. I would have gladly extended my mandate for a longer period of time as the dynamism of CESAB is so strong, reminding me a little of the enthusiastic state of mind that reigned when it was created more than 10 years ago. But, fortunately, our statutes do not allow it and a new scientific committee will be created in 2022. 

 

The CESAB is now a French institution, widely recognized. Scientists working in the field of ecology and biodiversity are not mistaken, they apply each year in greater numbers to the FRB-CESAB calls for proposals. I hope that the founding members of the FRB, the French public authorities and biodiversity stakeholders will continue to actively support the CESAB, financing at least several working groups per year and the structure itself. With France’s reaffirmed commitments to biodiversity protection at the World Conservation Congress in Marseille in September 2021, I have no doubt that this will be the case. 

 

Happy New Year to all, welcome to the new scientific committee and long live the CESAB.  

Bruno Fady

 

 

More information about CESAB

 

[Call for proposals FRB-MTE-OFB] Opening of the call «  Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene »

As part of the implementation of the national “terrestrial biodiversity monitoring” programme carried out by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), which aims to measure, identify and monitor the influence of human activities on biodiversity and the best practices to be promoted, the Ministry of Ecological Transition (MTE) and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) are launching a call for research projects on the “Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity in the Anthropocene “. The call aims to characterize the positive, negative or non-existent impacts of human activities and induced pressures on the state and dynamics of terrestrial biodiversity.

 

The results of the research funded by the programme should help to strengthen the actions of society as a whole, to halt the decline of biodiversity and promote sustainable human development. 

 

This call for proposals will allow the funding of:

  • 3 data SYNTHESIS projects of three years – these projects should develop syntheses of ideas and/or concepts, analyses of existing data, and should focus on factors affecting the state, evolution and dynamics of biodiversity.
  • 4 to 6 one-year SYNERGIE projects – these projects should provide complementary answers to a question that emerges from a research project that has been finalized or is underway, and should help stakeholders with indicators and practices to be promoted or abandoned to preserve biodiversity.
  • 2 to 4 one-year SYSTEMIC MAP projects – a preliminary step to the “systematic review”, these projects will have to focus on pressure-impact links related to human practices in order to highlight whether the impacts on biodiversity are well established or suffer from a lack of data or literature.

 

 

More information

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 5 CESAB – July 2021

A WORD FROM THE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR

 

We are living crazy times! The world is struggling with a major pandemic for more than a year, with dramatic consequences in terms of human lives lost and economic costs. But paradoxically, this crisis reduced (temporally) our impact on the planet, and thus might have also some positive consequences on biodiversity. Now that our economies are starting over, the question is now much we will have learned from the Covid crisis and its side-effects on the environmental crisis, so we do not go back to the business-as-usual GIEC scenario and end up losing on both sides.  

  

The scientific community took the opportunity of the Covid crisis to experiment how science could be made through virtual interactions. Synthesis centers have been at the forefront of this “experimentation” as our core activity is to gather scientists from all over the world. We had to rapidly adapt to supporting fully virtual working groups and after a year we can conclude that virtual meetings, while providing a bridge during the pandemic, cannot replace intense, in-person immersion meetings (Srivastava et al., 2021). Science and particularly synthesis science is also about social interactions between people : these direct interactions fuel collective and creative thinking needed for groups to work on what is planned, and more importantly imagine the unplanned. But, as scientists and more importantly environmental scientists, we must be at the forefront of the paradigm shifts our societies need to go through, to mitigate the environmental crisis. We are thus thinking of re-organizing biodiversity synthesis centers in regional hubs where research teams within each geographic region could meet simultaneously as in-person working groups. These “regional hubs” would also coordinate virtually with each other among synthesis centers. This will not preclude the need to gather whole groups within the lifetime of a project but might significantly reduce the amount of travels and thus the carbon impact of the synthesis working groups. This reorganization of our scientific models will take some time but the price is worth to pay!  

 

Biodiversity collapse

© Graeme Mackay  

 

The Covid crisis cannot make us forget about the ongoing environmental crisis, it should rather exemplify how humanity can work together to solve a global crisis; it should also exemplify how much costly it is to solve a crisis when the crisis is at its climax. The environmental and biodiversity crisis, are not at their climax, they are only beginning. Let’s hope that we will pay the price needed to stop these crisis before we cannot afford to pay it anymore …   

  

These last six months have been particularly busy for the CESAB team and groups. This newsletter reflect this rich activity and the best is yet to come with many new groups starting this year and next. I would like here to thanks thoroughly the CESAB and FRB staff as well as the CESAB scientific committee for the incredible work they already have achieved this year; and thanks the whole FRB and its founders to make all this possible. With the 4 projects funded in the 2020 call and the upcoming 2 projects funded via our France-Brazil joint call, the CESAB will host 20 active groups by 2022. This strong and positive dynamics reflect our collective willingness to fulfill the need for synthesis in biodiversity science as well as the incredible quality and maturity of the scientific community on this fundamental issue. Synthesis will help us tackle the biodiversity crisis before it reaches its climax and I am proud that, at its small scale, the CESAB is helping toward this aim.  

  

Nicolas Mouquet 

 

 

More information about CESAB

 

[Call for proposals FRB-CESAB 2020] Four projects selected

Four innovative projects relating to the synthesis of ideas and concepts and the analysis of existing data, were selected by the scientific committee from the call for proposals FRB-CESAb 2020. They will improve scientific knowledge of biodiversity and demonstrate how we can use this knowledge to better protect it. 

 

The selected projects are funded for a period of three years, including: the recruitment of a post-doctoral student for two years, the organization of six meetings of the working group at CESAB and the promotion and publication of the results. The CESAB also provides logistical, technical and administrative support.

 

Global redistribution of biodiversity: A macro- and eco-evolutionary approach to understand species vulnerability to global changes

PIs: Gaël GRENOUILLET – Université de Toulouse (France) and Lise COMTE – Illinois State University (USA)

 

Supporting climate resilience through equitable ocean conservation

PIs : Joachim CLAUDET – CNRS (France), David GILL – Duke University (USA) and Jessica BLYTHE – Brock University (Canada)

 

Understanding power dynamics in stakeholder participation: integrating theory and practice for effective biodiversity conservation

PIs: Juliette YOUNG – INRAE (France) and James BUTLER – CSIRO (Australia)

 

Synthesis of Neotropical Tree Biodiversity with Plot Inventories

PIs: Jérôme CHAVE – CNRS (France) and Adriane ESQUIVEL MUELBERT – Université de Birmingham (United Kingdom)

[FRB-CESAB] Opening of the joint call SYNERGY with SinBiose / FAPESP / CEBA on biodiversity in the neotropical realm

In partnership with SinBiose, FAPESP, and LabEX CEBA, the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB) opens a call for research projects through its Center for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), to fund two innovative research projects on biodiversity in the neotropical realm. The submitted projects can be in the fields of natural sciences and/or social and human sciences and should aim at developing the synthesis of ideas and concepts and/or the analysis of existing data.

 

The selected projects will be funded for a period of three years, including: the recruitment of a post-doctoral fellow based in Brazil and working on the project for two years, the organization of four meetings (two in France, at CESAB in Montpellier and two in Brazil in the state of São Paulo) and the promotion and publication of the results. Logistical, technical and administrative support will also be provided.

 

  • Pre-proposal deadline : 30th July 2021, 12:00 CEST

 

 

More information

[FRB-CESAB] Behind the WOODIV paper: the Euro-Mediterranean trees in a database

From the Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo), endemic species in Andalusia, to the Golden oak (Quercus alnifolia) in Cyprus, the Mediterranean Basin is home to emblematic species. These trees have always fascinated the people around them and the botanists. Yet, the Mediterranean trees are comparatively less well-known than their northern relatives.

 

Anne-Christine Monnet, member of the FRB-CESAB project WOODIV, present in an article about the scientific publication “WOODIV, a database of occurrences, functional traits, and phylogenetic data for all Euro-Mediterranean trees”, published in March 2021 in Scientific data, how Agathe Leriche, principal investigator of the WOODIV project, and Frédéric Médail, project member, gathered scientists and botanists in order to combine data and knowledge on Mediterranean trees from sparse national databases to one high-quality standardized dataset.

 

 

Read the article

[FRB-CESAB / CIEE] Earth’s ecosystems in a time of global change: Six ecologists discuss challenges and solutions

The Canadian synthesis center CIEE-ICEE  organized, with the help of the FRB-CESAB, the French Embassy in Vancouver and the University of British Columbia, a 1h30 conference on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 16:00 PT (Pacific Time) – 01:00 French time.

 

The six panelists of “Earth’s ecosystems in a time of global change: Six ecologists discuss challenges and solutions” are Bastien Mérigot (Montpellier University) – principal investigator of the FRB-CESAB/ CIEE project FISHGLOB, Nicolas Loeuille (Sorbonne Université), Shawn Leroux (Memorial University of Newfoundland), William Cheung (University of BC), Nancy Shackell (Bedford Institute of Oceanography), and Isabelle Gounand (Sorbonne Université) – principal investigator of the FRB-CESAB/ CIEE project RED-BIO.

 

The recorded panel discussion is now available below. 

 

 

 

[Call for proposals FRB-CESAB / ITTECOP] The projects NAVIDIV and BRIDGE selected

Two projects were selected by the scientific committee from the joint call for proposals FRB-CESAB / ITTECOP on the theme “Territorial approach to biodiversity: transport infrastructures, natural and agricultural environments”.

 

Inland navigation infrastructures and biodiversity: impacts and opportunities for waterwayscape management

PIs : Alienor JELIAZKOV – INRAE (France) and Jean-Nicolas BEISEL – ENGEES/CNRS (France)

 

Building a bridge between river corridors, roadsides and field margins: how landscape interactions modulate taxonomic and functional plant diversity

PIs: Eric TABACCHI – CNRS-INEE (France) and Guillaume FRIED – ANSES (France)

 

Both projects will, among others, evaluate the impacts of these infrastructures on biodiversity and analyse the economic, socio-technical and political factors that contribute to the deployment of these infrastructures and the extent to which they take biodiversity into account.

[Press release] Study in Nature: Protecting the Ocean Delivers a Comprehensive Solution for Climate, Fishing and Biodiversity

A new study published in the prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature today offers a combined solution to several of humanity’s most pressing challenges. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date of where strict ocean protection can contribute to a more abundant supply of healthy seafood and provide a cheap, natural solution to address climate change—in addition to protecting embattled species and habitats.

 

An international team of 26 authors – including researchers from Ifremer and the University of Montpellier and with the CNRS – identified specific areas that, if protected, would safeguard over 80% of the habitats for endangered marine species, and increase fishing catches by more than eight million metric tons. The study is also the first to quantify the potential release of carbon dioxide into the ocean from trawling, a widespread fishing practice—and finds that trawling is pumping hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the ocean every year, a volume of emissions similar to those of aviation. This work was partly funded by the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB), EDF and the Total Foundation, through the FREE and PELAGIC research projects of the FRB’s Center for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB).

 

 

Read the full press release

 

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 4 CESAB – January 2021

A WORD FROM THE NEW FRB’S PRESIDENT: DENIS COUVET

 

FRB-Denis-Couvet-HD

Denis Couvet

The French Foundation for Biodiversity Research’s ambition is to better understand the dynamics of biodiversity, in interaction with those of societies. Its vocation is to build, with all actors, public and private, civil society, approaches based on nature and therefore biodiversity. Another main concern is to know how to anticipate the impacts, opportunities and unexpected effects… of these approaches, in an integrative and systemic framework. The synthesis center created by the FRB, CESAB, is a tool of excellence to meet these different objectives.

 
By bringing together the best international scientific teams around scientific synthesis, combining data, models and concepts, the work of CESAB should enable us to better understand the functioning of biodiversity, its state and its dynamics, from local to global scales. By shedding some light on the organization of ecological systems and socio-ecosystems, CESAB should help us address the complexity of these systems and the conditions of their resilience.
 
For the coming year, I hope that the FRB’s team, which I have had the honor of chairing since January 1, and the scientific community will be able to work collectively on ambitious developments and exciting actions. 
 
Denis Couvet,
President of the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research
 
The FRB-CESAB team’s would like to collectively thank Jean-François Silvain, president of the FRB for the last 7 years. His contribution to the CESAB was invaluable and we will miss his insight and guidance. 
 

 

More information about CESAB

 

The project MAESTRO was selected from the FRB-CESAB call for proposals with France Filière Pêche

The project Maestro was selected by the CESAB selection committee from the joint call for proposals between FRB-CESAB and France Filière Pêche. 

 

MAESTRO will be coordinated by Arnaud AUBER and Camille ALBOUY, both working at IFREMER, and will look into climate change effects on exploited marine communities.

 

The project will be based on the analysis and synthesis of existing data, as well as the modelling of the effects of climate change on the biodiversity of European fish stocks and associated fisheries (North-East Atlantic and Mediterranean). The project will contribute to a better understanding of the effect of climate change on fish resources and fisheries, to help develop adaptive fisheries management measures. 

 

 

More information about Maestro

The CESAB is still active!

Despite the health situation, which does not allow researchers to meet at the CESAB in Montpellier, the groups remain active and work remotely. This is the case this week for the participants of the projects FREE and RED-BIO. 

 

 

FREE – about functional rarity 

 

FREE began in 2018 and works on functional rarity: how to define this rarity, how to quantify it and how to identify its causes and consequences. FREE ‘s participants have recently published, in collaboration with researchers from different institutes, an article based on data collected within the project and in which they show that ecologically rare species of birds and terrestrial mammals are also the most threatened (see the press release “Double jeopardy for ecologically rare birds and terrestrial mammals“).

Led by Cyrille Violle (CNRS) and Caroline Tucker (University of Colorado, USA), the group met (online!) this week to catch up on the various work in progress within the project.

 

 

 

RED-BIO –  about spatial ecology and ecological networks 

 

RED-BIO started this year and the participants have not yet had the opportunity to hold their first meeting at the CESAB in Montpellier. However, they were able to organize their first virtual meeting with the support of the FRB’s CESAB team and the Canadian Institute for Ecology and Evolution (CIEE). This is an opportunity for the participants to discuss the project’s progress and its main research question: under which conditions, the interactions between biological communities and the environment could generate spatial heterogeneity in abiotic resources?

The participants cover a wide geographical range from Vancouver, Canada, to Montpellier, France, and this first meeting allowed to clearly see the diversity of ideas within the group, but above all to detect elements of convergence. This project was selected from the joint call SYNERGY in collaboration with the CIEE and is led by Isabelle Gounand (CNRS) and Eric Harvey (Université de Montréal).

 

Red-Bio_W1
First meeting of the Red-Bio group

 

These meetings allow the FRB-CESAB’s groups to continue working on their projects and several scientific articles have been published in the last few months, some of them in high impact journals as Nature Communication, Global Change Biology,… see all the articles here. CESAB’s main objective is to advance knowledge in order to improve our understanding of ecosystems and their biodiversity and thus ensure their effective management and conservation.

Two projects were selected from the FRB-CESAB call for proposals of systematic reviews

Two projects were selected by the steering and selection committee from the FRB-CESAB call for proposals of systematic reviews. Both projects will use systematic mapping, critical assessment and narrative synthesis of the corpus of selected texts. Expected outcomes are publications of review articles in international scientific journals.

 

  • Theme 1: State and future of marine biodiversity in a time of global change 

 

InDySem: Influence of ecological dynamics on production and demand for marine ecosystem services. A systematic review for decision-making.

PI : Eric THIEBAUT, Sorbonne University, Paris (France)

 

  • Theme 2, in partnership with Agropolis Fondation: Solutions for agro-ecological transition that conserve biodiversity 

 

Agri-TE (Agriculture Transition Evidence): Evidence-based synthesis of the impacts of agro-ecological transition at the global scale to support integrated modelling and decision-making

PI: Damien BEILLOUIN – CIRAD, HORTYS, Montpellier (France)

[FRB-CESAB] Second edition of the training course “Data Toolbox for Reproducible Research in Computational Ecology”

The FRB’s Center for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversiry (CESAB) and the GDR EcoStat organised the second edition of the training course Data Toolbox for Reproducible Research in Computational Ecology online. The training took place from the 2nd to the 6th of November 2020. 

 

23 students, engineers and researchers from all over France were able to attend this training course online. 

 

Nicolas CASAJUS (FRB-Cesab), Stéphane DRAY (CNRS LBBE), Olivier GIMENEZ (CNRS Cefe), François GUILHAUMON (IRD Marbec), Nina SCHIETTEKATTE (EPHE Criobe) presented the essential tools for reproducible research (git/GitHub, rmarkdown, drake, R packages, etc.). Participants were also able to put into practice the knowledge acquired at the beginning of the training through projects in sub-groups on the Thursday and the Friday. 

 

Subscribe to the newsletter of the FRB and its CESAB to be kept informed about the next edition of the training course.

[FRB-CESAB] The training course ecoinfofair2020 is hosted at CESAB

Within the framework of the research infrastructure “National hub for biodiversity data” (in French PNDB: Pôle national des données de biodiversité), the research and actions in progress on making data FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable – propose the implementation of products and services, around the biodiversity data, “as FAIR and open as possible”.

 

Thanks to the support of the DevLOG network (network of actors in the field of software development within Higher Education and Research), the PNDB is organizing workshops open to all, including an introductory training aspect.

 

This workshop takes place from October 19 to 21 from multiple remote sites (Concarneau, Paris and CESAB in Montpellier).

 

 

More information

[Call for proposal FRB-CESAB] The call for proposals is now open!

Through its Center for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research opens a call for research projects, to fund at least three innovative projects relating to the synthesis of ideas and concepts and/or the analysis of existing data. The main aim of these projects should be to improve scientific knowledge of biodiversity and demonstrate how we can use this knowledge to better protect it. The submitted projects can deal with any topic related to biodiversity, in the fields of natural sciences or human and social sciences.

 

The selected projects will be funded for a period of three years, including: the recruitment of a post-doctoral student for two years, the organization of six meetings of the working group at CESAB and the promotion and publication of the results. The CESAB will also provide logistical, technical and administrative support.

 

  • Pre-proposal deadline: 1st December, 18:00 CET

 

 

More information

[Press release] Double jeopardy for ecologically rare birds and terrestrial mammals

Common assumptions notwithstanding, rare species can play unique and essential ecological roles. After studying two databases that together cover all known terrestrial mammals and birds worldwide, scientists from the CNRS, the Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB), Université Grenoble Alpes, and the University of Montpellier have demonstrated that, though these species are found on all continents, they are more threatened by human pressures than ecologically common species and will also be more impacted by future climate change.

 

Thus they are in double jeopardy. The researchers’ findings, published in Nature Communications on October 8th 2020, show that conservation programmes must account for the ecological rarity of species.

 

 

Read the full press release

[Call for proposals] The FRB-CESAB call on systematic reviews has been extended until the 9th of September

The FRB, through its Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB), is funding 2 postdoctoral researchers for up to 18 months, to carry out systematic reviews, using systematic mapping, critical assessment and narrative synthesis of the corpus of selected texts, in order to write a review article for an international scientific journal.

 

 

The project may go as far as either a completed lexicographical analysis or the extraction of statistical data from the corpus and their analysis (meta-analysis).

 

 

  •  Theme 1: State and future of marine biodiversity in a time of global change 
  • Theme 2, in partnership with Agropolis Fondation: Solutions for agro-ecological transition that conserve biodiversity 

 

Pre-proposals deadline : 9th September 2020, 23:59 CEST

More information can be found on the call page. 

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 3 CESAB – July 2020

A WORD FROM THE CESAB SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR

 

FRB Cesab Nicolas MouquetNicolas Mouquet

 

We have all been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even if it is too early to decipher the conditions that triggered the emergence of the coronavirus, it is, as other major epidemics, related to the environmental and biodiversity crisis we are experiencing.

 

Prevention could have been possible but they waited for the crisis to appear before acting. Prevention should be at the basis of our collective behavior, prevention and not fear! Prevention requires that we take the time to understand the world and synthesize complex information into meaningful and useful collective knowledge. What is true for the pandemics is true for the ongoing biodiversity crisis. The need for synthesis has never been so strong, synthesis is the only way of fueling appropriate actions. Furthermore, the timescale needed to achieve adequate and reliable synthesis is far longer than the rapid appearance of human-caused crisis. Synthesis must happen before!

 

Edward O. Wilson once said that the world would be run by “synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely”. For once, he was wrong, the world is not run by synthesizers, it is run by people that base their actions on incomplete information, are behind the limes, do not think critically and do not make wise choices ! This is why, today, we need synthesizers more than ever, and yet I do not see very much of collective effort to support synthesis in the agenda of research funding agencies. At our very small scale, synthesis centres, such as CESAB, are trying to promote the art of synthesis in biodiversity science but the level of funding we are receiving is inversely proportional to the importance of our mission.

 

After every crisis, we hear voices saying that the “world will never be the same again”. This is not true, a simple synthesis of crises during the 20th century show the exact opposite pattern. However, this does not mean that we have to give up, but rather that we need to understand and remember: we must synthesize !

 

Nicolas Mouquet

 

More information about CESAB

 

[Call for proposals] Opening of the joint call FRB-CESAB / ITTECOP

 

The FRB, with the support of ITTECOP programme, call on the scientific community to submit projects to the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB), based on the analysis and synthesis of existing data on the theme “Territorial approach to biodiversity: transport infrastructures, natural and agricultural environments” at a European geographic level.

 

 

 

Pre-proposals deadline : 16th July 2020, 13:00 CEST

More information can be found on the call page. 

[Call for proposals] Opening of the joint call FRB-CESAB / France Filière Pêche

Climate change will have a lasting impact on the oceans and seas on a global scale. The impacts of these changes on marine fisheries have become a priority.  

 

FRB, with the support of France Filière Pêche, calls on the scientific community to submit projects to the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB), based on the analysis and synthesis of existing data, as well as the modelling of the effects of climate change on the biodiversity of European fish stocks and associated fisheries (North-East Atlantic and Mediterranean).

 

The project will contribute to a better understanding of the effect of climate change on fish resources and fisheries, to help develop adaptive fisheries management measures. 

 

Pre-proposals deadline : 11 juin 2020, 13:00 (UTC+1)

More information can be found on the call page. 

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 2 CESAB – January 2020

A WORD FROM THE CESAB SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR

 

2020 will be the year of biodiversity! The biodiversity crisis has become central in the international agenda after the publication by the IPBES of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in 2019. 2020 will see major events with the IUCN world conservation congress to be held in Marseille in June and the COP15 Biodiversity in Kunming, among many others.

 

Biodiversity synthesis centres have fueled this dynamic by promoting the scientiflc synthesis on biodiversity and helping researchers to adapt to the exponential increase in available data and to the globalization of scientiflc ecology. We can be proud of what have been achieved but are also concerned about what still need to be done and how we will contribute to assess the knowledge gaps on biodiversity.

 

2019 have been a year of transition for the CESAB, we have moved to Montpellier and have created a new ecosystem, integrating many new partners, and experiencing new tools to promote biodiversity synthesis. We have launched joint calls with other synthesis centers (German sDiv, Canadian CIEE) and French scientiflc actors (AFB, Labex Cemeb), have organized a training course for young scientists on reproductibility in ecological data science and held an international conference on large scale conservation in Montpellier. This has been possible thanks to the help of the incredible FRB team dedicated to CESAB and more generally of the FRB, and to the dynamism of our many ongoing working groups.

 

2020 will be the year we consolidate this ecosystem, open new ambitious calls for synthesis groups and amplify the momentum. We now have the trust and support from our founding members and partners and are trying to work together to make CESAB contribute even more to the biodiversity synthesis!

 

Best wishes for this new year.

Nicolas Mouquet

 

More information about CESAB

 

[FRB-CESAB] First CESAB training course

From 2 to 6 December, the FRB’s Center for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversiry (CESAB) and the GDR EcoStat organised a training course entitled Data Toolbox for Reproducible Research in Computational Ecology.

 

 

17 students, engineers and researchers from all over France came to attend this training at CESAB’s premises in Montpellier.

 

Nicolas CASAJUS (FRB-Cesab), Stéphane DRAY (CNRS LBBE), Olivier GIMENEZ (CNRS Cefe), Loreleï GUÉRY (IRD Marbec), François GUILHAUMON (IRD Marbec), Nina SCHIETTEKATTE (EPHE Criobe) presented the essential tools for reproducible research (git/GitHub, rmarkdown, drake, R packages, etc.). Participants put into practice the knowledge acquired at the beginning of the training through projects in sub-groups. Everyone left satisfied with this experience.

 

Building on this success, a second edition will be organised in 2020. Subscribe to the newsletter of the FRB and its CESAB to be kept informed.

 

Formation Cesab décembre 2019

[FRB-CESAB] Two calls open early December 2019

  • Joint call FRB-CESAB / CIEE : launch December 3, 2019

Biodiversity in a time of global change

 

The Canadian Institute of Ecology and Evolution (CIEE) and the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) of the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB) offer a joint call for working groups that include researchers based primarily in Canada and France, on the topic “Biodiversity in a time of Global Change”.

 

Two working groups of eight researchers will be funded for two meetings each (the first one in 2020 in Vancouver – Canada; the second one in 2021 in Montpellier – France).

 

The full proposals should be sent by e-mail before 31/01/2020 and the selection will be made by the 06/03/2020.

 

  • Joint call FRB-CESAB / CeMEB: launch December 9, 2019

Short term stays for foreign researchers (2-3 months)

 

The CeMEB LabEx (Mediterranean Environment and Biodiversity Centre) and the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) of the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB) offer financial support for hosting 2 foreign researchers for short stays at the CESAB in Montpellier (from 2 months minimum to 3 months maximum).

 

The full proposals should be sent by e-mail before 12/03/2020 and the selection will be made by the 15/05/2020.

[CESAB] The project FAIR_Data hosted by CESAB

The CESAB of the FRB is an internationally renowned research structure whose objective is to implement innovative work to synthesize and analyse existing data sets in the field of biodiversity.

CESAB now offers researchers the opportunity to meet and make progress on their projects combining data synthesis and biodiversity. Today, it is inaugurating a new collaboration with the FAIR project by hosting a meeting.

The growing need to make research data ” Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable” (hence the principles of FAIR data) has led to the creation of a think tank within the Montpellier academic community. The objective of this group is to apply the principles of FAIR data and to develop procedures for their implementation in different disciplinary fields: biodiversity/ecology, agronomy, engineering sciences, human and social sciences. It was set up in spring 2019 at the initiative of LabEx CeMEB, NUMEV, Agro and the DigitAg convergence institute.

The Reflection Group is meeting today for the second time with the objective of designing a data management plan and identifying the relevant terminology resources (metadata, controlled vocabularies) to produce “FAIR” data sets.

 

 

Principal Investigator :

Eric GARNIER (CNRS)

 

Participants :

Cédric BOURRASSET – ATOS ; Sophie BOUTIN – Université de Montpellier ; Marie-Christine CORMIER SALEM – AGROPOLIS ; Olivier GIMENEZ – CNRS ; François GREGOIRE – ATOS ; Mylène JONQUET – LIRMM ; Carole KERDELHUE – INRA ; Anne LAURENT – Université Montpellier ; Emmanuel LE CLEZIO – Université Montpellier ; Nicolas MOUQUET – CNRS-FRB ; Loïc MAISONNASSE – ATOS ; Antoine OLGIATI – ATOS ; Andrea PARMEGGIANI – Université Montpellier  ; Pierre PERE – IRSTEA ; Pascal PONCELET – LIRMM ; Lionel TORRES – Université Montpellier ; Olivier TORRES – UPV.

 

[FRB-CESAB] Newsletter 1 CESAB – July 2019

A WORD FROM THE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR

 

FRB Cesab Nicolas Mouquet

Nicolas Mouquet


The CESAB has moved to Montpellier after 8 years of in Aix-en-Provence. 2018 has been a year of transition and we are still adjusting to our new environment in 2019! Moving has been an incredible challenge and I want to thank here the former CESAB director and staff as well as the FRB for having worked hard to make it happen.By bringing together the best international scientific teams around scientific synthesis, combining data, models and concepts, the work of CESAB should enable us to better understand the functioning of biodiversity, its state and its dynamics, from local to global scales. By shedding some light on the organization of ecological systems and socio-ecosystems, CESAB should help us address the complexity of these systems and the conditions of their resilience.
 
Moving to Montpellier is for the CESAB a great opportunity to evolve and match the new challenges of biodiversity science. There is a real need for us to secure more funding for open calls but also to open our calls and the CESAB to other actors concerned with biodiversity research and conservation. IPBES 7th Plenary in Paris has been an incredible catalyzer for biodiversity science, and I hope we will meet together the challenge we face to provide both an understanding of biodiversity dynamics and large-scale predictions of its fate in a changing world.
 

For us, these last months have been the occasion for rethinking our functioning and to test some new tools and initiatives, we have hired new staff, launched two specific calls: one with the AFB (French Agency for Biodiversity) and one joint call with the sDiv (German Biodiversity Synthesis Center), renewed our scientific comity, are working to propose formation for students, and have done our best to help the ongoing and new CESAB groups. This has been done in only few months, which illustrates our collective motivation to continue the CESAB and to help more than ever the scientific community working on biodiversity. I want here to thanks the new FRB staff dedicated to CESAB without whom I would never have survived to this first half of 2019 and all FRB team for their trust and help! I also want to make homage to Eric Garnier and Alison Specht, former scientific directors of the CESAB, who have worked to make the CESAB a leading research organization with a high scientific level and international influence.

 

Biodiversity centers are the right tools to meet the challenges we face with the biodiversity crisis. I really hope 2019 will be the year when public and private actors concerned with the state of biodiversity, will realize how much we have a collective responsibility to give these centers the means they need to support the science of biodiversity synthesis! 

 

Nicolas Mouquet

 
 

More information about CESAB

 

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