European Researchers' Night in Chambéry

In the Alps, high mountain ecosystems can be found just a few dozen kilometers from Chambéry. Although they began to be explored as early as the end of the 18th century, they remain little-known. Recently, a team of ecology researchers and botanists fromUniversité Savoie Mont Blanc, the University of Grenoble and the Parc National des Écrins described several new species of androsaces, a group of flowering plants whose high-mountain species form small moss-like cushions.

Sébastien Ibanez is a lecturer at USMB and a researcher at the Alpine Ecology Laboratory. He works on the structure and functioning of ecosystems, in particular the relationships between herbivores, plants and soil. He is also a mountain guide, and part of his research focuses on high-altitude ecosystems.

Around 13 million apple cobs are produced every year, and the volume is growing all over the world. In many countries, this waste is buried in the ground, causing problems for human health and the environment. Yet this waste still contains many high-value-added molecules, such as phloridzin, known for its anti-oxidant and anti-diabetic effects in particular.

A graduate of the Green Chemistry Master's program at Paul Sabatier University, Lauriane Bruna is in her 2nd year of a PhD on the Val'Apple project as part of the European UNITA Alliance. She is working on the valorization of apple waste using "green" processes for antibacterial applications.

Present all over the planet, plants are the tip of an unsuspected iceberg. By their very presence and that of a host of accompanying organisms, plants modify ecosystems. We invite you to discover the superpowers of plants through reeds (Phragmites australis), which modify bio-chemical cycles through their presence, and alpine cushion plants, which create rich, living islands in high mountain deserts.

Baptiste Boggio (Dr) and Keyvan Dumas are both young researchers in ecology. Baptiste completed his thesis on Phragmites australis reedbeds in large Alpine lakes at the Centre Alpin de Recherche sur les Réseaux Trophiques et Ecosystèmes Limniques (CARRTEL) in Le Bourget du Lac. Keyvan is currently a doctoral student at the Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA) in Le Bourget du Lac. After a master's degree in mountain ecology at USMB, he is currently working on a thesis on the "engineer" effect of cushion plants in high mountain environments.

Mental health is based on a number of determinants that can explain what makes it fragile and what protects it. These determinants include personal history, biological characteristics and social and environmental influences. The living environment is therefore potentially very important for mental health. Is nature likely to make us suffer or satisfy us?

Arnaud Carré is a teacher-researcher in Psychology. He is deputy director of theResearch unit in Psychology LIP/PC2S (Chambéry-Grenoble) at the USMB, and scientific director of the Chair in Well-being, Mental Health and Territory (BEST) supported by the Université Savoie Mont Blanc Foundation.

In the 16th century, the world of Europeans was profoundly changed by the discovery of new lands. The plant catalog expanded to include previously unknown flora. The new forms of the printed book enabled plants to be accompanied by images, often taken from nature. A new way of doing science was born: richly illustrated floras, public botany courses and herbariums were all examples of these new naturalist practices.

Emilie Dreyfus is a specialist in written heritage, in charge of the Heritage Department at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau multimedia library. She is also a doctoral student in the history and epistemology of geography at the Géographie-cités laboratory in Paris 1, where she is studying the representation of animals on early maps (1500-1800).

Dam lakes are tidal, meaning that their level varies throughout the year according to rainfall and, above all, turbine flow. Between the high and low levels lies the foreshore, often bare and eroded, but not always and/or not completely. What plants can withstand being drowned for a few months, sometimes under ten meters of water, and then endure the drought of skeletal soils? What are their strategies, and what lessons can they teach us?

Etienne Dambrine is a lecturer and researcher in the CARRTEL laboratory at USMB, specializing in lake sediments. He studies mountain soils from a variety of angles.

Invasive alien plants are species introduced into ecosystems where they have not evolved naturally, and which spread rapidly, causing significant environmental, economic and social damage. They are considered one of the main threats to biodiversity worldwide. The EDYTEM laboratory is working on the valorization of some of these plants (ragweed, Japanese knotweed, solidago, etc.) in order to use them in different applications and to give an economic value to their waste to encourage campaigns to uproot and combat their spread.

Grégory CHATEL is a teacher-researcher at the USMB and is developing research in green chemistry at the EDYTEM laboratory on the valorization of biomass and waste.

Within their cells, plants possess the machinery needed to produce thousands of molecules from solar energy, water and CO2. This process, known as photosynthesis, is at the origin of all the compounds that the plant, which is by nature immobile, uses to combat the often stressful conditions of its environment, but also to communicate with its many partners. Examples will be developed to illustrate the sophistication of these interactions.

Christiane Gallet is a professor at USMB and teaches in the mountain courses. Her research at the Alpine Ecology Laboratory focuses on plant metabolism (particularly but not exclusively alpine), its diversity and its role in the interactions between plants and their environment.

Plants are capable of thriving in any environment, even when conditions are difficult (e.g. pollution). Why are some able to do this and others not? Come and discover some of their secrets...

Geneviève Chiapusio is a professor at USMB's CARRTEL laboratory. She specializes in plants, their natural communication with other living organisms and their responses to global changes in ecosystems and agroecosystems. She is involved in university training courses to enable students to grasp the complexity of the scientific and societal issues involved in preserving biodiversity.

History... for many people, the word conjures up school memories, more or less painful, of dates to memorize. These dates mark milestones in the past of human beings: their conflicts, their scientific advances, their political and social conquests and so on. Can't we integrate other categories of living beings into the historical narrative? This is one of the challenges to which environmental history is currently seeking to respond. Trees, too, have a history and are part of history.

Émilie-Anne Pépy is a lecturer in modern history at the USMB. Her current research at the LLSETI laboratory focuses on the history of societies' relationships with the plant world from the 17th to the 19th century.

As the interface between atmosphere, rock, biosphere and hydrosphere, soil is at the heart of the cycle of elements such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. They are the basic link in the nutritional chain: on the one hand, they are the larder of plants, and on the other, they support an extraordinary diversity of organisms capable of supplying them with nutrients (bacteria, fungi, etc.). At a time of global change, soils are at the heart of considerable environmental and societal challenges (carbon storage, water cycle regulation, plant nutrition), and their functions are both vulnerable and threatened.

Nicolas BONFANTI is a doctoral student in ecology of high-altitude environments atUniversité Savoie Mont Blanc in the EDYTEM and CARRTEL laboratories. A mountain guide and keen botanist, his research focuses on the consequences of global warming on the functioning of biogeochemical cycles (carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus) in alpine ecosystems.

A multitude of unsuspected plant species, sometimes invisible to the naked eye, along or in the middle of the lake, on or under water, are essential to the lake's other living creatures as sources of food, shelter or spawning sites. They also perform lesser-known functions such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus fixation, and sometimes even play a role in greenhouse gas emissions.

Jean-Christophe Clément has been a professor of ecology atUniversité Savoie Mont Blanc since 2016, and conducts research on the functioning of lacustrine wetlands at the CARRTEL laboratory.

Florent Arthaud is a lecturer atUniversité Savoie Mont Blanc and a researcher at CARRTEL. He works in plant ecology, community ecology and the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. His current work focuses on high altitude lakes and wetlands, as well as the coastline of the major Alpine lakes.