Centre for Bio-Archeology and Ecology

Montpellier is the first town in France for researcs on biodiversity and among the first in Europe. The LabEx CEMEB – Mediterranean Center for Environment and Biodiversity (www.agropolis.org/news/labex-agro-cemeb.php) builds on this excellence of research in Biodiversity in Montpellier, the strong involvement of the concerned units in applied environmental issues and their strong pluridisciplinary experience. Besides its positive effects on the whole ecological research community in Montpellier, it is also a major contribution to the emergence of an integrative environmental science at the core of “Initiative d’excellence” project of Montpellier, in coherence with the National Innovation and Research Strategy (SNRI). The CEMEB is represented in the consortium through the Centre for Bio-Archeology and Ecology (CBAE). The CBAE is a research centre under the authority of two universities (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes [EPHE], Université Montpellier 2) and one governmental research organisation (CNRS). One team of the CBAE conducts research in forest chronoecology and paleoecology of mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical ecosystems. This team brings together 7 scientists, 2 research assistants and about 10 PhD and Master degree students per year. The strength of CBAE lies in its ability to develop integrated paleoecological studies, based both on empirical reconstructions and modelling of climate, disturbances, vegetation and soil. The originality of the research carried out in this reaserch team is to analyse the place and the function of disturbances in the global ecology, assuming that past global changes resulting from climate or society explain the changes in disturbances regimes and, that these disturbances control the ecosystems at global- to stand-scale through the millennia. Finally, disturbance-mediated changes in ecosystems can act by feed-backs on the global changes trough biogeochemical cycles and to disturbance regime trough modifications in vegetation quality.  Researchers from the ecology-paleoecology team are involved in the land and forest management trough, for instance, their participation to scientific councils of natural reserves or of the Man and Biosphere program. CEMEB is also integrated by the CEFE (Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive) which develops research on ecology with relevant issues for global forest issues and has a potential to build into the NEWFORESTS project during its development.

Researchers

Researcher	Main research topic		Researcher	Main research topic
	Christopher Carcaillet Email Processes that govern ecosystem changes over periods of time greater than 100 years: mostly wildfires and land abandonment			Adam Ali Email Global change, disturbances and dynamics of boreal and alpine ecosystems
	Christelle Hely Global change, disturbances and dynamics of boreal and alpine ecosystems