Website Université Paris-Saclay
- DescriptionThe French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) is a public research institution with a workforce of 12,000 people, comprising 272 research, service, and experimental units located in 18 centers across France. INRAE is among the world’s leading research organizations in agricultural and food sciences, as well as plant and animal sciences. Its research aims to develop solutions for high-performing agriculture, quality food, and the sustainable management of resources and ecosystems.
Work environment, missions, and activities:You will be based at the AMAP laboratory in Montpellier (https://amap.cirad.fr/en/), within a highly dynamic interdisciplinary research group that combines botany, ecology, plant architecture, remote sensing, and modeling to understand and predict the distribution, functioning, and dynamics of vegetation.
This position is part of the FORESTT research program (https://www.pepr-forestt.fr/), which funds interdisciplinary research projects focused on the socio-ecological transition of temperate and tropical forest systems. More specifically, you will contribute to the modeling tasks of the REGE-ADAPT and X-RISKS projects, which respectively focus on forest regeneration and forest responses to multiple hazards.
You will work closely with Isabelle Maréchaux (INRAE, AMAP, Montpellier), Xavier Morin (CNRS, CEFE, Montpellier), Maxime Cailleret (INRAE, RECOVER & PIAF, Aix-en-Provence & Clermont-Ferrand), and Joannès Guillemot (CIRAD, Eco&Sol, Montpellier), and will interact regularly with several groups of modelers and forest ecologists involved in the REGE-ADAPT and X-RISKS projects. You will benefit from the support of François de Coligny (INRAE, AMAP, Montpellier), project manager and developer of the CAPSIS forest modeling platform (https://capsis.cirad.fr/).
Your responsibilities will include:
– Documenting and reviewing the state of the art in representing regeneration and mortality processes in dynamic vegetation models.
– Designing one or more model comparison exercises, in close collaboration with a large group of forest modelers, to test the effects of model structure on simulated regeneration and mortality.
– Assembling the necessary datasets to parameterize, calibrate, initialize, and evaluate the different models involved in the comparison.
– Coordinating and contributing to the launch and processing of simulations with the various modeling teams.
– Analyze the results of models related to forest regeneration, composition, structure, productivity, and resilience, and compare them with observations.
– Propose avenues for model development and data collection to better predict forest regeneration and tree mortality in the face of multiple risks.
– Conduct the writing of scientific manuscripts.
The position involves office work. Travel within France and abroad will be required to meet with various modeling teams, participate in project meetings, and attend conferences.
- ProfileRecommended education: You hold a PhD in ecology, forestry, or vegetation modeling.
Desired knowledge: You have a basic understanding of forest ecology and plant demography.
Preferred experience: Experience in vegetation modeling and statistical analysis of large environmental databases (using R, Python, Java, etc.) would be highly beneficial.
Desired skills: You have demonstrated quantitative skills and the ability to produce high-quality scientific publications; you possess excellent communication skills and the ability and willingness to work collaboratively. The ability to communicate in French is an asset.
- Additional informationHow to apply:
Send (1) a cover letter, (2) a CV and (3) the names and email addresses of at least two references, in a single PDF file, to Isabelle Maréchaux (isabelle.marechaux@inrae.fr), Xavier Morin (xavier.morin@cefe.cnrs.fr) and Maxime Cailleret (maxime.cailleret@inrae.fr).
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