Biodiversity Challenges

INVITATION

You are cordially invited to

"Les Rendez-vous du CNRS"

September 28th, 2009 at 6 pm

Maison Française, Embassy of France

Yvon Le Maho, Director of Research at CNRS and Member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea, will be giving a free conference entitled

"Why are the Preservation of Biodiversity and the Development of Ecological Research

Major Challenges?"

In the face of current social and economic challenges, the preservation of biodiversity does not always appear to be a priority. However, each species currently provides or may provide in the future important services in an infinite number of fields (food, health, industry, leisure etc.). Therefore, biodiversity constitutes a sort of "insurance" for future generations and is a key component of sustainable development.

Within the scientific community excluding the field of ecology, the study of biodiversity, however, is often considered to be a less stringent area of study than those referred to as the hard sciences. The conference will show that the study of evolutionary processes, the morphological, physiological and molecular adjustments of living organisms, animal behavior, how ecosystems function, population dynamics and landscape ecology are definitely individual scientific fields that are indispensable to the understanding of biodiversity and the services it provides to humans, as well as understanding its preservation.

The conference will provide examples of the services provided by biodiversity. It will show, for example, that animal adaptations to climate variability can be a source of new molecules of biomedical interest. It will also show that the preservation of biodiversity requires a multidisciplinary approach. For instance, associating economists and evolution biologists together may result in developing new fishing regulations that, instead of the usual quotas, would allow larger revenue on the long term while preserving the resource. Finally, the conference will show that we need ecology to become a more mechanistic scientific field. An example would be to consider how plants can defend themselves from pests, by attracting the predators of these pests, and whether this defense mechanism can be mimicked.

Please see the attached invitation (.jpg) for more information. Feel free to forward this message.

RSVP to Delphine Tessier by Email: deputy-cnrs@ ambafrance- us.org or Tel: (202)944-6238 by September 25th, 2009.