Author's posts
Mar 28
High school students discovering the forest ecosystem
As part of the seventh international day dedicated to plant sciences entitled “Fascination of Plants Day – 2024”, the EFNO unit of the INRAE Val de Loire center will welcome 70 students from the Bernard Palissy high school in Gien (Loiret). This welcome will take place on May 7 at the OPTMix experimental device located …
Mar 28
A strange flying object on OPTMix
As part of a project that aim to better define the leaf surface of mixed stands (InFoMix), we benefited from the scientific and technical support of the Zone Atelier Loire and Mathieu Bonnefond from LECAM in Tours, for a flight of a drone equipped with a LiDAR in February 2024. This flight will be repeated, …
Apr 05
New experiment (OSCAR project): “How wild ungulates modify the cycle of nutrients and carbon in the forest ?”
At the end of March, a new experiment was set up in the low-density plots in enclosures and exclosures. The project, named OSCAR (“How wild ungulates modify the cycle of nutrients and carbon in the forest”) aims at testing the effect of ungulates on the biogeochemical cycles. We installed ion exchange resins, buried at 8 …
Mar 22
A new experiment is begining: dynamics of degradation of environmental DNA and organic carbon
At the beginning of March, a new manipulation was installed on 3 plots (a triplet pure oak, mixture, pure pine). This experiment is replicated on different sites of the AnaEE network. The project is conducted by collaborators : the eDNA platform and the CEREEP Ecotron IDF, the EcoGeno platform and Lucie Zinger from the IBENS …
Mar 09
A recent study by the MASTIF network sheds new light on seed production by trees
For two years, the OPTMix experiment has contributed with data on seed production to the MASTIF network. The MASTIF Network, Mast Inference and Prediction, (https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/clarklab/projects/mastif-network/) is a long-term monitoring network with more than 500 plots and crop-count locations across the world, representing decades of intensive field and laboratory work. In a recent article, Michal Bogdziewicz …
Dec 15
Snapshot Europe
Like last year, the OPTMix device participated in the Snapshot Europe initiative in 2022. Snapshot Europe (https://app.wildlifeinsights.org/initiatives/2000166/Snapshot-Europe) is a coordinated and standardized camera trap effort to collect data on mammals across Europe. The initiative is supported by Euromammals and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, in partnership with Snapshot USA (https://app.wildlifeinsights.org/initiatives/2000156/Snapshot-USA). Collaborators sample 10-50 …
Sep 05
Article published: Emerging stability of forest productivity by mixing two species buffers temperature destabilizing effect
An article has just been published in the “Journal of Applied Ecology” journal dealing with the effect of mixing tree species on forest productivity. This article shows that two species mixed stands have a greater productivity stability over time than comparable monospecific stands. Mixed stands would buffer the destabilizing effect of temperatures on growth, which …
Jun 22
Article published: With increasing site quality asymmetric competition and mortality reduces Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) stand structuring across Europe
An article has just been published in the “Forest Ecology and Management” journal dealing with the stand structuring of monospecific Scots pine forests. This article shows that the stand structuring decreases with site quality because of mortality and asymmetric competition processes. The OPTMix plots contributed to the data of this study based on 90 Scots …
Jun 07
A new internship on forest regeneration begins on OPTMix plots
Matias Bentkowski is carrying out his internship at the EFNO unit of INRAE. The aim is to study the impact of summer drought on tree regeneration. The field experiment is done using the OPTMix research facility. It consists of measuring water stress and the annual growth of seedlings of Scots pine and Sessile oak under …
Apr 04
Study of tree crowns complementarity
In mixed forests, complementarity can be expressed by a differentiate use of space between species so that each species makes the best use of the light resource according to its photosynthetic capacities. This spatial differentiation between species is possible thanks to plasticity in crown architecture. Thus many articles report an increase in the extent and …
