Among the few laboratories selected within the Biology / Health sector at the French level for the label “Laboratory of excellence”, the TULIP project from Toulouse will benefit of 10 millions euros over 10 years.
The TULIP project aims at merging scientific communities in ecology and plant biology as a major institute of “Integrative Biology and Ecology” with high potential outputs in academic, environmental and agronomic sciences, as well as teaching. Its innovative research covers the full spectrum of biotic/abiotic interactions, from genes to ecosystems, in natural and/or anthropogenic environments.
The major scientific issues targeted by TULIP have been organized in five major themes of research according to the level of complexity considered.
Organism - abiotic environment interactions (the scale of the sole organism
Organism - Organism interactions (two partner interactions)
Environmental effects on organism-organism interaction
Interactions within populations and communities
Towards a unified theory of biological interactions
Research domains involved in translational activities are the development of new environmentallyfriendly inputs (biopesticides, biofertilizers), the genetic improvement of crop quality to increase plant resistance to pathogens, and the valorization of both ligno-cellulosic biomass and food quality. Our current challenge is to study the impact of biotic interactions at various levels of complexity ranging from molecular, physiological and organism levels to behavioural, species and community levels. The combination of these disciplines is particularly pertinent to elaborate compatible approaches merging mechanistic approaches developed on species of agronomical and ecological interest with more theoretical (ecological and evolutionary) approaches developed in ecology. This integrative strategy has been designed to generate innovations in terms of concepts and theories, but also in terms of the development of new tools and practices in agrobioscience, ecotechnology and conservation biology.
Contact : Dominique Roby, roby@toulouse.inra.fr