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International Associated Laboratory between INRAE (France), INTA (Argentina), UNAH (Perú) and CP (Mexico)

The LIA FORESTIA is an international associated laboratory between four research laboratories, in Argentina, the “Área de Investigación en Sistemas Forestales” of INTA Bariloche, in France, the UMR INRAE – ONF BioForA (“Biologie intégrée pour la valorisation de la diversité des arbres et de la forêt”) of INRAE Val de Loire, in Perú, the National Autonomous University of Huanta and in Mexico, the "posgrado en ciencias forestales" of the Colegio de Postgraduados, Texcoco.

Other INTA and INRAE units participate to the LIA FORESTIA:

• In Argentina: INTA Tandil, Buenos Aires; INTA Montecarlo, Misiones; INTA Castelar, Buenos-Aires
• In France: UMR PIAF (INRAE Clermont-Ferrand); UR FM (INRAE Avignon); UMR BIOGECO (INRAE Bordeaux); UR ZF (INRAE Val de Loire), UE GBFOR (INRAE Val de Loire).

FORESTIA stands for “Integrated study of Adaptation to (a)biotic STress of natural and planted FOREsts”

GENERAL PRESENTATION OF THE LIA FORESTIA

The LIA FORESTIA aims at investigating adaptive mechanisms and their application to forest tree breeding and silviculture. To achieve that goal, we defined specific objectives:

• To identify relevant adaptive traits by investigating their relation with fitness (3.1)
• To determine the functional role of these relevant adaptive traits (3.2)
• To explore the phenotypic, genetic (quantitative and molecular) and environmental variation of the adaptive traits driving the mechanisms of adaptation in different model species submitted to various abiotic or biotic stressors (3.3)
• To works on the design, test and validation of innovative tools and methods involved in forest tree breeding, forest management and wood quality studies (3.4)

The substance of the project is built around the hypothesis that a part of the relevant adaptive traits is directly or indirectly based on basic wood properties and annual rings. Annual rings provide convenient retrospective access to tree response to biotic and abiotic stressors. The main abiotic stressors studied by the FORESTIA LIA are drought and frost. The significance of the annual ring response can be investigated in association with major wood functions like sap conduction. Recent drought-induced diebacks associated to the climate change are opportunities to study the relationships between basic wood properties and the survival component of fitness. Annual rings offer original opportunities to study inter and intra annual phenotypic plasticity. In the end, wood studies also provide information about wood production, quantity and quality. Wood is a central study-object of the FORESTIA LIA. Consequently, the LIA elaborates technological innovations associated to wood measurement.

With the intensification of international trade and travel, an increasing number of forest pests are exotic. More forest biomass is lost to insects than to forest fires (FAO). The FORESTIA LIA would contribute to improve the knowledge of invasion pathways, adaptive traits of target pests and invasion risks via modelling studies.

Finally yet importantly, the FORESTIA LIA wants to be involved in the mitigation of the unfavourable effects of the climate change. That is why it does not only provide basic scientific knowledge but also works on the design, test and validation of innovative tools and methods involved in forest tree breeding and forest management.

The FORESTIA scientific project is strongly integrative and multi-disciplinary, with the main disciplines being wood sciences, dendro-ecology, physiology and ecophysiology, quantitative, population and molecular genetics and evolutionary biology.

The main forest tree model species are native and introduced, planted and naturally regenerated; in Argentina: Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, cordillera cypress, four nothofagus species, four eucalyptus species, poplars and hybrid pines; in France: Douglas-fir, European larch, hybrid larch and poplars; in Peru : Haplorhus and in Mexico : Pinus hartwegii and others mountain conifers (Pinus and Abies mainly)