Launch of the 1st Junior Professorships at La Rochelle Université

The Junior Professor Chair (JPC) was established by the French research programming law and is a new recruitment procedure for full professors and research directors. Recruitment is based on a research and teaching project submitted by a doctoral or equivalent degree holder.

The University’s first two JPCs have started for a period of 5 years.

Shifting socio-ecological problems between ocean, biodiversity and climate: a global and interdisciplinary approach to ecological solidarity

One of the chairs, held by Bleuenn Guilloux at the LIttoral ENvironnement Et Sociétés (LIENSs) on the theme of law and governance of the earth system, is devoted to “Displacement of socio-ecological problems between ocean, biodiversity and climate: a global and interdisciplinary approach to ecological solidarity”.

This research project on the prevention, mitigation and resolution of socio-ecological problems and their displacement in space or towards future generations is part of the major themes of the UMR LIENSs of La Rochelle Université. This chair enables the laboratory to strengthen research in human and social sciences on the theme of governance of marine and coastal socio-ecosystems.

The scientific project aims to :

• define, identify and situate socio-ecological problems and identify the conditions under which problems shift from one legal regime to another
• assess and project the systemic effects of such shifts on the sustainability of the Earth system,
• propose congruent solutions for optimising the fragmented law and governance of the Earth system in the Anthropocene.

The pedagogical project focuses on socio-ecological solidarity in the context of global and regional environmental governance. It aims to learn how international regimes, especially in the environmental field, are designed to solve specific problems and how their potentially negative effects are not measured in a systematic way.

Behavioural Ecology of Marine Birds and Anthropogenic Disturbances, through monitoring with onboard sensors (ECOPAC)

The other chair, held by Julien Collet at the Chizé center for biological studies on the theme of evolutionary ecology, deals with the “Behavioural Ecology of Marine Birds and Anthropogenic Disturbances, through monitoring by on-board sensors (ECOPAC)”.

The scientific project focuses on

• the retrospective analysis of GPS-tracked seabird movement data at sea, to understand the history of their interaction behaviour with fishing boats
• the long-term continuation of GPS tracking of these birds.

The CEBC laboratory has one of the longest running bio-logging (sensors on board animals) monitoring programmes in the world, notably on different species of albatross. This family of seabirds is known for its attraction to fishing boats all over the world, where it can feed but also die by the tens of thousands each year. This raises many fundamental and applied questions about the evolution and potential adaptation of behaviours in response to human activities, and their implications for the conservation of these birds and their ecosystems of which they are the first sentinels. This research is therefore fully in line with the strategy of the UMR CEBC, which observes and characterises the responses of biodiversity to global changes through long-term multidimensional monitoring (biologging, but also population monitoring, detection of pollutants and their effects, etc.).

The teaching project is based on integration within the teaching team of the biology department. In the medium term, the objective is to emphasise the interdisciplinary training offer on the development, deployment and use of this type of biologging sensor, which automatically collects large volumes of data on biodiversity at various scales (individuals, populations and communities), in line with La Rochelle University’s overall strategy on Sustainable and Intelligent Urban Coastlines.