Protecting biodiversity: a top priority

In this very first episode of #VaSavoir, Maxime meets snakes with Xavier Bonnet and his team from the Chizé Centre for Biological Studies. Xavier Bonnet has studied snakes for more than 30 years and is one of the most well-known French herpetologists. A perfect opportunity to consider if it is actually reasonable to fear them, but also to try to understand some strange evolutionary mechanisms and the need to make space for life in this over-tidy room that is our landscape…

It is a unique tool for studying corals and marine ecosystems. In this report, navigate the lagoons of French Polynesia aboard a scientific vessel, a ship-laboratory developed by scientists from the CRIOBE research centre, in Moorea.

Faced with global warming, coral reefs are on the front line. As global temperatures rise, the coral bleaches and dies. This decline has an impact on its entire ecosystem. Coral reef researchers Serge Planes and Laetitia Hédouin explain why research at CRIOBE is crucial to saving the coral. This video was produced as part of the OneOceanScience campaign organised by Ifremer, CNRS and IRD. Scientists from 33 countries take part in this digital world tour and explain in a series of short…

The green sea turtle is now facing a high risk of extinction. In order to protect it, we first need to understand it better. That is why, since 2013, a team of 40 researchers and volunteers have been diving in Martinican waters to catch these reptiles. Before releasing the turtles into the ocean, they have been equipping them with satellite tags, cameras and microchips. This marking system enables scientists to follow the turtles' migratory patterns, dive behaviour, and to study the…

The 2015 CNRS Gold Medal, France's highest scientific distinction, has been awarded to the cell biologist Eric Karsenti, CNRS senior researcher emeritus. His career has been marked by significant breakthroughs concerning cell cycle regulation, the mechanisms that enable cells to divide. Karsenti has spent a large part of his working life at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Germany. He also pioneered interdisciplinary approaches in cell biology, which he applied in the…

In French Guiana, leatherback turtles—the largest sea turtles in the world—return to the same beach multiple times over the year to lay their eggs. But fewer are making it back, threatening the species with extinction. Researchers have been tracking and monitoring them to better understand the increasing anthropogenic and environmental pressures on their ecosystem.

About 70.8 % of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans. This huge reservoir of biodiversity is home to millions of species. Three researchers, Gilles Le Boeuf, Nadine Le Bris and Nathalie Niquil, explain the impacts of climate change on the marine environment. The multiple alterations caused by humans weaken ocean ecosystems and undermine their role as natural climate regulators. These far-reaching changes, which affect the abundance and diversity of marine species, have an impact on the…

Marie Charpentier, an evolutionary biologist at the CEFE (Centre d ' Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Montpellier, France) and coordinator of the Mandrillus project (created in early 2012, until April 2013 at Lékédi Park in the province of Upper Ogowe Gabon). There, She has followed, during a year and an half, a population of mandrills in the wild in order to understand the social structure of a group and its impact on the health of its individuals. Her research focuses on the influence…

Antoine Spire interviews Franck Courchamp, an ecologist and senior researcher in the CNRS laboratory “Ecology, Systematics and Evolution”.