Hello, some information on a summer school co-organized by our institute : 4th NFZ Summer School FORMOD "Modelling forest community organisation, functions and dynamics for improving forest management" Le Tholy (France), September 2008 6th-14th NFZForest.net, a European research and training network in forest sciences (8 Universities and Research Institutes at Nancy, Freiburg, Zürich) organizes its 4th Summer School in Le Tholy (Vosges Mountains, near Epinal, North-East France), on September 2008, 6th to 14th. FORMOD is directed at post graduate students (end of Master, PhD or Post Doc). Scope : In forestry, traditional tools for decision-making are based upon phenomenological models of site quality, stand dynamics and wood properties (site-productivity models, yield tables, dynamic or allometric models). The design of these tools makes intensive use of data bases, permanent plot networks, mathematical and statistical methods (dynamic systems, multivariate analysis, regression, mixed models). They are efficient for representing the variety of silvicultural scenarios and their impact on stand demography, tree growth and morphology, dynamics of quality criteria. Recent progresses in GIS, data base combinations and statistical modelling create new fields of applications: species habitat mapping, landscape- level community dynamics, resource evaluation. A major challenge to the phenomenological approach is raised by ongoing trends in ecosystem dynamics and forest management. The assumption that site is stationary is contradicted by the evidence of long-term trends in climate, CO2 and atmospheric depositions, soil chemistry, with measurable impacts on tree growth and plant community structure. Management criteria enlarge to a broad range of objectives and constraints : high quality timber, pulp, panels, fuelwood ; biodiversity, carbon storage and substitution, landscape, soil fertility and water quality. Much more attention is paid to evaluating forest vulnerability and resilience with regard to disturbances, devising adaptive strategies and focusing on risk management. At the same time, physiology, ecology and wood sciences have accumulated a large knowledge corpus on forest response to environment, tree functioning, species habitats and leaf traits, relationships between wood formation and industrial performance. This led to the design of mechanistic process-based models, more responsive to environment variations. Due to their high number of parameters, specific problems of model fitting, evaluation and practical application have to be addressed. To associate generality and precision, different forms of hybrid models have been investigated. The objective of the Summer School is to illustrate the interest and diversity of modelling approaches, for both understanding forest ecosystem dynamics and improving their management. General lectures on modelling different scientific problems are associated with in- depth methodological lectures and debates (current policy issues, management needs, training systems). Interested students are invited to make a pre-registration. You'll find more informations and the pre-registation form at this address : https://www2.nancy.inra.fr/collectif/formod/ _________________________________________________________ Oliver Brendel UMR Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestiere INRA - Centre de Nancy 54280 Champenoux France brendel(a)nancy.inra.fr TEL 0033/383/394100 FAX /394022