Sunday, June 20th

Maurice Hullé started by giving us an introduction of compared ecology on aphid populations between Arctic (Spitsberg) and sub-antarctic (Kerguelen). He explained how climate change might affect the aphid populations in opposite ways in the two regions. Maurice Hullé is at the INRA (French Institute for Agricultural and Food Research). His field of research is the ecology of aphid populations and for the last ten years he has been interested at studying the ecology of aphid populations in Polar Regions where they develop particular adaptations to face environment.

Françoise Hennion followed by a lecture not about insects but about plants in the sub-antarctic regions. She mainly spoke about their response to climate change.  Françoise Hennion is a CNRS (French National Center of Scientific Research) researcher.

We spent the afternoon at the Stordalen Mire (Torneträsk lake) where Erik Lundin told us about his research on carbon turnover in subarctic aquatic systems. He showed us his measure instruments on field. Then, we met Patrick Crill who explained us the mechanisms of permafrost in the region.