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Carapa.org - Biography

Positions

Pierre-Michel Forget | Create your badge

Former Position

Education - Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6)

Research Interest

I am particularly interested in the ecology of some key tree species with important economical value for timber production and non-timber forest products illustrating a variety of mode of seed dispersal by animals or other means (gravity, wind, ballistic). I am also concerned by the more global approach of rainforest biodiversity. In 2001, with collaborators, we initiated a long-term protocol in French Guiana in order to analyse the effect of the climate variability on fruit productivity and seed dispersal in the forest, and to study how climate change may ultimately affect fruit availability for frugivores, thus seed fate and tree recruitment on the long term. Though I have experimented a number of these species and analysed their seed and seedling ecology in various forest types and conditions of perturbances in the Guianas and Panama, I am now focusing on one tree genus, Carapa spp. (Meliaceae) with important ecosystemic services for both Nature and Human beings in America and Africa. I am especially trying to combine two approaches, taxonomy and ecology, in order to better understand how trees dispersed (and still are dispersing) from Africa to America, and then adapted to new habitat conditions. I am also very concerned by the sustainability and equitable use and market of non-timber forest products such as, for instance, the natural oil that is extracted from Carapa seeds in both continents. A complete presentation of our on-going projects is presented at the Forget Lab Projects.

Our current main field study sites are :

Publications

Updated 5 Avril 2013