Objectifs scientifiques et projet de recherche

The EFESE team aims at conducting a multidisciplinary research project on the diversity and functioning of mangrove ecosystems in Southeast Asia. The team builds on 2 ½ years of close collaboration between the partner unit and the team members resulting in joint student supervision, research projects and publications. Mangroves, hotspots of diversity and productivity, play an essential role in the functioning of coastal zones and provide a multitude of crucial services to local populations. Nevertheless, these ecosystems are among the most threatened in the world: 35% of their global cover has already disappeared and the decline continues at a rate of 2% per year. The conservation of this fragile ecosystem is a national priority in many countries, among others Vietnam. In order to establish efficient conservation strategies and management plans we urgently need to improve our understanding on the responses of mangrove ecosystems to the global changes that menace the coastal wetlands. The aim of the research project is to study the influence of river discharges – which are expected to increase under the current global change scenarios – on the mangrove ecosystem and the biological resources pertaining to this system. The study will be carried out in the Red River and Mekong Deltas, where mangroves fringe the coastline and sustain a large diversity of aquatic organisms. Field studies and laboratory experiments will be coupled and various techniques adapted to the research question will be employed (stable isotope analyses, spectrofluorometry, isotopic labelling, carbon fluxes, statistical data analyses). The researchers involved in this team come from different backgrounds ranging from biogeochemistry, microbiology and benthic ecology to taxonomy, allowing for a truly interdisciplinary approach. The team is located at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and the Vietnam National University in Hanoi, particularly dynamic centres of excellence in Vietnam, facilitating the recruitment of Master and PhD students.

Unités IRD impliquées

5R24800 : MARBEC

Institutions membres

IEBR : Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources

Responsable(s)

M. x

Correspondant

Mme. X

Disciplines scientifiques

Sciences de la Terre et de l'univers, espace

Thématiques de recherche

The aim of the EFESE team is to conduct a research project by fostering already existing collaborations between the team members and to create a durable research group able to attract funding from national and international sources and to produce high-quality research outputs. In Vietnam, there is a severe lack of interdisciplinary research activities; generally the different institutions work rather isolated from each other, with few exchanges taking place along transversal axes. The objective of this JEAI is to create a multidisciplinary research group on mangrove ecosystems. Federating expertise from various fields of environmental sciences around a currently pressing research question in mangrove ecology (i.e. impacts of global changes on natural systems) is truly innovative and will provide important new insights into the functioning of these threatened ecosystems.