Digital publication of Prof. Chris Bowler's opening lecture

Chris Bowler

Biodiversity and Ecosystems through time and space

" After 4.5 billion years of evolution, our planet is being depleted by intensive exploitation of fossil fuels and water, overconsumption of agricultural fertilizers and deforestation. We could be facing the biggest mass extinction in history.
Observing the organisms with which we cohabit enables us to better understand the functions of each and to perceive the scale of the phenomena underway, which are already threatening the future of humanity : loss of biodiversity, ecosystem degradation, climate change, epidemics. In the face of these alarming facts, scientists have a decisive role to play : produce models and formulate predictions to inspire concrete political action. "

Bowler C., Biodiversity and Ecosystems through Time and Space, Paris, Collège de France/Fayard, coll. "Leçons inaugurales du Collège de France",^no 302, [2021] 2022.

Research Director at CNRS and Director of the Plant and Algal Genomics Laboratory at the ENS Institute of Biology, Chris Bowler has been appointed to the Collège de France's annual Biodiversity and Ecosystems Chair, created with the support of the Jean-François and Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre Foundation, for the 2020-2021 academic year.