CHOICE2

The objective of this EU is to explore the diversity of life forms and morphological and functional adaptations of plants living in tropical regions. Each of the major biological types will be analyzed (trees, grasses, vines, epiphytes, hemiepiphytes, etc.) in order to understand their architecture and modes of development, and to study the particularities of their functioning.

A comparative analysis will attempt to define the nature of the adaptations that have enabled these plants to occupy all available niches.

Particular emphasis will be placed, from an evolutionary perspective, on studying the biomechanical and conduction properties in situ that characterize some of them.

Another focus will be on tree ontogenesis, addressing architectural concepts related to the processes involved in the development of large tropical tree crowns, including root strategies. The interaction between vegetative structures, reproduction, and secondary growth will be addressed in practical work on tropical material.

The concepts of growth and competition in populations will be addressed using simple examples with concepts of growth modeling.

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This course introduces students to social science research (from developing a topic to writing a report), with an emphasis on qualitative methods. It consists mainly of field research on the general theme of nature management in cities. It aims to introduce students to the social dimensions of environmental management issues, as well as to the methods of producing and processing qualitative data in the social sciences. In this regard, it trains students to develop diagnoses of environmental management situations by working on three main types of skills: (i) Producing and analyzing heterogeneous data (written, oral, observational), (ii) Analyzing multidimensional, complex, and unique situations, (iii) Communicating the complexity of these situations to an audience.

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