Science, Agriculture - Food

M1 - Plant-Microorganism Interactions (PMI)

  • Training structure

    Faculty of Science

Presentation

Plants directly and indirectly form the basis of our food chain. In their environment, plants are constantly in association with the micro-organisms that make up their microbiota. Some of these micro-organisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc.) cause serious damage to crops, while others improve their overall health (nutrition, development or resistance to disease). Understanding how plants react to, adapt to and eventually benefit from the presence of micro-organisms in their environment is therefore a key strategy for meeting the challenges of both food production and food and feed safety.

Read more

Objectives

Thanks to a balanced combination of training and practical experience (10 months of laboratory internships divided between M1 and M2), our aim is to train students capable of describing and understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the interactions of plants with their biotic environment.

To achieve this, we'll be drawing on the wealth of scientific expertise in this field at Muse (Université de Montpellier, CIRAD, IRD, INRAE, Montpellier Supagro).

Read more

Know-how and skills

Knowledge and understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the relationship between a plant and its biotic environment.

In addition, although oriented towards the study of biotic interactions, by the end of this course students will also have acquired skills in the main thematic fields ranging from physiology to genetics, epigenetics and plant improvement.

Skills in the use of current research tools (statistics, modeling, database management, etc.) will also be acquired.

Read more

Program

The Plant-Microorganism Interactions (PMI) course comprises 4 semesters (120 ECTS), with specific teaching units and others shared with the 3 other Plant courses (BiPa, BPT, MEV). The list and detailed content of each of the Master's courses is available on the Faculty of Science website.

The first semesters of M1 and M2 are devoted to academic courses. The second semesters are mainly devoted to internships (in laboratories or companies) in the thematic fields of the course and in line with the student's career plan. It should be noted that all the practical work of semester 1's disciplinary units is grouped together in a dedicated unit at the very start of semester 2.

Study or internship mobility (ERASMUS), for one or two semesters, is greatly facilitated by the extensive network of partnerships between the University of Montpellier and European universities.

Read more
  • Biostatistics with R

    5 credits
  • Elements of plant pathology

    3 credits
  • Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology

    3 credits
  • Plant development

    5 credits
  • Plant-Microorganism Interactions

    5 credits
  • Basics of ecophysiology

    2 credits
  • Plant molecular genetics

    5 credits
  • Plant nutrition

    2 credits
  • BioInformatics: Data and Databases

    2 credits
  • Literature review

    2 credits
  • CHOICE 1

    3 credits
    • Your choice: 1 of 2

      • Gene networks-Modeling

        3 credits
      • Tropical and Mediterranean plant breeding

        3 credits
  • 4-month internship

    15 credits
  • Experimental approaches to plant biology

    5 credits
  • Project management

    3 credits

Admission

Access conditions

Applications can be submitted on the following platforms: 

Read more