Montpellier Scientific Community



Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics for Environment and Agronomy (MISTEA)

Director: Alain Rapaport rapaport@supagro.inra.fr
Website:
Research area
The activities of the MISTEA Joint Research Unit focus on the development of mathematical, statistical and computer methods for analysis and decision-making support in systems relating to agronomy and the environment, with particular emphasis on modeling, analysis and simulating dynamical and complex systems. It concerns applications for the microbial ecology, the renewable resources, the agronomic production systems with its interactions with the environment, and the food bioprocesses.

Research highlights
Multi-scale modelling of microbial biofilms Effect of spatial structures on the performances and stability of microbial ecosystems and bioreactors Optimal strategy for bioremediation of water resources Data and knowledge management methods for complex systems Functional statistics for multi-scale data analysis

Staff profile
Research Org. Researchers Professors Research Eng.

Techn. & Admin Staff

Doct.
MTP SUPAGRO - INRA 8 3 2 5 6
Research teams
The unit is structured in two teams. One is MODEMIC (Modelling and Optimisation of the Dynamics of Ecosystems with MICro-orgsnisms) on topics such as ecosystems, microbial ecology, population dynamics and resource conservation and is into the development, analysis and simulation of spatio-temporal and individual-based models; optimization, control theory, estimation and filtering. The second team, GAMMA (manaGement and Analysis of Mass data from Agronomics and environmental processes) is working on subjects related to sustainable management of plants and trees as well as management of food-processing and environmental processes. It is involved in knowledge representation, fuzzy reasoning, ontology and data management.

Platforms and other tools
MODEMIC is a joint team with INRIA Sophia-Antipolis Méditerranée

Most important international partnerships
CESAME Belgique, CEES Pays-Bas, Stanford USA, McGill Canada, CMM Chili, UTFSM Chili, IMCA Pérou, EMBRAPA Brésil , Univ. Fianarantsoa Madagascar. Wageningen UR Pays Bas.

Facts and figures
Publications in international ranking journals

2005 - 2009 : 81
Representative publications

1. Dumont, M., Harmand, J., Rapaport, A. and Godon, J.J, 2009. Toward functional molecular fingerprints. Environmental Microbiology, 11 (7), pp. 1717-1727.

2. Jeanson, S., Hilgert, N. Coquillard, M.O., Seukpanya, C., Faiveley, M., Neveu, P., Abraham, C., Georgescu, V., Fourcassié, P. and Beuvier E., 2009. Milk acidification by Lactococcus lactis is improved by decreasing the level of dissolved oxygen rather than decreasing redox potential in the milk prior to inoculation. Int. J. of Food Microbiology, 131 (1), pp. 75-81.

3. Goelzer A., Charnomordic B., Colombié S., Fromion V., Sablayrolles J.M., 2009. Simulation and optimization software for alcoholic fermentation in winemaking conditions. Food Control, 20, 635-642.

4. Piazza, A. and Rapaport, A., 2009. Optimal Control of Renewable Resources with Alternative Use. Mathematical and Computer Modelling. Vol. 50 (1--2), pp. 260-272,

5. Rapaport, A., Dochain, D. and Harmand, J., 2009. Long run coexistence in the chemostat with multiple species, J. Theoretical Biology, 257, 2, 252-259.

6. Thomopoulos R., Charnomordic B., Cuq B., Abécassis J., 2009. Artificial Intelligence-Based Decision Support System to Manage Quality of Durum Wheat Products. International Association for Cereal Science and Technology, Vol. 1, No. 3.

7. Grechi, I., Hilgert, N., Genard, M. and Lescourret, F.,2008. Assessing peach fruit refractometric index at harvest with a simple model based on fruit growth, J. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci., 133, 2, 178-187.

8. Grechi, I., Sauge, M.H., Sauphanor, B., Hilgert, N., Senoussi, R. and Lescourret, F., 2008. How does winter pruning affect peach tree - Myzus persicae interactions, Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 128, 3, 369-379, 2008.

9. Haegeman B. and Loreau M. 2008 Limitations of entropy maximization in ecology, Oikos 117, 1700-1710.

10. B. Haegeman, J.Hamelin , J.J. Godon, J. Harmand and P. Loisel., 2009. A method for measuring the biological diversity of a sample, Europen Patent N° WO 2009/053393.

11. Haegeman B., Vanpeteghem D., Godon J.-J., Hamelin J., 2008. DNA reassociation kinetics and diversity indices: Richness is not rich enough, Oikos 117, 177-181.

12. Gaucherel, C., Campillo, F., Misson, L., Guiot, J., Boreux, J.-J., 2008. Parameterization of a process-based tree-growth model: comparison of optimization, MCMC and particle filtering algorithms. Environmental Modelling and Software, 23(10-11), 1280-1288. Harmand, J., Rapaport, A., Dochain, D., Lobry, C., 2008. Microbial ecology and bioprocess control : Opportunities and challenges. Journal of Process Control. 2008, 18 (9) : 865-875.

13. Vanpeteghem D., Zemb O., Haegeman B., 2008. Dynamics of neutral biodiversity, Mathematical Biosciences 212, 88-98.

14. Harmand J., Lobry C., Rapaport A. et Godon J.-J., 2006, La modélisation des écosystèmes microbiens : une nécessité pour la recherche et l'industrie. Dossier Ecologie microbienne des sols, Biofutur, No. 268, pp. 54-57.

15. Loisel P., Harmand J., Zemb O., Latrille E., Lobry C., Delgenès J.Ph. and Godon J.J., 2006. Denaturing gradient electrophoreses (DGE) and single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) molecular fingerprintings revisited by simulation and used as a tool to measure microbial diversity. Environmental Microbiology, 8 (4), pp. 720-731.
List of software developed within the unit
FISPRO, SOFA, VITELBIO, SILEX

Total annual budget
2008 2009 2010
Total annual budget
109 000 169 000 187 000
External contracts:

ANR 4400 4400
50400
EU
53100
37700
Private sector
Others 26000 80000