PhD Candidate in Grapevine Ecophysiology and Carbon Modelling

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INRAE presentation

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.

Work environment, missions and activities

You will join the Laboratory of Plant Ecophysiology under Environmental Stress (LEPSE) and be hosted within the ETAP research team, which focuses on understanding grapevine functioning and its adaptation to environmental changes. You will be enrolled in the GAIA Doctoral School and will benefit from a stimulating scientific environment and an extensive collaborative network in the grapevine and wine sector. Field experiments will be conducted in collaboration with the Pech Rouge Experimental Unit, while platform-based experiments will be carried out in partnership with the M3P team at LEPSE. You will also benefit from interactions within Institut Agro's Grapevine and Wine network and from the community of modelers associated with the OpenAlea platform to support model development activities.

The French wine sector is experiencing strong interannual variability and a decline in production. Increasingly frequent and intense droughts and heat waves may progressively deplete grapevine carbon reserves, which could partly explain these reductions in yield. Carbon reserves play a key role in perennial plants, acting as a buffer by storing assimilates when carbon supply exceeds demand and mobilizing them when demand exceeds supply. Successive climatic events affecting photosynthesis may therefore lead to a gradual depletion of carbon reserves and have long-lasting impacts on productivity. Improving our understanding of how repeated stresses influence carbon storage, including potential stress "memory" effects over one or several growing seasons, is a major challenge for optimizing vineyard management practices and identifying grapevine varieties that are more resilient to climate change.

This PhD project aims to improve our understanding of the mechanisms through which repeated drought and heat events affect grapevine carbon functioning. The research will focus on characterizing stress memory effects over multiple growing seasons, clarifying the role of carbon reserves in maintaining plant growth and long-term survival, and analysing the variability of responses among grapevine genotypes. These findings will contribute to improving predictions of grapevine performance under climate change and support the adaptation of vineyard management practices as well as the identification of more resilient genotypes.

Within this framework, you will be responsible for the following activities:

Experimental work and data acquisition

• Design and implement an experimental campaign over two consecutive growing seasons.
• Conduct experiments under controlled conditions and in the field using a wide range of grapevine genotypes.
• Apply repeated drought and heat stress scenarios and perform regular physiological measurements to characterize carbon gain, growth dynamics, and carbon reserve accumulation and remobilization.

Modelling and data analysis

• Process and analyse the datasets generated through these experiments.
• Develop modelling approaches to simulate the dynamics of grapevine carbon reserves under repeated stress conditions.
• Integrate these developments into existing functional-structural and biomass allocation models.
• Analyse and interpret the results to improve our understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Occasional travel will be required to conduct experiments on phenotyping platforms and at the Pech Rouge experimental site, as well as to collaborate with the project's partner teams.

Training and skills

Applicants should hold an agricultural engineering degree or a Master's degree in agronomy, plant biology, or a related field in plant ecophysiology.

Skills and experience:

• Knowledge of plant ecophysiology, particularly carbon metabolism and plant water relations.
• Experience in setting up and monitoring experiments under controlled and field conditions.
• Ability to clean, process and analyse experimental datasets.
• Proficiency in programming using Python or R, with or without the support of artificial intelligence tools.
• Ability to write scientific documents and communicate research findings in English.

Personal qualities:

• Interest in teamwork and interdisciplinary collaborations.
• Ability to work independently and demonstrate rigour and organisational skills in conducting a research project.
• Scientific curiosity, along with strong analytical, synthesis and scientific writing skills.

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):

- up to 30 days of annual leave + 15 days "Reduction of Working Time" (for a full time);
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering.

How to apply

I send my CV and my motivation letter