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Helmut MEISS

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Présentation

Since 2013, Dr. Helmut MEISS works as a permanent assistant professor (MCF) in **agroecology** at Lorraine University, Nancy, France. **Current teaching** His teaching activities at *IUT Nancy-Brabois* are focused on theoretical and practical **introductions** to a) **sustainable agriculture**, b) **soil sciences**, c) **weed biology and management** including **botanics**, and d) a variety of **projects** and **agronomic** **surveys** realized with student groups. He leds the DUT-BUT agronomy study program at *IUT Nancy-Brabois*. <https://iutnb.univ-lorraine.fr/fr/page/183/Agronomie.html> **Current research** The aim of his research within the LAE-AGISEM research team is to understand and improve **ecosystem services** in cereal farming systems <http://lae.univ-lorraine.fr/fr/lunite-agisem/controles-biologiques>. Together with his colleagues F. Lasserre-Joulin, O. Therond, A. Rouabah (postdoc 2019-20), E. Stell (PhD-student 2019-22), and H. Lirot (Master student 2022) H. Meiss is interested in **conservation biological control (CBC)** of crop pests such as **aphids** by their **natural enemies** (various arthropod predators and parasitoid wasps) that are **naturally occurring in agroecosystems**. We combine **experimental** and **modeling** approaches. The goal is to contribute to the development of knowledge and **decisions support systems** useful for improving CBC in cereal farming systems. A better understanding und **prediction** of the **temporal dynamics** of these interactions will be useful for strongly reducing or suppressing the use of insecticides by farmers. Our knowledge is still limited concerning **the drivers** **of CBC** including i) temperature, humidity, and other dynamic **whether** parameters varying within and between years, ii) the **landscape composition and spatial configuration** around the fields and iii) the various **cropping systems and practices** and their **temporal succession on the local field and in neighboring fields** in the landscape. They may all influence the **spatio-temporal population dynamics** of crop pests and of their natural enemies, and thus the potentially regulating effects caused by their interactions. <http://lae.univ-lorraine.fr/fr/membre/helmut-meiss-0> **Education and past research** Helmut Meiss obtained a PhD in 2010 conjointly at Burgundy University/INRAE Dijon, France and Gießen University, Germany. During his PhD and post-doc, he worked on **cultural and biological weed management (crop rotation, weed seed predation by natural enemies, crop-weed competition, plant regrowth after cutting of temporary grasslands, soil tillage)**. During his master 2 (2006, INRAE Dijon), he analyzed the **fitness cost of an herbicide resistance** (caused by a point mutation) and the **genetic basis of the phenotypic reduction of these costs** using *Arabidopsis thaliana* and thus got research experiences in evolutionary ecology and genomics*.* During his master 1 (2005, INRAE Dijon), he analyzed the **seed bank ecology** of an invasive annual plant species, *Ambrosia artemisiifolia*.

Publications

sylvain-plantureux