Eucalypt plantations in the EU represent an important economic activity. They are the main source of short fibre pulpwood for European pulp and paper industry and are important alternative sources of income for rural communities. Improvements in forest productivity have been achieved through breeding and silviculture but they remain lower in the EU than in the tropics, due to climatic limitations. However, wood properties (in particular for pulp manufacture) of EU eucalypt plantations are superior. It is important for EU forestry and pulp and paper sector to pursue further improvements in eucalypt wood quality in order to remain competitive in the world market The projects research focus is on genomics of wood properties but this cannot be separated from the broader issue of drought tolerance of eucalypt plantations. While the former aspect is obvious for the wood end-use quality point of view, the latter is becoming an increasing ecological and economic concern. The goal of this project is to identify a restricted number of Candidate Genes (CG) that are likely to impact wood traits and productivity under drought conditions in Eucalyptus, a major forest species in Southern Europe. Moreover, this project addresses key fundamental issues in genomics, namely (i) the extent to which major genes determine trait differences within and between species, (ii) the contribution of structural and/or regulatory genes in trait expression. EUCANET is a network of industry-based eucalypt breeding organizations and research groups working in forestry genomics, physiology and statistics By the combining efforts and materials from the 3 different countries we will be able to construct a multispecies consensus map, produce and exchange data on QTL location, identify CG of interest and produce their transcript and protein profiling. The results will constitute a solid foundation for future association studies for specific wood genes and traits of importance for productivity and drought tolerance. The long term goal of this project is to apply these advances to the molecular selection of genotypes This should increase the selection efficiency of elite trees for improved and sustainable variety deployment.

The forest sector has to cope with a progressive impact of the global climate change in a context of increasing global economic competition among industrial forest areas. Local competition for wood is also developing fast as it constitutes an attractive biomass for energy. In this harsh reality biotechnology is likely to provide effective solutions to accelerate forest management for sustainable and competitive production. Recent developments in genomic research are providing increasingly efficient tools for molecular analysis of biological processes. The general aim of this project is the application of the latest technologies towards identification of key genes determining adaptive traits in conifers, which are crucial for forest productivity, conservation and management. The expected major outcome is to propose practical, marker-based strategies to maintain the competitiveness of forest industries by improving biomass and wood productivity of conifer forests even under stress conditions. We also aim at specifically providing new knowledge for the European forest-based-sector that promotes the use of renewable resources in the context of global climate change. We will focus on maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait), the most advanced conifer model species for genomic research in Europe and the most widely planted species in France, Spain and Portugal. Results on this species would be easily transferred to closely related Pinus species and other economical and/or environmentally important gymnosperm species. The proposed research activities are addressed to increase genomic resources and to study candidate genes involved in the regulation of maritime pine development, growth and the response to environmental stress, capitalizing on data from previous projects. The work plan include: i) Isolation of novel maritime pine expressed sequence tags (ESTs) and full-length cDNAS (FLcDNAs); ii) Large-scale expression analysis and a System Biology approach to identify candidate genesiii) Functional studies of selected candidate genes : Functional analysis of regulatory regions and interaction with transcriptions factors and Gene functional analyses in transgenic trees.; iv) Genetic mapping of selected candidate genes in reference genetic maps; v) Exploration of natural diversity of selected candidate genes in maritime pine populations; vi) Association mapping of selected candidate gene for growth and wood quality. Additionally, we will apply bioinformatic methods to perform the storage, processing and mining of all data delivered in the project. This will especially facilitate the co-ordinated analysis of structural, expressional and functional data. Additionally, we will apply bioinformatic methods to perform the storage, processing and mining of all data delivered in the project. This will especially facilitate the co-ordinated analysis of structural, expressional and functional data.The expected results from this project are thus multiple integrated data from already or newly discovered candidate genes. Pine breeders will primarily benefit from new, molecular selection criteria to ensure more efficient design of adapted varieties for improved productivity (growth, vigour, wood properties) and sustainability (adaptation to drought or nutritional stresses). Such a better control of tree productivity will ultimately benefit the forest industries and other wood and biomass users. This project is strongly linked to the programme theme “bioenergy" since it aims at contributing to the development of a forest crop with the potential of resource cascading for different energetic and industrial applications (biorefinery concept) in a sustainable bio-based economy. Conifers are important as carbon sinks and as a source of renewable material for biofuel production and biorenewable chemicals. The project will also constitute the first step towards comprehensive Systems Biology in gymnosperms, with a special focuss on nitrogen metabolism.

Les objectifs que s'est fixée la France pour le développement des bioénergies nécessitent de mobiliser de nouveaux gisements de biomasse. Pour ceux d'origine forestière, la forêt de montagne, avec 25 % des surfaces en France, est un réservoir potentiel so

The global area of specific cultures for forest biomass (short rotation coppices, very short rotation coppices and semi-dedicated stands) is strongly increasing because energy companies, agricultural and forestry cooperatives, pulp companies have been setting up new plantations with over 1000 ha per year during these last years. The traditional and manual methods that prevailed until now, from the production of plants in nursery to the biomass harvest, is no longer possible: the costs are too high (especially for planting and harvesting), current techniques are not adapted to high planting density (density of 2 to 10 times greater than conventional forest plantations), furthermore the industry is facing a lack of manual workforce. Finally, the mechanization of these operations and its integration into specific crop management seems a promising way to reduce costs and facilitate the work (ergonomic of workstations), while taking into account the environment preservation (soil, stand ...). The international state of the art and the field trials carried out by forestry cooperatives or FCBA highlight the inadequacy of most existing machines, mainly foreign, whether for planting, weeding and harvesting. Therefore MECABIOFOR aims to create innovative tools to foster the development of lignocellulosic biomass crops (SRC, VSRC, semi-dedicated plantations) by ensuring their economic viability through technological innovations for planting, weeding and harvesting of these stands. The development of appropriate tools, combining both lightness, mechanical strength, accuracy and reduced cost is at each stage a technological challenge. The sum of these improvements represents a significant technological leap for strongly reducing the cost of production of forest biomass in these dedicated cultures. To meet this objective, MECABIOFOR will be carried out over a period of 36 months and includes: - Industrial partners (4 forestry cooperatives grouped under the umbrella of UCFF, Smurfit Kappa Comptoir des Pins, Tembec R & D Kraft), - A public research partner (Cemagref), specialized in research concerning mechanical engineering, - The industrial forest-based sector’s technical center (FCBA), which has over 30 years experience on dedicated and semi-dedicated biomass crops, which will involve outsourcing to an agricultural cooperative (InVivo). In addition to the tasks of project management (task 1) and communication of the results (task 5), tasks 2 and 3 are intended to remove technological barriers from planting to biomass harvest. In this purpose, close collaboration will be conducted among field practitioners, with their experiences and their technical, economic, environmental and ergonomic expectations, and scientists providing scientific expertise. Many trials of existing materials, then design and tests of new machines are planned in these tasks. An economic and environmental synthesis, through a cycle analysis (LCA), will be performed in task 4 that will include the results of the two previous tasks. This task, which involves all the project partners, will provide a global technical vision on the developed machineries and the new biomass crop managements, in order to coordinate the different stages to reach the final economic gain.