Aerial Dispersal Workshop

HOW TO APPLY:
       -  opening of candidatures: early Oct 2025 - stay tuned!
        - closing of candidatures: 12 Dec 2025

Context

The aerial dispersal of small biological particles – including microorganisms, pollen, and insects - has far-reaching impacts on human, animal, and plant health, on climate and on the ecological dynamics of various communities. Aerial dispersal of small biological particles spans a wide range of spatial scales from local to continental scales and involves interactions between biological traits and physical atmospheric processes that assure emissions, flight and deposition. Despite its importance, the topic remains underrepresented in most academic curricula. As climate change is likely to alter or intensify these dynamics and their consequences, there is a growing need to better understand and predict them. This interdisciplinary training course aims to bridge the gap by bringing together diverse expertise in life sciences, physics and modeling in particular to explore the mechanisms, challenges, and implications of airborne biological dispersal.

Objectives and content

Through cycles of lectures, discussion, hands-on activities and breakout sessions to build team projects, participants will learn about concepts, methods and tools to assess emissions, transport and deposition of particles of biological origin and how to apply these tools to modern challenges concerning epidemiology, ecology and climate.

The course will be conducted in English and will be organized into sessions covering:

• The structure of the atmosphere and the major patterns of atmospheric circulation.
• Aerodynamic properties of small particles and the physical principles of air samplers.
• Emissions of particles from land and water surfaces including the role of wildfires.
• Principles of flux measurement.
• Tools for assessing the trajectories of dispersal – from physics, meteorology and population genetics.
• Wet and dry deposition processes – including biological ice nucleation – and fate of deposited organisms.
• Principles of experimental design and hypothesis testing relevant to aerobiology.

At the end of the course, participants will present their proposals, built during the breakout sessions, about possible solutions to major challenges concerning dispersal of biological particles

Organizers and mentors

The course is part of the goals of the BEYOND research project to build human capital for modernizing epidemiological surveillance. It is being organized conjointly with INRAE’s national training service and supported by the "Ecology and Biodiversity" and "Plant Health and Environment" research departments. Organizers and mentors from INRAE’s scientific staff include:

• Christel Leyronas – Plant Pathology Research Unit, Avignon
• Cindy Morris – Plant Pathology Research Unit, Avignon
• Davide Martinetti – Biostatistics and Spatial Processes Research Unit, Avignon
• Mireia Gomez-Gallego – Tree-Microbes Interaction Research Unit, Nancy
• Yann Dumas – Forest Ecosystems Research Unit, Nogent-sur-Vernisson

The organizers will bring in additional national and international experts as mentors to assure a wide range of disciplinary competences.

Support staff from INRAE's national training service (FTLV: Formation Tout au Long de la Vie)

• Lucie Castel
• Loïc Gayé

If you have questions, contact: ec-aerobio-at-inrae.fr