Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology - CEFE, UMR 5175

The Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), located in Montpellier on the CNRS Route de Mende Campus, was created in 1961. Since 1987, it has been a joint research unit (UMR), currently under the supervision of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE-PSL), the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD), the University of Montpellier (UM), the Institut Agro/Montpellier SupAgro), the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), and Paul Valéry University (UPV).

The CEFE joint research unit comprises 350 people, including approximately 150 doctoral and postdoctoral students, in sixteen teams divided into four departments: Biodiversity Dynamics and Conservation, Evolutionary and Behavioral Ecology, Functional Ecology, Interactions, and Ecology and Societies. These scientific departments are supported by six shared technical platforms (Chemical Analysis in Ecology (PACE), Genomics, Molecular Ecology, Experimental Evolution (GEMEX), Information Systems in Ecology (SIE), Experimental Fields (TE), Long-Term Programs (PLT), and Documentation/Library). They interact in particular through five cross-disciplinary axes: Digital Biodiversity, Ecology and Agronomy, Experimental Evolution, Science and Society, and Data Life Cycle.

The CEFE project aims to understand the dynamics, the functioning, and the evolution of living organisms, "from bacteria to elephants" and "from genome to planet." With research spanning biodiversity dynamics, global changes, and sustainable development, it seeks to develop a science that is diverse in its disciplinary approaches and meets societal expectations.

Director: Marie-Laure Navas

Deputy Directors: Thomas Lenormand, Thibaud Decaens, Aurélien Besnard

Unit website: https://www.cefe.cnrs.fr/fr/