Center for International Agricultural Research for Development

Crop Diversity, Adaptation and Development

Last update: 26 July 2012

There are many issues surrounding the agriculture of today and of the future. Those issues are the result of recent environmental and societal changes and take into account the range of species and histories. It is against this backdrop that the unit is working to develop a common approach along two main lines: the first relating to diversity and to the evolutionary mechanisms of adaptation, and the other to plant biochemical and functional adaptation.

Research projects at UMR DIADE are aimed at understanding the nature and role of various mechanisms underlying:

  • the structural and functional diversification of the genome of tropical plants,
  • the diversity and structure of their populations during the speciation process
  • the adaptation to environmental or human-driven changes.

Webpage of UMR 100 - English

UMR DIADE is a SPOP partner

Dr. Alain Rival is co-director of DIADE research unit. He is a qualified Professor in Biology and a world class researcher with more than fifteen years of researchexperience in the biotechnology of oil palm. He is a plant molecular physiologist specialising in epigenetic phenomena underlying somaclonal variation. Alain Rival’s team has accomplished a pioneering work on the role of DNA methylation in oil palm somaclonal variants since 1998. Since 2009, he is the Coordinator of Oil Palm Research at CIRAD.
Alain Rival is a co-coordinator of SPOP.  

Last update: 26 July 2012