Curriculum vitae

Education

PhD in plant ecophysiology (2019)

Thesis: “Upscaling morphological, physiological and molecular determinisms of transpiration from the leaf level to water use at the whole plant scale in poplar trees."

Supervisors: Dr. Didier Le Thiec and Dr. Oliver Brendel at Lorraine University, France

Master's degree in plant physiology and ecology, with honours (2015)

Research question: “Could tree rings dendrochemistry enable us to recount past variation in soil fertility?”

Internship supervisor: Dr. Stéphane Ponton at Lorraine University, France

Master's degree in tropical plant biology, with honours (2013)

Research question: “Impacts of cover crops on soil structure for the Pineapple cultivation.”

Internship supervisor: Dr. Jean-Claude Govindin at Montpellier University and in Guadeloupe (French Caribbean), France

Bachelor's degree in biology, with honours (2011)

Lorraine University, France

Publications

Durand, M., Brendel, O., Buré, C., & Le Thiec, D. (2019). Altered stomatal dynamics induced by changes in irradiance and vapour-pressure deficit under drought: impact on the whole plant transpiration efficiency of poplar genotypes. New Phytologist, 222: 1789-1802. doi:10.1111/nph.15710 (See also comment in Nature Plants, doi: 10.1038/s41477-019-0390-3).

Bogeat-Triboulot MB, Buré C, Gerardin T, Chuste PA, Le Thiec D, Hummel I, Durand M, Wildhagen H, Douthe C, Molins A, Galmés J, Smith HK, Flexas J, Polle A, Taylor G and Brendel O. (2019). Additive effects of high growth rate and low transpiration rate drive differences in whole plant transpiration efficiency among black poplar genotypes. Environmental and Experimental Botany. doi: 10.1016/j.envexpbot.2019.05.021

Durand, M., Cohen, D., Aubry, N., Buré, C., Tomáškova, I., Hummel, I., Brendel, O. & Le Thiec, D. Element content and candidate gene expression in guard cells are connected to spatiotemporal variations in stomatal conductance. Plant, Cell & Environment. doi: 10.1111/pce.13644

Durand, M., Brendel, O., Buré, C., Courtois, P., Lily, J.C., Granier, A & Le Thiec, D. Impacts of a partial rainfall exclusion in the field on growth and transpiration: consequences for leaf-level and whole-plant water-use efficiency compared to controlled conditions. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. doi: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2019.107873

Durand, M., Rose, C., Dupouey, J-L., Legout, A., & Ponton, S. Do tree rings record changes in soil fertility? Results from a Quercus petraea fertilization trial. Science of the Total Environment. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136148

Durand, M., Brendel, O., Buré, C., & Le Thiec, D. Impacts of growing conditions on the stability of stomatal dynamics induced by changes in irradiance and vapour-pressure deficit under drought. Under review in New Phytologist.

Teaching experience

Teaching Assistant (2017-2019)

Taught core module of the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree Programme in plant physiology and their identification, as well as statistics and R programing (152 hours in total). Lorraine University, France.

Conference participation

• Durand M, Le Thiec D, Brendel O. 2018. Altered stomatal dynamics induced by changes in irradiance and vapour-pressure deficit under drought: impact on the whole plant transpiration efficiency of poplar genotypes. IUFRO seventh international poplar symposium. 3^rd of November 2018, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Oral presentation in English.
• Durand M, Le Thiec D, Brendel O. 2017. Physiological, anatomical and molecular determinisms of water use efficiency linked to drought response in poplars: from leaf level to the whole plant scale. IUFRO 125^th anniversary. Symposium on water use efficiency in forest trees under drought. 18^th of September 2017, Nancy, France. Oral presentation in English.
• Le Thiec D, Durand M. 2017. Presentation of experimental results conducted in the framework of the Up-Trans project funded by the Excellence Laboratory “ARBRE”. Annual symposium of the Arbre LabEx. 13^th of December 2017, Nancy, France. Oral presentation in French.

Research experience

• Supervised 3 internships (Master’s degree level) and 7 temporary contract workers.
• Trained for 6 weeks to parametrize the MAESPA model (model of forest canopy radiation absorption, photosynthesis, transpiration and water balance) at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment with Dr. Remko Duursma, in Sydney, Australia.
• Member of the organising committee for several symposiums (IUFROsymposium on water use efficiency in forest trees under drought in Nancy and a congress regarding agroforestry research, held in Montpellier).

Relevant skills

• Gas-exchange measurements (survey, diurnal time-course, A-C_i curves, dynamic curves).
• Stomatal conductance modeling (using Bayesian statistics, genetic algorithms and machine learning).
• Laser microdissection of guard cells, RNA extraction, cDNA amplification and qPCR for candidate gene expression analysis of stomatal guard cells.
• Scanning electron microscope (for imagery and X-ray microanalysis using energy and wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometry).
• Dendrochronology and dendrochemical analyses.
• Field and glasshouse experimental drought installation and monitoring, along with harvests for biomass.
• Sapflow sensors (thermal dissipation, Granier type probes).
• Leaf area estimations (using field measurements and allometries).
• Scholander pressure bomb for minimum and predawn leaf water potentials.
• Neutron probe (for soil water content measurements).
• Root characterization in the field and in laboratory to assess their morphology and exploration.
• Image analysis: ImageJ, OpenCV library for Python (development of a machine learning Haar cascade algorithm for stomatal counting).
• Statistics and programing: R (advanced, developed the package TDPanalysis for sapflow data analyses), Python 3.7 (intermediate), Visual Basic (trained, intermediate), FORTRAN (basic).
• Language: French (mother tongue), English (TOEFL, advanced), Spanish (basic).