GARREC† Jean-Pierre

Jean-Pierre Garrec (1944-2022) was Director of Research at INRA until 2008. He was first interested in atmospheric pollution by fluorine and its interactions with vegetation, research carried out within the laboratoire Biologie Végétale of CEA-Grenoble. Then, as Research Fellow at the CNRS, he headed the Research Team "Microanalyse X en Biologie Végétale - Étude des mouvements d'ions liés aux mouvements stomatiques". As part of this team, his physiological research aimed to attempt to define the exact relationships between ionic accumulation and different stomatal movements, as well as causal relationships. In 1985, he joined the Centre de Recherches INRA de Nancy to head the Laboratoire de pollution atmosphérique of the Unité Écologie et Écophysiologie Forestières (Département Forêts et Milieu Naturels). Within INRA, his fundamental physiological research concerns the study of the "tree-atmosphere" interface (which includes the cuticle, cuticular waxes, stomata at leaf level and bark at trunk level), and more precisely the study of the mechanisms of perturbations of this interface induced by different environmental stresses: ozone, dry and wet acid deposition, various atmospheric pollutants, CO2, ultraviolet etc.... At the same time, as part of his applied research, he has developed original plant methods for monitoring the environment in order to assess the risks associated with exposure to air pollution.