Research Infrastructure. Biology Green house Description : Infrastructure dedicated to living animals under controlled environment and vegetals cultures for teachings and Alpine garden Collections and researches. Users : Researchers ans PhD/trainees, Alpine Garden Staff.

This platform provide all the tools and skills required for answering fundamental or applied research questions in ecology, ecotoxicology, evolutionary biology, etc. It hosts multidisciplinary programs with applied issues concerning the evolutions of aquatic ecosystems under contrasted stressors: local stress (due to agricultural, industrial, urban activities) and/or global stress (due to climate change, but also to changes in land use or biological invasions). The PEARL facility consists in: - an experimental complex of two multipurpose halls (400 m² each), greenhouses (250 m²), an outdoor pond platform (500 m²) and about sixty aquatic mesocosms, located on the Rennes Agrocampus Ouest site. - A “pond” station of around 30 ponds (total surface of 5ha), in Le Rheu near Rennes.

The site comprises three distincts experimental set-ups: (1) a long-term (>10 years) partial throughfall exclusion experiment replicated three times and crossed with a thinning (-30% basal area) experiment aimed at simulating long-term precipitation decrease in accordance with climate change scenario for the Mediterranean area (-30% of precipitation), (2) a total rainfall exclusion experiment using a mobile roof has been set up to simulate extreme drought events and modify precipitation seasonality, and (3) an eddy-covariance flux tower running continuously since 2001 to measure seasonal variations in ecosystem functioning and year-to-year flux responses to drought and climate.