Biodiversity issues cannot be addressed without taking into consideration the complexity and dynamics of both the human societies and the biodiversity, and their interactions.
In this perspective, BCDiv aims to bring together and stimulate the interdisciplinary skills on the Museum site, and to put them at the service of the improvement of knowledge and understanding of the biological and cultural diversities, and of their complex interactions.
Its mains strengths are :
- Pluridisciplinarity, with the presence on the site of environmental chemistry, ecology, systematics, evolution, biological, social and historical anthropology,
- A unique expertise for describing and comparing objects and natural/cutlural diversity patterns,
- the ability to consider different timescales, from the geological eras, to millennia centuries and decades,
- An immense heritage of collections and databases, continuously enriching through the field missions and cutting edge technological facilities,
- Unique opportunities for disseminating, teaching and training, owing to the galleries and exhibitions, the Jardin des Plantes, the Master cursus and the doctoral school, and numerous general public associations.
BCDiv explores three main areas :
- The diversity of humans and of the behaviours of their societies towards biodiversity, and the processes which generate and sustain these diversities,
- The patterns of the biological diversity, from the level of the organs to the level of ecosystems, and the processes of birth and natural regulation of this biodiversity,
- The diversity and complexity of the interactions between the biological and the socio-cultural systems, namely in terms of co-evolution or co-development.