The stay

The Biodiversita program is looking for special agents to join its FBI (Fast Biodiversity Inventory) team:

Your mission if you accept it: thoroughly excavate and accumulate as much knowledge about the biodiversity of our study area. Special attention will be paid to birds of prey and spring flowers.

Where: you will operate in a nature reserve located in the heart of Provence.

When: This is going on this Easter holiday, hurry up to join the mission!

© OSI : OSI, Michael Mags

Technical means for your mission: you will use all the expert equipment of LINABIO (Biodiversita Naturalist Identification Laboratory): hand magnifiers, binoculars, nets & insect traps, determination keys ...

Human Resources: In addition to your FBI colleagues, Biodiversita’s Bird and Botanical Special Advisors will be there to guide and assist you in this mission.

Your objectives: identify the most species present in the study area. The best investigators will receive FBI medals of merit.

Your complementary mission: In addition to the data collected, your team will have to develop identification tools to facilitate the work of your future co-investigators.

Your mission report: all elements of your work must be presented (photos, specimens ...). Interesting discoveries are expected.

© OSI : Dan Molter / CédricMroczko / Wikipedia

 * See our other FBI stays:
FBI Mission - Reptiles and Orchids
Mission FBI - Autumn Insects

 * See our other stays at the OSI Provence Scientific Stay Center:
All our stays

The research project

The participants in this trip will be involved in several research objectives.

In the short term and locally, it is a question of accumulating a maximum of knowledge on the fauna and the flora of a sector with stake. The results and data collected will be transmitted to the owner or manager of the study site. This inventory will be used to highlight any management and protection measures to preserve the biodiversity of our site.

On a larger scale, the data will be transmitted to the bodies responsible for monitoring biodiversity at a regional (associations, communities), national (National Inventory of Natural Heritage (INPN) managed by the National Museum of Natural History of Paris) and International (GBIF - Global Biodiversity Information Facility - Global Biodiversity Information System). On a large scale, these data can be used to study the evolution of biodiversity in relation - for example - to climate change.

© OSI : Sylvain ALLOMBERT, OSI

Finally, from a methodological point of view, it is a question of developing methods of inventory and monitoring of biodiversity that are effective and adapted to groups of novice but motivated people. Indeed, our very partial knowledge of the biodiversity in relation to that which we live comes largely from the few specialists able to study it: developing citizen initiatives to study biodiversity is therefore a major challenge!

The location

Un des panoramas que nous offre la région. Ici à 3h de marche du centre.

The Musiflore holiday center is located in Drôme Provençale, between the small town of Dieulefit and the village of Bourdeaux. This part of the Drôme is renowned because it is part of the municipalities of the biovallée, which aim to grow and develop a European rural territory of reference in terms of sustainable development (http://www.biovallee.fr). Thus, it is a dynamic and preserved place, where the risks of contamination with pesticides are lower and the rivers, perhaps, more healthy. Speaking of rivers, the Drôme is also known for untimely and festive bathing! Near our center, we have access to a very beautiful place where it is possible to bathe in one of the tributaries of the Drôme: the Roubion.

The agricultural, cultural and artistic context of this part of France, make it a privileged place. Indeed, we can, on foot, go to visit farms and farms, especially the goats producing the famous Picodon, reknown cheese, in a family atmosphere. Twenty minutes from the center of Musiflore, the small town of Dieulefit, with its old center, offers us weekly, a large market where artists and craftsmen rub shoulders with local producers. On the other side, Bourdeaux is a small town with an old ruined castle and a medieval center that hosts, once in the summer, a great medieval festival that ends with a magnificent fireworks display. All these activities, which are done according to the period of the summer and the desires of the participants, bring a more cultural setting to our scientific activities and allow to have an integrated approach of the territory.

Vue aérienne de la forêt de Saou, et de cette formation géologique particulière : le synclinal perché.

The Pays de Bourdeaux is the Forest of Saoû, which is the most exceptional natural site in the department! But it is also a land made of contrasts and lights, thirsty stones, marls, undergrowth and scrubland with thyme and lavender. A little piece of paradise of the Drôme Pre-Alps between Vercors and Provence.
With regard to fauna and flora, this region is not left out. Griffon vultures pass over the center. One can also find many species of orchids, it is not uncommon to cross a deer, or a endangered insect.
Hiking in the area offers beautiful scenery, for example, just behind the center, 500 m above sea level (about 3 hours of walking in the time), the views are striking!
A little further on a bike ride this time, just behind the small village of Saou, is the forest of the same name, nestled in an inverted syncline (very singular geological formation). In short, the setting is more than friendly.
Our activities in the Drôme are therefore part of an ecological approach, that is to say a whole, where science and manual activities, culture and nature combine with everyday life to grow participants ... and our team !

We must warn you that the region is full of activities of all kinds, streams to discover, meadow to explore, forests to walk ...
 

Day to day proceedings

In the FBI team, we are field agents! A maximum of time will be spent in the nature to observe, identify, enumerate and locate all that lives and that will attract our attention! So a backpack, a field notebook, a magnifying glass, binoculars, a GPS and all the LINABIO’s equipment and it is off for a prospection in the great outdoors!

But what is a prospection? It is a time of observation where we will sharpen our 5 senses and our curiosity to find and discover original flowers, discreet nozzles and other raptors seeking to escape our investigation! All this in a good atmosphere thanks to naturalistic rallies & fun, but also seriously, we are special agents of the FBI anyway!

© OSI

Notre spot de baignade, le Picodon est l’occasion de visiter des fermes productrices de ce fromage local à succès, la faune et la flore sont très riches, ici une orchidée (Ophrys insectifera).

But despite our qualities as observers, meetings with “unidentified suspects” will not be rare. But no species can resist us! We collect a sample, and hop to the lab! After a close interrogation under the microscope binocular, and thanks to the help of the large library of LINABIO, we will be able to make them confess their name (scientific of course!).

But even the FBI special agents need relaxation: all this will be punctuated with extra-curricular activities such as games, parties, discovery workshops and other sports activities!

© OSI : OSI, escapado.fr

The team

Sylvain Allombert is the scientific and technical manager of the BIODIVERSITA Research Program and FBI stays. A doctoral dissertation in ecology between France and Canada will make him discover his vocation: the popularization of scientific knowledge on Biodiversity. It is in an association that he will be able to develop his skills in this field, working with all types of members of the public, from young children to professionals. At the naturalist level, he is a general practitioner who has been an ornithologist, entomologist or ecologist, also touching other areas such as botany, mammals, reptiles or amphibians.

On this trip, Sylvain will be in charge of the organization of the scientific activities, but will also act as special advisor “insects” for our budding investigators! His extremely diverse knowledge of the natural world will not fail to satisfy the curiosity of the participants!

Accomodation

De verts et vastes espaces pour de folles activités.

The Musiflore holiday center is surrounded by nature, with about 48 hectares of land, shared between forests and meadows. The owners around us also welcome us, provided their work is respected (do not go to the fields just before mowing for example) and unprevented. So we are in a huge field of discoveries and adventures, where only the size of our stride is a limit.

As for the center itself, it has recently been renovated and offers bright and comfortable three to six bedded rooms, as well as many small and large activity rooms. For meals, we can very often take them outside, in the shade, which is very pleasant. The Holiday Center also has an auditorium equipped with all the equipment to make shows of all kinds. Further on, other buildings are an old farmhouse, also renovated, in which a bread oven is still in operation. So we often make bread or even ... pizzas!

Après avoir confectionné nos pizzas, on les enfourne dans le four à bois!

In our objectives related to our ecological impact on this Center, we focused our approach around food. The place is ideal because local production is important and many farmers are respectful of the environment (the center is located in a community group called biovallée, committed to an environmentally friendly agriculture). Also, participants consume the bread they produce (two to three days a week for now) and they make their own snacks. The menus are lighter in meat products and are designed to provide all that is needed, from an energic perspective, based on fresh produce. This was possible thanks to a close collaboration with the entire Musiflore Center team.

Indeed, the Musiflore center is also part of an ecological approach (wood boiler, many awareness signs, concerned about the energy balance, healthy food, etc ...).
We also try to reduce our movements, our printing consumption, the purchase of recycled material consumables, etc ...
In and around the center, we have everything we need for our activities: open fields for big games or taking off drones, extensive forests to explore and study, orchid meadows, large impressive trees, rivers to study or for swim…
The Musiflore Center is perfect to have fun outdoors or indoors!

This Center will allow us to live our stays immersed in nature and we will benefit from several rooms of activities on the whole of the infrastructure of the property. A large hall, which will allow both the organization of booms and retransmissions of your children on Saturday afternoons, will also be used.

And all that, in the sun!

At the heart of a preserved area of ​​49 hectares of meadow and forest:
Young people will be accommodated in nicely equipped rooms with 2 to 6 seats, within the Center Musiflore located in Crupies, in the heart of the Provençal Pre-Alps since 1966.
Entirely renovated, this building of initiation to the musical activities, of artistic expression and discovery of the Nature, is particularly well adapted to the scientific and cultural activities of the NGO.

As for the parents, they can also decide to take advantage of a hotel in the area, either the day before their arrival on the spot, or to come to attend the Retransmission of their children on Saturday afternoon (eve of departure, Sunday). Parents will also enjoy the area for the duration of their stay.
In addition to the many hotels and inns available in the area, the Musiflore Vacation Center where stays will be located, is also available for the night from Saturday to Sunday.

It is via Lyon and Valencia that we organize accompanied transfers from all cities. If you come on your own, there are different ways to get to your point of origin or the place of your final destination if you bring your children on a larger trip.

To arrive on site you can:

 * Arrive on the spot by your own means (you will receive the exact time of the appointment by email)
 * Organize a departure from all cities of the world: Contact us for more information
 ** Or on a trip accompanied by train or minibus from your city
 ** Or by plane: Contact us to find out more