Thierry Simonneau

Dr T. Simonneau is a senior scientist at INRA Montpellier, France. He leads a group who specialized in the analysis of the physiological determinism of water (and nitrogen) use efficiency in grapevine with the aim of improving plant performance by genetics (Coupel-Ledru et al., 2014; 2016) or management practices (Prieto et al., 2012). He studied crop physiology and agronomy at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (now AgroParisTech, France). He completed a PhD on water uptake regulation by roots in 1992 and has been accredited to supervise PhD at Montpellier University in 2010. He headed the Laboratory of Plant Ecophysiology in Montpellier (LEPSE) from 2003 to 2010. His research has been focused on water use by plants and consequences of drought on growth since 1993. He has gained experience in plant hydraulics (root water uptake, stomatal control of plant water status, leaf and berry growth control by cell turgor). He modeled the role of the plant hormone abscisic acid in the control of transpiration by stomata in various species including grapevine and used the resulting model in one of the first attempt to predict the influence of gene polymorphism on whole plants in silico. He modeled the role of various genes in whole plant responses to water stress (Borel et al., 2002; Hosy et al., 2003; Lebaudy et al., 2008; Taochy et al., 2015).