The next OSU PYTHÉAS Scientific Day will be held on Monday 8 June 2026. It will be devoted to the theme : Heritage and collections: a lever for better analysis and understanding of major socio-environmental changes.

Naturalist collections - whether zoological, botanical, lichenological or geological, marine or terrestrial - are irreplaceable archives of life and of our planet. Long seen primarily as instruments for conservation and inventory, they are now emerging as key scientific tools for documenting, quantifying and understanding major socio-environmental changes on different spatial and temporal scales.

This seminar will bring together researchers from the OSU PYTHÉAS to discuss three themes:

• Collections as witnesses of past ecological and climatic trajectories; ;
• New methods of scientific exploitation: ancient DNA, stable isotopes, high-resolution imaging, digitisation and open databases for new uses of these collections; ;
• The challenges of preserving, making accessible and structuring this heritage, in order to make it a real lever for interdisciplinary research and decision support in the face of ongoing environmental transitions.

The aim of this day is to show how, from herbarium specimens to sedimentary cores, from naturalised fish to fossils, these collections hold the keys to a renewed understanding of our changing environment.

The registration link, detailed programme and venue will be sent to you shortly.

Don't forget to put this date in your diaries!