Teams of the APE department « Adaptation of Plants to the Environment » study the answers to environmental restraints on the physiological, metabolic and developmental point of view using mainly genetic, genomic and molecular approaches. The department is focussed on physical (abiotic) restraints as nitrogen availability limitation and/or water, cold, osmotic stress… Our aim is to understand what is the onset of mechanisms responding to these restraints and what genes are controlling these answers and its natural variability. Integration analysis of these regulations at the whole plant level and the following of parameters which govern plant growth (leaf or root level) and also the onset of productivity or fitness are studied. We are mainly working on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and on the agronomical important crop: maize. APE possess competences at different levels and particularly on nitrogen metabolism and its recycling, water use efficiency, quantitative genetics, natural variation analysis and phloem signalisation…