The Joint Research Unit's work serves to describe, understand and forecast the ecological processes of primary production and regulation of carbon, greenhouse gas and nutrient flows. Within an overall functional ecology approach, the unit studies the role of soil organisms and plants and their interactions within bio-geochemical cycles in soils and agro-ecosystems. Its studies of biological regulation and interlinked carbon, water and nutrient flows are based on modelling, long-term field observations, in situ experiments and experiments under controlled conditions. The environments studied are primarily low-input Mediterranean and tropical agro-ecosystems.