Search results for "Biodiversity and Ecology"
showing 10 items of 738 documents
Agroecological engineering
2015
Earth has recently entered the new era of the Anthropocene, during which the rise of human activities are impacting for the first time ecosystems and climate on the global scale. Since the 1960s the green revolution has improved food production in quantity using industrially-designed agriculture, which has led to global pollution by pesticides and losses of food quality, biodiversity and soil carbon. As a consequence there is a need to implement agroecological practices in order to produce food safely and in a sustainable way. This virtual issue presents principles and applications of agroecological engineering, exemplified in 19 selected review articles from the journal Agronomy for Sustai…
Pesticide doses, landscape structure and their relative effects on farmland birds
2014
International audience; tAgricultural changes related to the intensification of farming practices and the simplification of land-scape elements often occur simultaneously. Their respective effects on biodiversity are thus difficult todisentangle and are poorly understood. This study assessed the relative contribution of each componentof agricultural intensification on taxonomic and functional bird communities.The bird communities studied were composed of 70 species, both farmland and non-farmland birds,found in 66 fields covering three main cereal departments of France. Herbicide dose was related to mea-surable negative effects on the Community Specialization Index (CSI). Overall, the propo…
Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer parameters (BEST) across soils and scales
2019
Abstract Theories and models used in soil hydrological sciences rely on the knowledge of the spatially and temporally variable soil hydraulic properties, i.e. the water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves. Obtaining reliable experimental information on these curves for an area of interest is not easy and it still remains a challenge for soil scientists. In 2006, a simple and physically based methodology was proposed to completely characterize the soil using a single ring infiltration experiment in the field and determination of soil particle size distribution, initial and final soil water content and dry soil bulk density. This methodology, named BEST – Beerkan Estimation of Soil Tr…
Investigations sur la distribution des arthropodes cécidogènes (inducteurs de «galles» sur les plantes) au long de la «Côte bourguignonne», entre Cha…
2020
15 pages; National audience; Les arthropodes inducteurs de galles sur les végétaux figurent parmi lesherbivores entretenant les relations les plus intimes, et corrélativement les plus étroites, avec leurs plantes hôtes respectives. À cet égard, il semble donc assez naturel de réaliser des inventaires superposables à des unités phytogéographiques caractérisées. Le présent inventaire répond à cette approche en se focalisant sur une unité bien définie, la « Côte bourguignonne » prise au sens large, de Chatillon-sur-Seine à Mâcon, les observations s’étendant à une dizaine d’alliancesphytosociologiques typiques de ces côtes calcaires en ambiance plus ou moins xérothermique.Inventaire entomologiq…
Impacts of thinning of a Mediterranean oak forest on soil properties influencing water infiltration
2017
[EN] In Mediterranean ecosystems, special attention needs to be paid to forest¿water relationships due to water scarcity. In this context, Adaptive Forest Management (AFM) has the objective to establish how forest resources have to be managed with regards to the efficient use of water, which needs maintaining healthy soil properties even after disturbance. The main objective of this investigation was to understand the effect of one of the AFM methods, namely forest thinning, on soil hydraulic properties. At this aim, soil hydraulic characterization was performed on two contiguous Mediterranean oak forest plots, one of them thinned to reduce the forest density from 861 to 414 tree per ha. Th…
Specific Detection and Localization of Microsporidian Parasites in Invertebrate Hosts by Using In Situ Hybridization
2013
ABSTRACT We designed fluorescence in situ hybridization probes for two distinct microsporidian clades and demonstrated their application in detecting, respectively, Nosema / Vairimorpha and Dictyoceola species. We used them to study the vertical transmission of two microsporidia infecting the amphipod Gammarus duebeni .
An invasive species may be better than none: invasive signal and native noble crayfish have similar community effects
2014
14 pages; International audience; Human activities have resulted in the decline of native crayfish and promoted the spread of invasive crayfish species in European fresh waters, threatening ecosystem structure and functioning. We compared effects of native noble crayfish (Astacus astacus), invasive signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) and of the absence of crayfish on leaf litter breakdown and invertebrate prey density and biomass in stream ecosystems. In microcosm experiments, invertebrate shredder density was significantly reduced by crayfish presence but similarly affected by the two crayfish species. While crayfish did not directly influence leaf litter breakdown, their presence r…
Biological protection against grape berry moths. A review
2018
International audience; Grape is a major crop, covering 7.5 M ha worldwide, that is currently being confronted with three main challenges: intensive pesticide use that must be reduced, invasion by new pests/diseases, and climate change. The biological control of pests and vectors would help address these challenges. Here, we review the scientific literature on the biological control of grape moths by macroorganisms (excluding nematodes). Two components, biological control with an active human role, mainly using biocontrol agents through inundation or inoculation, and conservation biological control, are considered. The major points are the following. (1) Tortricid grape moths seriously dama…
Time-series analyses of species richness and relative abundances at the local scale: some methodological advices to secure the relevance of interpret…
2020
Analysing the origins of the strong variability of impact by Tischeria ekebladella, a common mining moth on oak leaves.
2015
Tischeria ekebladella (Lepidoptera : Gracillariidae) is a common moth with its caterpillar often mining oak leaves, morerarely chestnut leaves. As a rule, the mining impact of the species exhibits strong variations according to locations,inviting to investigate quantitatively the respective contributions of the three main factors that regulate the level of minesdensity within host. As the direct monitoring in the fi eld of these governing factors is very diffi cult (when not virtuallyimpossible), we use a newly designed procedure (“MELBA”) which allows tracing back to these factors indirectly, on thebasis of posterior, easily recorded data (in terms of the histogram of the distribution of t…