Evaluating a new intercrop model for capturing mixture effects with an extensive intercrop dataset

International audienceCereal-legume intercrops have numerous advantages over monocultures. However, the intercrop's performance depends on the plant genotypes, management, and environment. Process-based agro-ecosystem models are important tools to evaluate the performance of intercrop systems as field experiments are limited in the number of treatments. The objective of this study was to calibrate and evaluate a new process-based intercrop model using an extensive experimental data set and to test whether the model is suitable for comparing intercrop management strategies. The data set includes all combinations of 12 different spring wheat entries (SW, Triticum aestivum L.) with two faba bean (FB, Vicia faba L.) cultivars, at two sowing densities, in three different environments. The results show that the intercrop model was capable of simulating the absolute mixture (intercrop) effects (AME) for grain yield, above-ground biomass, and topsoil root biomass, for both crops. However, the intercrop model does not perform better than a benchmark that ignores the intercrop effects when simulating plant height, fraction of intercepted radiation, volumetric soil water content, and subsoil root biomass. The intercrop model predicted reasonably well the differences between species and between SW cultivars for grain yield and aboveground plant biomass. Overall, the tested process-based model can be a useful tool for designing and pre-evaluation multiple combinations of crop management, species, and cultivars suitable for intercropping in diverse condition

Combining constraint programming and a participatory approach to design agroecological cropping systems

International audienceContext: Agroecology implementation around the world have shown that increasing the complexity of the agroecosystem leads to increased resilience, lower dependence on synthetic inputs, the provision of ecosystem services and improved performance. However, designing diversified agroecosystems is particularly complex because of the diverse factors to take into account for each specific local context and the range of possible spatiotemporal crop combinations. Objective: Here we propose an iterative agroecological design approach combining artificial intelligence with constraint programming and co-design workshops with farmers to explore and optimize spatiotemporal cropping arrangements in diversified cropping systems. Methods: Our iterative approach comprises a three-step loop for designing new cropping systems: 1) identifying problem data and spatiotemporal constraints; 2) applying a flexible constraint programming model, and refining/removing constraints iteratively with farmers' input until a solution is found; and 3) evaluating solutions through model assessment and workshops with farmers, leading to the design of a new scenario if necessary (repeating step 2). We applied our approach to a case study involving diversified mixed fruit tree–vegetable cropping systems in southern France, whereby farmers were involved in co-design workshops with an agronomist. Results and conclusions: The constraint programming model simulated most important farmers' constraints while adapting to the input of new information during the design process. The workshops facilitated knowledge elicitation, with progressive questioning of farming practices, while fostering a learning process through farmer-agronomist discussions. Meanwhile, the scope of the problem was iteratively outlined during the process, driven by the need to seek trade-offs between all of the constraints, and informed by model feedback. This approach allowed farmers to explore and assess disruptive scenarios, in turn facilitating informed decisions that jointly addressed agroecological and operational objectives on their farms. Significance: The framework presented and illustrated in this study provides a basis for exploring and optimizing spatiotemporal cropping arrangements in diversified cropping systems

Are food retailers resilient amid crisis? A cultural resource-based exploration of Lebanese consumers’ engagement with the food retail landscape

International audienceSupermarketization is transforming global food retailing, but research gaps around this transformation include the role of consumers and of crises in informing the supermarketization process, with implications for the resilience of retail structures. This study aims to apply a cultural-resource based theory of the customer and show that retailers need to think more broadly about the value they create for consumers and the meaning they engage in their interactions with consumers. We performed in-depth interviews with Lebanese consumers to understand whether and to what degree COVID-19, economic, and political crises have altered their food purchasing habits and perceptions, and the implications for the developing country context of supermarketization and retail modernization. Findings reveal that multiple factors influence the choice of food shopping destination ranging from those identified in mainstream retail theories (price, product assortment) to the individual-level activation of meaning and identity creation consistent with the cultural resource-based theory of the customer. Recent shifts in retail patronage patterns are linked to specific crisis impacts but do not uniformly favor modern or traditional retailers, suggesting ambiguous impacts on retailers’ resilience and the future trajectory of supermarketization in Lebanon

Closure and connection : a Southwest Pacific reappraisal of the mining enclave

This chapter analyzes the interactions between large-scale mining and state-making/nation-building in four political settings in the Southwest Pacific: Indonesian West Papua (IWP), Papua New Guinea (PNG), and New Caledonia's North and South provinces. It argues that while, in mineral-dependent contexts, state-making and nation-building processes are shaped by large-scale projects, the nature of this influence varies depending on the complex relationships that co-evolve between corporations, governmental bodies, and the political sphere, including affected communities, NGOs, and other key actors, across multiple scales and levels. Large-scale mining generates multilayered enclaves that extend the influence of such operations well beyond the economic form in which this term is usually conceived. This multilayering can be broadly characterized as extending across three domains: (i) The material enclave (the effects of the necessary localization of mining and its environmental ?overflows?), (ii) the institutional enclave (the specific sets of arrangements and connections allowing the enclave to function from a normative/legal/political point of view), and (iii) the ideological enclave (the place of the mine in the local and national imagination and the construction of the ?extractive subject?). The cases used in this chapter are doubly comparative, as the authors explore the issue in two islands (Papua/Caledonia) and within the two islands (IWP/PNG and New Caledonia's South and North provinces). The chapter reappraises the enclave debate around a multidimensional dialectic of closure and connection, from an empirically grounded perspective

Agricultural practices in olive groves modify weeds floral traits and resources throughout the year

International audienceHighlights: • Community level weeds floral traits are linked to flower productivity in olive groves. • Both weeds morphological and phenological traits are linked to flower productivity. • Weeds floral traits and flower productivity are modified by agricultural practices. • Low-regime mowing filters weeds communities producing more diverse floral resources that are available during a longer period. • Irrigation, fertilization and pedoclimate also impact weeds floral resources.Abstract: Lack of floral resources is suspected to be one of the factors involved in flower-visiting insect declines. Because agricultural landscapes are often poor in flowers, it seems crucial to assess weeds as floral resources to feed flower-visiting insects and to identify the factors that drive floral productivity, defined as floral biomass produced by the weed community. We monitored floral presence, productivity and traits in 16 olive groves from September 2021 to June 2022. The objectives were to understand to which extinct abiotic factors, among agricultural practices, pedoclimate and weather, determine floral productivity and to analyse the relationships between floral traits, floral presence and productivity. We found mowing frequency (2–3 per year on average) increased mean floral area and height, advanced flowering onset, and increased floral functional diversity and flowering species richness, which in turn increased floral presence and productivity

Diversité des points de vue face à l’empreinte carbone de la recherche en partenariat avec les Suds

International audienceThe research sector is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, with variations in France between disciplines, laboratories and individuals beyond an apparent consensus on climate change and the transformations in research practices it requires. This paper explores the specificities of research conducted in partnership with the global South, which is strongly represented in Montpellier and relies a lot on air travail to/from partner countries. To do so, we use a methodology combining an online questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and a theatre-forum play. This original combination of approaches allows us to highlight that research conducted in partnership with the global South implies, on the one hand, a continuum of individual travel practices, and on the other, a widely shared expectation of reducing this sector’s carbon footprint, but with varied views on how and at with level (individual, collective, institutional) to promote more sober research. The study also reveals that numerous factors influence existing individual limitations of travel to the global South, with personal ones often prevailing over environmental thinking. We argue that these personal situations and realities must be taken into account in future adjustments of research policies, while spaces of dialogue are necessary to co-construct North-South research partnerships that are both more sustainable and more equitable.Le secteur de la recherche est responsable d’émissions de gaz à effet de serre, avec en France des variations entre les disciplines, laboratoires et individus, au-delà d’un apparent consensus sur le changement climatique et les transformations des pratiques qu’il requiert. Dans la recherche en partenariat avec les Suds, les déplacements – et notamment le transport aérien – représentent un poste majeur d’émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Pour explorer les spécificités de la recherche en partenariat avec les Suds, nous mobilisons une méthodologie associant un questionnaire en ligne, des entretiens semi-directifs et une saynète de théâtre-forum. L’étude montre que la recherche en partenariat avec les Suds implique, d’une part, un continuum de pratiques individuelles de déplacement, d’autre part, une attente largement partagée de réduction de son empreinte carbone, avec toutefois des points de vue variés sur la manière de concrétiser cet objectif. D’où la nécessité d’espaces de réflexion, concertation et co-construction impliquant les partenaires Suds

Life History Trait Evolution in the Context of Host– Parasite Interactions

International audienceThis chapter explores how the presence of parasites can affect the evolution of host life- history traits (reproduction, longevity and dispersal), and conversely, how host demography or life history selects for changes in parasite life history (latency, within-host growth, transmission/dispersal). We discuss how shifts in host life history can mitigate the negative effects of parasites and look for evidence of parasite-mediated changes in life history in different systems. Parasite life history parallels that of free-living organisms, but with the added problem of virulence. How virulence relates to other parasite life history traits is quintessential for parasite fitness. This is because transmission requires exploitation of host resources, which reduces host health. At the same time, parasite life history (and by definition virulence) evolution are at the mercy of host demography. We present different results highlighting parasite life history (and virulence) evolution in response to different host mortality regimes, timing and/or mode of transmission. We further discuss how dispersal, as both a host and parasite life history trait, affects reciprocal evolution of both players and how it covaries with other traits (e.g., virulence). To illustrate the importance of the biotic environment, we provide an overview of how co-infection, when a host is infected with more than 1 parasite, can affect both host and parasite life history evolution. One main general message is that theoretical predictions depend on correlations between different life history traits and between life history and interaction traits (e.g., resistance, infectivity, etc.). Thus the genetic trait architecture in host and parasite might be a key determinant of epidemiological feedbacks and (co)evolutionary outcomes. This highlights the importance of studying host- parasite life history across scales, from the individual to the metapopulation to the community level

Reducing initial cotton yield penalties in a transition to conservation agriculture through legume cover crop cultivation – evidence from Northern Benin

International audienceHighlights: • After 3 years of DMC, the cotton yield increases of 5–7 % compared to CT. • DMC exhibited no yield penalties in a transition to conservation agriculture. • Soil water storage use efficiency were the highest in the DMC treatment. • For maize yields, no significant differences were observed between treatments.Abstract: Much effort has been spent on promoting conservation agriculture (CA) in Northern Benin to sustain the transition of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) cropping systems toward agroecology. However, its limited adoption by farmers is often ascribed to initial yield penalties during the transition to CA and to trade-offs around crop biomass use. Here, we assess the effect of different CA-based cropping systems promoted in the region on water productivity and cotton yield in a three-year cotton/maize (Zea mays L.) crop rotation during the initial transition phase to CA. Three CA options were assessed combining different levels of soil disturbance and cover, and introducing cover crops to alleviate the biomass trade-offs. Direct seeding (DS), strip tillage (ST), and direct seeding mulched-based cropping systems (DMC) were compared with conventional tillage (CT) from 2017 to 2019 under a dominant soil type in the region, Haplic Lixisols. Two legume species, Stylosanthes guianensis (Aubl.) Sw. and Crotalaria retusa L. were grown as cover crops with maize under ST and DMC. The experiment followed a randomized block design comprising six replicates. After 2–3 years of DMC, the cotton yield advantage with respect to CT increased from 5 % to 7 %. Cotton yield penalties of respectively 11 % in 2018 and 26 % in 2019 were found for DS. ST treatment went from a yield advantage of 8 % in 2017 to a yield penalty of 20 % in 2019. The DMC and CT treatments gave similar and highest boll weights compared to the ST and DS treatments. The treatments had no significant difference regarding the number of bolls per plant. Soil water storage in the upper 30 cm depth and water use efficiency (WUE) were the highest in the plots with the DMC treatment compared to CT, ST, and DS. At 28 days of active vegetative stage (between 34 and 62 days after sowing), the WUE of seed cotton was 0.11 kg ha−1 mm−1 under DMC, while it was 0.08, 0.07, and 0.04 kg ha−1 mm−1 under DS, CT, and ST, respectively. The performance of DMC at increasing water productivity could be an argument to improve adoptability by farmers in northern Benin who are facing increased weather variability, given that the yield penalties often associated with early transitions to CA were not observed here with full DMC

Edaphobase 2.0: Advanced international data warehouse for collating and using soil biodiversity datasets

International audienceSoil and soil-biodiversity protection are increasingly important issues in environmental science and policies, requiring the availability of high-quality empirical data on soil biodiversity. Here we present a publicly available data warehouse for the soil-biodiversity domain, Edaphobase 2.0, which provides a comprehensive toolset for storing and re-using international soil-biodiversity data sets, following the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. A major strength is the possibility of annotating biodiversity data with exhaustive geographical, environmental and methodological metadata, allowing a wide range of applications and analyses. The system harmonises and integrates heterogeneous data from diverse sources into standardised formats, which can be searched together using numerous filter possibilities, and offers data exploration and analysis tools. Edaphobase features a strict data transparency policy, comprehensive quality control, and DOIs can be provided for individual data sets. The database currently contains &gt;450,000 data records from &gt;35,0000 sites and is accessed nearly 14,000 times/year. The data curated by Edaphobase 2.0 can greatly aid researchers, conservationists and decision makers in understanding and protecting soil biodiversity.</div