abstract32.qxd 28/10/05 12:47 Page 1
Le journal de l'IRD
n° 32 November-December 2005
Translator: Nicholas Flay
Abstracts for the international issue
Fish fauna
Algae of the Indo-Pacific
The Clipperton archives
B
T
C
I
n December 2004, scientists left terra
firma for a 3-4 month campaign in the
Pacific to study one of its most remote
islands, the coral atoll Clipperton. This
expedition, led by Jean-Louis Etienne, involved a dozen IRD researchers. The first
results are highlighted here.
A speck in the ocean
C
lipperton, an atoll of volcanic origin,
located at 10°18' North and 109°13
West, has at its centre a brackish-water
lagoon. Its waters have been separated
from the ocean for over a century by a narrow strip of land. A dozen IRD scientists
working on similar environments conducted palaeoclimatic studies, in particular relation to El Niño1, and assessed the primary
production of the lagoon2, and the populations of algae and invertebrates3 and also
of marine fish4. Another team is engaged
in setting up satellite cover of biotopes and
reef communities5. These surveys are being
undertaken in conjunction with scientists
from MNHN, the CNRS, INRA, CNES and several
French universities, also involved in this
four-month voyage (January - April 2005).
1. UR 055 Paléotropique.
2. UR 167 Cyroco.
3. UR 148 Systématique, adaptation, évolution
(unité mixte Université Paris 6, CNRS, ENS, IRD).
4. unités Taxonomie et collection et
Archéozoologie et Histoire des Sociétés du
Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle.
5. UR 128 Coreus.
ernard Séret, IRD ichthyologist-biosystematitian and
Philippe Béarez, archaeo-ichthyologist at the CNRS, had
the mission to compile a list of fish fauna present at
Clipperton. « The last list of fauna published recorded 115
reef species, including 5 sharks, with an endemism rate of
7.8%. This diversity is low compared with that of other,
similar-sized, oceanic islands. During our expedition, nearly half the species registered could be found. The capture
of a specimen of surgeon fish of the species Acanthurus
guttatus is a first recording for Clipperton, but also for the
whole of the tropical East Pacific. The shark populations
appear to be building up again. Although densities remain
low, large individuals including gravid females have been
observed. Two species appear to use Clipperton as a
ground for giving birth: the silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis) and the Galapagos shark (Carcharhinus galapagensis). If nothing is done, industrial-scale fishing will probably
resume as soon as stocks have reached a profitable level. »
Ecological disaster
O
n Clipperton Island, Loïc Charpy, Martine Rodier
(UR 099, Cyroco) and their colleague from the
Museum, Alain Couté, focused on communities of cyanobacteria. « The surface layer of water, with low salinity, is
highly productive owing to the nitrogen and phosphorusrich guano produced by sea birds that nest on Clipperton.
The phytoplankton is highly abundant. Many filamentous
cyanobacteria are also found there. The lagoon vegetation
includes aquatic angiosperms (flowering plants) forming
extensive masses in the low-salinity shallow parts. The
planktonic primary production is consumed by microscopic
planktonic organisms, the ciliates, and zooplankton.
Practically no fish or benthic macrofauna are found. The
deeper layer is highly saline and saturated in hydrogen sulfide. Only bacteria are found there. Clipperton illustrates
what becomes of an atoll once open to the ocean which
becomes closed off owing to a natural disaster. »
p. 2 News
HTLV-3
p. 4 Partners
France-Brazil
A new human retrovirus
Working together in Guinea-Bissau
A
A
Charting Ecuador’s
quake zones
T
he oceanographic campaign Amadeus
was run from 4 February to 9 March
2005 on board the IFREMER research vessel Atalante. It followed the Northern edge
of Ecuador and the southern margin of
Colombia. The observations gave an indication of areas of slope instability, characterized by numerous 5 to 10 km wide slide
features, sometimes taking the form of
indentations associated with large masses
of rocky debris at the foot of the continental slope and on canyon flanks.
Observations revealed that the margin is
tectonically segmented and bears active
submarine faults. Spatio-temporal analysis of these will give a clear description of
the tectonic history of the margin from
about 25-30 million years ago, on the
basis of rocks dredged up from the sea
floor. Observations on thermal fluxes at
the margin front can be used for modelling to determine the seismogenic zone’s
boundaries.
T
here are few invertebrates on Clipperton. Echinoderms
are the exception. This family is represented mainly by
Holothurioidea, sea cucumbers; many species present are
common to the Indo-Pacific region. Researchers also identified four or five species of sea urchins Echinoidea belonging
to the genera Diadema, Echinotrix, Tripneustes and
Mespilia, and just one species of Asterioidea, the starfish
Mithrodia clavigera.
The fact that invertebrates are few or even rare on the
island could reflect the biodiversity gradient between the
West Pacific, where these organisms are in great abundance, and the East Pacific, like in Polynesia, where they become rarer.
Franco-Brazilian mission went to
Guinea-Bissau and Senegal in
February 2005. This
joint scheme has the
objective of applying
20 years’ experience
of working together
to further the development of Portuguesespeaking Africa. This is
a first step towards a
Brazil-Africa partnership which materializes the efforts of IRD
to promote SouthSouth aid ventures. The sectors studied
during the mission were social sciences,
agriculture and health. CIRAD focused on
research work for the Clipperton expedition
have benefited from the financial support of the
Fondation Total.
For further information :
http://www.ird.fr/fr/info/actions/clipperton/index
.htm
Ethics and good practice
T
he end of the first mandate of IRD’s
Consultative Committee on Code of
Practice and Ethics (CCDE) in May 2005
was marked by the accomplishment of
two key initiatives :
• the organisation of the first international symposium, entitled « Is there a special set of ethics for research for development ? », held at the Collège de France in
Paris on 27 May,
agriculture and sustainable development,
IRD on health, social sciences and training.
A new mission,
for the implementation
of
this programme,
is planned for as
soon as the new
Guinea-Bissau
government
takes
office,
after the investiture at the
beginning
of
October of President Joãn Bernardo Vieira, elected in July
2005.
New strategies to fight an old problem
p. 11 Valorization
Bioinformatics
Genomics
on a grand scale
RD’s
Montpellier centre
has endowed itself with a
bioinformatics centre, an
initiative prompted by
research teams conducting
large-scale studies in genomics and postgenomics. Finance for this comes from
the Institute’s Department of Living
Resources and the Delegation for
Information Systems. This highly-equip-
ped installation is a mutual facility shared
between three joint units in which the
Institute takes part. The centre recruited a
Bioinformatics specialist and has been
operational since January 2005.
• The production of a « Guide to good
practice in research for development »,
announced and presented publicly at that
event.
For greater convenience, the content of
the guide was not arranged according to
the distinction between deontology and
ethics, but in chronological order of the
operations that researchers must pay
attention to in the design, implementation, follow-up and valorization of a
research programme. The good practice
guide is now available on:
http://www.ccde.ird.fr.
p. 16 Forum
Malaria
B
I
IRD’s research work for the Clipperton expedition have benefited from the financial support of the Fondation Total.
For further information :
http://www.ird.fr/fr/info/actions/clipperton/index.htm
IRD’s
© IRD/J.-N. Jacques
p. 3 News
Amadeus
Invertebrates few and far between
lipperton atoll is a prime base for meteorological observation. It is located in a region of ocean subjected to
the influence of El Niño events. And it is in an area where
cyclones form. Moreover, the stratification of the coral mass
structure can reveal the history of both the climate and sealevel variations. These reasons together led John Butscher
and Thierry Corrège from IRD’s centre in Montpellier, assisted
by Timothee Ourbak, PhD student at the University of
Bordeaux I, to join in the Clipperton expedition.
Climatic variations at different time-scales are investigated
on the basis of climatic “archives”, as constituted by corals,
shells and living or fossil molluscs, full of information on the
water temperature and thermal anomalies linked to past El
Niño events. At Clipperton, the scientists from research unit
UR Paléotropique also turned their attention to small terraces
which would indicate past sea-level changes. The origin of
these terraces and an understanding of the mechanisms
that gave rise to them also prove to be a useful element for
studying former climates.
p. 15 IRD World
© M. Bursztyn
fifth human retrovirus has been discovered in a pygmy in Cameroon, as a
result of a blood test performed as part of
research in genetical anthropology.
he inventory of the marine flora of Clipperton, compiled by Claude Payri, professor of marine reef ecology at the University of French Polynesia, working with
Jean-Louis Menou, head diver at the IRD, brought out
some particularly significant information.
« We think that the number of species counted thanks to
this survey would be 80. Most of the species recognized
are spread widely in the Indo-Pacific region. It is an argument in favour of the attachment of Clipperton to the
Indo-Pacific geographical province, from which classically
it had been excluded, to be included in the East Pacific
Province. However, it is not excluded that further into the
study of the samples, we might find species characteristic of the coasts of the East Pacific, akin to what has been
shown for the corals and fish. »
© IRD/L. Charpy
Clipperton Expedition
y Frédéric Simard and Didier
Fontenille, Research Unit Contrôle
des populations de vecteurs
« New strategies ». That is clearly the
main theme of the 4th Pan-African conference on malaria organized by the
Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM).
The venue of this event, from 13 to 18
November 2005 is at Yaoundé
(Cameroon). It is the largest scientific
meeting exclusively concerning malaria
ever organized in the world.
« … A new generation of researchers,
who are dynamic, confident and determined, is at work and is taking in hand its
own research. Africa is gaining awareness
of its difficult situations but also of its abilities to target the causes and provide
itself with the means to combat them. By
means of training for young researchers,
in situ and in laboratories in the industrialized countries, the IRD is contributing to
the building up of this breeding ground
for young scientists and to developing
their critical sense and autonomy in decision-making. As was recalled starkly in
recent demonstrations in France, a country without research –and even more so a
continent– has no future, condemned to
remain dependent on priorities that are
not necessarily its own. It is the whole
strategy of research in Africa that is changing and the international funding agencies have the duty to respond appropriately to this new impetus. And how about
the development sector beginning with
the ability to manage its own problems
itself, to think by itself and for itself ? »
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site : http://www.ird.fr
© IRD/L. Charpy
pp7-10 Special feature