Le journal de l'IRD
n° 49 April-May 2009
Translator: Nicholas Flay
Abstracts for the international issue
A life-sized laboratory
F
T
Dengue and chikungunya
combine
he Camboa is a trap fashioned from
artificial hedges made entirely using
local natural material, which works by
taking advantage of the alternating tides.
Described in 1908 by Abel Gruvel, zoologist of the French Empire, since then it
had disappeared? from books, but not
from the coasts of Guinea. In early 2007,
an IRD team spotted a large number of
them by satellite imagery and decided to
set up an expedition to gain an understanding of the remarkable persistence of
this technique.
Better targeting
of vulnerable populations
© IRD/E. Becquey
I
© IRD/P. Laboute
© IRD/C. Boutrolle
p. 16 Forum
Jatropha,
a miracle plant?
“
D
engue and chikungunya hit
Gabon in simultaneous outbreaks from March to August 2007. That
resulted in 20 000 or so victims. An IRD team
traced the spread of the two viruses. The
agent responsible? The mosquito Aedes
albopictus. Since 2005, this species has
been stealing the limelight from its cousin,
Aedes aegypti, in the role of leading vector.
As Eric Leroy, IRD director of research on
guest assignment at the Centre International de Recherches Médicales de
Franceville (CIRMF) deplores, “Aedes albopictus is much more aggressive than its predecessor”. Hence its name “tiger mosquito”.
This insect is originally from Asia but is highly prolific and now occurs on all continents.
It has also infested spaces hitherto occupied
by Aedes aegypti such as urban areas.
“Up to now, the scientific community considered that Aedes albopictus was a poor
vector for dengue”, explains Xavier de
Lamballerie, director of research at the IRD
and co-author of the research report. This is
not at all the case. “Quite the opposite”, he
confirms, “this species is even capable of
transmitting chikungunya and dengue at
the same time”.
Jatropha fever” is gaining ground!
The Philippines, Ghana and
Madagascar are planning to sow
between 15 and 20% of their arable
land with Jatropha curcas, a shrub of
the Euphorbiaceae family whose oil can
be used as bio-fuel. In India such surfaces already cover more than 400 000
ha. Wide-scale planting projects have
sprung up recently in the tropical band
on three continents (Africa, Asia,
America), encouraged by investment
agencies and governments swayed by
the supposed advantages of this plant,
also known as “green gold of the
desert”. Internet and other media fully
convey these arguments. Yet is this
plant still really the miracle solution, the
panacea against the energy crisis which some day or other will surge up again? But what
is the real situation? IRD researchers are examining this. The issues involved prompt scientists to stress the lack of clear perspective we have on the subject and call for an increase
in research and promotion of impact assessments.
p. 4 Partners
International joint laboratories
I
RD’s
first international laboratories (laboratoires mixtes internationaux, LMI) have recently
come into being. Such structures constitute a
new instrument for scientific partnership with
the South. LMIs are supported by one or more
IRD research units, but do not replace them.
They are set up in countries of the South in the
premises of partner establishments. This arrangement makes it possible to conduct joint
Masters- and PhD-level research projects and
training schemes.
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site: http://www.ird.fr
© IRD/F. Sontag
p. 1 News
Google Earth comes back to
ancestral techniques
mangrove’s resources, merely to become
wardens of the Earth’s gardens!”
A third approach which considers all the
goods and services derived from the mangrove and aims to redynamize rural areas
in search of identity, could combine the
whole range of interests ?local users,
environmental NGOs and decision-makers.
“Reasoned valorization of the products
derived from the mangrove by improving
processes, using of labels and certification
systems, is a means of reconciling conservation of the biodiversity and local development,”
the
geographer concludes. There is a
burgeoning of
initiatives to promote the mang ro v e - d e r i v e d
specialities and
make them into
characteristic
“marine wetland
products”.
he South Pacific is a real full-scale laboratory for studying a range of global phenomena: climate change, oceanographic events, seismicity and volcanic activity, marine
biodiversity gradients, development
of terrestrial endemism, emerging
diseases such as dengue or ciguatera. Several organizations from
France and abroad therefore have
research units geared to such themes emplaced in that region, such
as the IRD, Ifremer, CNRS, MNHN or universities such as Paris VI or Berkeley
in the USA. Reports on their work
were presented at the Second
Assises de la recherche française
dans le Pacifique, from 2 to 6 March
in Papeete, French Polynesia.
© IRD/M. Dukhan
p. 13 IRD World
T
p. 13 Earth
n line with an agreement with the World
Food Programme, IRD will carry out an
assessment of the tools used to target urban
populations in Burkina Faso who benefit
from a new kind of food aid campaign, involving the distribution of coupons for buying
food.
p. 12 IRD World
Listening in to biodiversity
© IRD/E. Charles-Dominique
And if things change?
If things change, my vision of fisheries becomes positive. I can see it
evolving towards exploitation of
newly rebuilt stocks, with biomass
increased and therefore industrialscale fishing effort reduced. I see
small fishing concerns encouraged
to produce good-quality fish caught
by selective methods.
As soon as we have come out of
this economic crisis there will be
another steep rise in the price of oil.
Its price will climb so high that it will
kill off the currently existing system
of subsidies for industrial-scale fishing. It has to be known that
trawlers use a greater weight in fuel
than the fish they catch. That
becomes untenable beyond a certain fuel price level. In the end, it
will be the ruin of operators with
large vessels.
p. 3 News
our young researchers – including a bioacoustics specialist from the Muséum
National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and an
IRD geographer – have developed an innovatory process for assessing biodiversity based
on the sounds produced by animal species.
Once recorded, all the sounds “bird song, the
croaking of amphibians, the cries of mammals, insect mating calls” become data that can be drawn on to estimate the level of animal biodiversity of a given environment.
Bioacoustics is already used to determine the species present that belong to the same
group of animals. But it is the first time that scientists have used acoustic parameters to
analyse a whole animal community. “Our method does not aim to identify the species present but to characterize the overall sound environment they generate in order to measure richness and make comparisons between environments.” explains Jérôme Sueur, bioacoustics scientist.
What could be the situation for
fisheries in 20 years’ time?
If we envisage a continuation of
the strong trends observed up to
now, we will see a disaster, the
destruction of stocks one after
another. That is what has been
happening over the past 30, 40 or
50 years. When I say that, people
ask themselves why he is being so
pessimistic, because up to the present we do have fish? We do not
realize that we have already lost
substantial stocks that at one time
were exploited and no longer exist.
We have become adapted to consuming something else. With the
same scenario in 20 years’ time, we
will have destroyed other species,
the red tuna for example. But we
will still have surimi to eat!
mangroves. For some, the mangrove, a simple forest of mangrove trees (Rhizophoracea),
needs to be replanted. Vast
replanting schemes, recently
given new impulse and revived
by the imperatives of Kyoto
(with account taken of the high expectations regarding this “carbon factory”),
actively involve international organizations,
NGOs and private companies.
Others, however, consider that the mangrove swamps, a refuge habitat for heritage species, especially migratory birds,
must be protected and raised to the status of world public good. Many initiatives
result in the elevation of such environments as sanctuaries. This approach can
involve more practical participatory
schemes, like community reserves, where
ecotourism appears to be an alternative
to extractive uses. Nevertheless, “we are
entitled to wonder about the legitimacy
of such approaches, which constrain the
local users to deprive themselves of the
© IRD/C. Valentin
Extracts:
Historically, the strongest tendency has long been to convert
these areas to render them productive or more healthy. Slave
traders, colonial agents and
enthusiastic hygiene promoters
of the past have been at work
on them, just as many a contemporary
entrepreneur of developer. Clearance,
draining and polderization have contributed
greatly to the decline in surface areas of
mangrove, often to serve private interests,
including those linked to shrimp farming.
However, since the early XXth Century,
when scientists discovered the ecological
advantages derived from wetlands in general, and mangroves in particular, the panorama has changed. The necessity to conserve
these environments conveyed by the NGOs,
then taken on board by political decisionmakers, resulted in the signature of a protection agreement covering internationally
important wetlands in 1971. Now the
debate is focusing on the different public
policies for restoration and conservation of
© IRD/C. Marchand
“
Interview
with Daniel
Pauly,
fisheries biologist, professor
at the University of British
Colombia at Vancouver in
Canada. He was awarded the
Cosmos Prize in 2005 for
research in ecology.
Resident guest of the IRD
at the Centre de Recherche
Halieutique Méditerranéenne
et Tropicale in Sète
for several months,
he talks to Sciences au Sud
about his findings
on overfishing-related
issues question.
Pestilential swamp, idyll of Nature or
rich ecosystem, the representations
on mangroves vary the eras and men”
explains geographer Marie Christine
Cormier-Salem. This ecosystem is threatened on all fronts, meanwhile its management is the subject of considerable debate.
“Should the mangroves be converted,
made into sanctuaries, or restored ? And in
that case, how can they be managed, and
for whose benefit?”.
© IRD/MC. Cormier Salem
© E. Franceschi
Mangrove management
between two shores
© IRD/ D. Guiral
p. 8/p. 9 Research
p. 1/p. 5 Interview
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