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Le journal de l'IRD
n° 57 November-December 2010
Translator: Nicholas Flay
Abstracts for the international issue
p. 2 News
p. 8-9 Research
Chikungunya
The key role
of “innate immunity”
Towards understanding
of earthquakes
p. 3 News
Worms in the rice fields
A
bsence of oxygen due to sheets of
groundwater, sandy soils compacted by
farmers to limit infiltration… in principle all
factors that deter earthworms! Nevertheless
a team of research scientists have found
abundant quantities (30 individuals/m2) in rice
fields of the village of Ban Daeng in NorthEast Thailand. These organisms have shown a
good level of adaptability.
To learn more about the impact of their presence in the rice field, the scientists are working with a team from the University of
Khon Kaen (Thailand) to identify species of worm and measure their activity. The
worms are subject to the extreme conditions of this region: 6 months of drought followed by several months of monsoon. The pluvial rice is cultivated during this wet
season when the area receives 90 % of its 1100 millimetres annual rainfall. The
worms’ habitat is then completely under water. The only species that have successfully
adapted is Drawida beddardi. These worms feed on the earth in which they develop
and eject it at the base of rice plants in small mounds, wormcasts, which stick up
over the water.
Ocean currents
and their impact
S
urface ocean currents along the
continental coasts are still not well
known to oceanographers. Yet they
have a significant impact on the Earth’s
large-scale climatic mechanisms. The
Aghulas Current travels from the Indian
Ocean into the Atlantic and influences
the global oceanic circulation, whereas the surface currents in the Solomon Sea and
the Coral Sea are major active factors in the great climatic phenomena like Enso (El Niño
Southern Oscillation).
p. 11 Valorization
T
Promising salivary proteins
osquito saliva turns out to be a source of many valuable
substances. Several compounds patented by the IRD give
hope of finding new weapons in the fight against certain vectorborne diseases like malaria, dengue or chikungunya.
Great concern over lake Chad
W
ill the Ubangui River save lake Chad?
The question could be drawn from an
ancient warrior epic. But it is quite contemporary in reality. In environmental terms, it was
put to scientists, planners and decision-makers
who met at N’Djamena, at the Africa session
of the 8th World Forum for Sustainable Development. Because this great lake, which not
very long ago was like an inner sea in the midst of the African Sahel, is in a very poor state.
Its surface area shrank by 90% in the severe drought of the 1970s and 1980s, and since
has become no more than a vast area of marsh land. And if nothing is done quickly,
it could peter out completely, sounding the death knell of ecosystems it harbours and
rendering even more insecure communities populations suffering because of its decline.
At the heart
of the Millennium Objectives
S
p. 15 World
Friend Conference
“F
© IRD/E. Servat
udies in health, examination of public policies devoted to
a sustainable environment, reflection on the means of giving
aid to the countries of the South… research has become involved
in the area of the Millennium Objectives for Development. It
stands out as an essential component of the partial or total realization of the ambitious 8-objective programme, established in
2000 by the United Nations and devoted to reducing world
poverty to half by 2015.
In highly concrete terms, research conducted at the IRD are contributing to the realization of certain objectives: this is the case for
example of the work devoted
to the development of treatments against malaria, vector control strategies and the formulation
of therapeutic protocols and care policies against HIV/AIDS. They have significantly helped to
push back these endemic diseases, in line with objective 6 aiming to stop the spread of AIDS and
malaria.
In a completely different area, gender studies undertaken by IRD researchers and their partners
have allowed the building-up of precise indicators, which in many African countries have become
essential tools for measuring the development of equality of the sexes and promoting women’s
autonomy, the 3rd objective.
Beyond the objectives and their implementation, the research work is also contributing to thought
on their bases and the financial means for them. More broadly, the independent approach proposed by the researchers is a recognized added-value. By bringing out the possible dysfunctions,
the research helps correct the actions undertaken, compels the institutions to move away from
simple political compromises to go full ahead and legitimize the MOD initiatives in their entirety by
its independence.
M
p. 13 World
p. 7 Research
© IRD/J. Montmarche
✆ IRD/N. Henaff
he last epidemic of influenza A (H1N1) showed the limitations of a national approach to
Public Health policies and the need for setting up international networks of laboratories
specialized in these problems. In virology this difficulty is all the more complex in that the
domain is fragmented into a mosaic of independent research structures highly variable in size.
Conscious of that, Europe decided to finance an infrastructure, European Virus Archive (EVA)
whose primary objective is to unify European collections of this virus, then reinforce this initial
core by associating collections beyond Europe. The initiative, coordinated since 2009 by the IRD,
involves nine institutions of six European countries. By combining with other non European
collections, EVA should in the long term become the world’s largest infrastructure for virology.
© Université de la méditerranée/N. Salez
p. 4 Partners
A European initiative in virology
© IRD/G. De NOni
p. 10 Research
© IRD/F. Remoue
Every year, between May and July,
schools of millions of sardine, under
relentless attack from all kinds of predators -sharks, dolphins, sea lions,
whales, birds- give a splendid show,
just a few hundred metres off the
South African coast.
This is the Sardine Run, a great
migration which attracts fishermen
and also divers, tourists and photographers for the beauty of the scene.
It is well known to local people and
the general public. However, it is still
not well understood scientifically.
Why do the sardine undertake this
long danger-strewn journey, from
the Agulhas Bank, to the southern
tip of the continent, to go and spawn
off Durban further North?
This question has been stimulating
scientists’ imagination for decades,
who have formulated a great number
of -often contradictory- theories.
IRD researchers and their South African partners have recently revealed
a little more about the mysteries of
the Sardine Run.
© Université de Khon Kaen/ C.Choosa
The Sardine Run
© IRD/L. Corsini
hikungunya can take many different forms, from a straightforward
fever to severe pains in the joints. This
extreme variability in symptoms stems
from the variability of each patient’s
immune defence system. A team of
researchers recently showed the key
function of the organism’s first line of defence in the disease’s clinical development: the
non-specific response, also called “innate immunity”, in other words a reaction that does
not take account of the foreign body it is resisting. Blood tests conducted during the 2007
epidemic in Gabon have shown this innate defence to be very strong in people suffering
from chikungunya.
n Peru (Pisco) in 2007, Chile (Maule) and
Haiti (Port-au-Prince) in 2010, strong and
very strong earthquakes have again shaken
whole regions, causing many victims and
producing enormous damage to buildings
and infrastructure. These large tremors
result from the relative movements of tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust but
are still impossible to predict. IRD researchers, their colleagues from universities (including
Grenoble, Nice and Paris), grandes écoles and scientific establishments (ENS, IPGP) and other
research organizations (CNRS/INSU, Ifrmer) and their partners from countries concerned are
seeking to understand the detailed mechanisms at work in these seismogenic zones. In
the case of the large-scale subduction earthquakes in Peru and Chile, they focused on
the mechanical processes, with or without friction, involved when the Nazca oceanic
Plate slips of under the South American continental plate, to obtain a better picture of the
probabilities of recurrence of large-scale earthquakes, their location and probable magnitude. The tragic event in Haiti is mechanically very different. It leads the researchers to
evaluate variations in the distribution of elastic pressures during lateral movements of the
plates in order better to locate zones at risk.
acing up to the risks and
threats to water resources” was the catchphrase for
the 6th edition of the World
Friend Conference held in Fez
(Morocco). The Friend programme, supported by Unesco, has
since 1984 aimed to facilitate
dialogue between research
scientists in order to improve
knowledge about the variability hydrological processes. Several researchers from the IRD
attended and in al there were participants from 36 countries. They brought clues for
answering the question “How can we assess better the risks associated with climate
change?”. One of the answers involves setting up permanent environment observatories.
The structure for the Mediterranean stood out as one of the spearhead projects. That is
the region of the world which receives the most visitors. Population growth is high, water
resources are low and already largely drawn upon. Climate predictions for the coming
years are unfavourable, with an expected
decrease in precipitation and a rise in temperatures which will aggravate the situation
hydrological further.
✆ IRD/G. Favreau
C
I
© IRD / V. Guernier
✆ Blue Wilderness - M. Addison
p. 1 News