n° 76 - September-October 2014
Le journal de l'IRD
Translations: Technicis
p. 3 News
p. 8 Research
Saint-Louis on the edge
Parasitic diseases: an
immune weakness
W
hile a piece of excavation
machinery may seem
as far removed as you can get
from a fragile insect it can cause
a real ‘butterfly effect’, as seen
by the action of a bulldozer
one night in October 2003 in
Saint-Louis in Senegal. To save
the city from a catastrophic flood, the authorities decided to dig a channel in the
sandbank separating the estuary of the Senegal River from the ocean. By doing so,
they sparked off a series of unforeseen events, affecting the physical qualities and
the ecology of the estuary environment.
p. 1 News
Understanding and
combating Ebola
A
he soil feeds the forest plants which
in turn enrich it with humus. But this
cycle is disturbed by the introduction of
exotic essences to restore the damaged
soil and by deforestation linked to the
growth of intensive farming. How do
these anthropic activities interfere in the
natural processes of the soil? Researchers
at the IRD and their partners are bringing
some answers to this question.
© Cirad / C. Jourdan
p. 10 Research
In the footsteps of tropical ants
n the peaty and swampy forests of the tropics,
plants have difficulty obtaining the nitrogen that
they need to grow from the soil. Therefore they
engage in cooperative strategies with certain species
of ant. When the plant offers the ant accommodation
and even food to go with it, in return the ant offers
its protection against predators and the organic
matter needed for the plant’s growth. All in all these
are quite classic interactions for these experts in ecosystems but they can sometimes
take original new directions. In the canopy of the Amazonian forest, tree-dwelling
ants look after real hanging gardens suspended from the tree branches. In Guyana,
the ants team up with mushrooms and plants for a three-way nutritional exchange.
Meanwhile, in Borneo, they lead a serene life alongside carnivorous plants. Who
says that the ant is not generous?
p. 4 Partners
S
cientific
cooperation
between
Brazil
and
French Guiana is moving up
a gear in the Oyapock River
Basin. This dense and lush
part of the Amazonian forest
contains several goldmines.
The two countries exploit
this exceptional natural
heritage on both sides
of the river that separates them. And while cross-border cooperation is arduous
concerning the opening of the bridge linking the two banks, scientific cooperation
is much more efficient! The Guyamapa project, led by the IRD and supported by
Europe, is the perfect illustration, with 90 French and Brazilian experts working
together to harmonise the region’s scientific data.
© CNRS Photothèque / G. FORNET
A scientific connection across the Oyapock River
p. 11 Valorization
IRD
and Michelin, a long story
A
n industry under pressure! Over 70%
of natural rubber production goes
into the tyre market. But by 2030, the
number of vehicles in the world looks set
to double, and until now the Hevea tree
is the only source of the material needed
for the tyres and it would be difficult to
double the surface area of trees planted! Sustainable management of the growth
of these trees is the key for the tyre industry. To this end, the Michelin Group is
working alongside the IRD on two research projects, via the French Rubber Institute.
p. 5 Partners
Amazonian societies
forerunning Andean
civilizations
A
rchaeologists and volcanologists have discovered the remnants of a very ancient Amazonian society. Their findings update
our knowledge about the neighbouring Andean civilizations.
p. 12 Planet
Phosphorus alert
JEAI MPRAM
he discovery of natural resources
can change everything in a
region, for better or for worse.
In Uganda, it has dramatically
changed the destiny of the kingdom
of Bunyoro, near Lake Albert.
Systematic subterranean exploration over the past decade has revealed huge oil
reserves and has led to very rapid social transformation. Within JEAI MPRAM,
Ugandan, Kenyan and French researchers and students from various social science
fields are participating in the study of the changes taking place in the region.
T
he enslavement, sale and exploitation of
human beings lasted centuries and even
continue in some parts of the world. Scientists
from the IRD are studying the more or less
profound traces of these phenomena in the
Southern societies concerned, from East to
West Africa, and from the Caribbean to Latin
America.
he issues raised by the increasing
scarcity of phosphate reserves are at
the centre of two recent scientific events.
The debates concern soil-plant exchanges,
recycling, mining improvements, and the
geopolitics around the reserves.
p. 15 Planet
Lead and arsenic in the air
A
p. 7 Research
Heritages and vestiges of slavery
T
© P. Hinsinger
p. 6 Training
T
© L. Gaume
I
© IRD / JL. Maeght
© Geoeye
I
traced back to Kinshasa
ould the city now known as Kinshasa be the point of origin of the
Aids epidemic? In any case that is the
finding of a new study published in
Science magazine, which has traced
the Human Immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV) back to 1920 in the capital of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo,
then called Léopoldville. The research
team reconstituted the progression
of the disease during the first half of
the 20th Century in the countries of
the Congo River Basin, identified as
potential foyers. It studied the genetic
evolution of several hundreds of samples of the pathogen collected in the
sub-region and localised a common
ancestor of all the HIV strains currently
circulating in the world in Kinshasa.
© IRD / A. Dessier
T
n the past twenty years, fishery
production in Indonesia has increased
by 320%! This explosion is now raising
questions. Even if fishing is the livelihood
of 50 million people in the archipelago, the
situation is putting huge pressure on the
marine resources and the environment and
clearly calls for the creation of a system
for sustainable management of stocks.
The INDESO program launched in 2013 is a
step in this direction and provides crucial
information based on satellite imagery.
Via these images, the company CLS, alongside the IRD and Ifremer, is creating a
national centre for managing and forecasting marine resources for the Indonesian
government (BalitbangKP). It provides technology and know-how in terms of the
sustainable preservation of fish stocks and the country’s marine space.
© IRD / C. Medard
C
Forest plantations and soil
Indonesia’s marine space under surveillance
© CNRS Photothèque / H. Thery
HIV
p. 9 Research
t 3700 metres above sea level, the mining town of Oruro in Bolivia is swathed
in an atmosphere full of metallic dust. Lead, arsenic, and iron are constantly
detected. Their accumulation in the human body can affect the nervous system, and
kidney, liver and respiratory functions. These fine particles come from Salvadora, a
mountain from which the miners extract
mainly tin but also lead, zinc, and silver.
An entire district has grown up at the
foot of the mine, where the workers live
with their families. Yet, despite breathing
this mediocre air, the children have blood
lead levels similar to those measured
in children living in other regions of
Altiplano. This paradox has been resolved
and explained by a team from the IRD at
a recent international aerosol conference
held in South Korea.
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site: http://www.ird.fr
© IRD / G. Uzu
p. 2 News
e are not all equal when it
comes to tropical diseases
such as malaria or human African
trypanosomiasis. A team from
the IRD offers a new explanation
with its discovery that a key
molecule in the immune system, HLA-G, contributes to a greater vulnerability to these
pathologies amongst certain individuals. For the Southern countries in which these
parasitic infections are endemic and deadly, these results should give rise to new
tools to identify these high-risk patients as early as possible.
p. 4 Partners
© IRD / JL. Lepennec
t a time when diplomats, politicians, and health authorities
are mobilised in the face of the
Ebola outbreak, research is already
active on all fronts, from Central
to Western Africa, and from virology to medical anthropology. In
the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, the epidemic which began
in August 2014 is now contained,
and studying this case gives many
clues as to the nature of the virus
and the way it currently spreads in
its environment. The full sequencing
of the virus has revealed that it is a
local strain, different from the one
ravaging Western Africa. Therefore
the two epidemics are not linked,
but the fact that they have arisen
at more or less the same time in
two locations so far apart suggests
a change in the risk factors at the
continental scale. Therefore the
incidence of the infection, in host
animals, could have increased.
Modifications in environmental
conditions could also increase the
likelihood of contact with the virus.
Otherwise, in terms of inter-human
transmission, the spread of the disease depends above all on human
behaviour and elements that affect
it. Therefore, in Western Africa,
where the severest epidemic seen
so far has broken out, it is rumours,
mistrust of the political and health
authorities, and resistance to biomedical recommendations that go
against local customs which are
costing many human lives. Thousands of new cases are expected
before the end of the year. Health
anthropology provides essential
information for combating the
epidemic. To facilitate exchange in
this field, researchers at the IRD have
created a network of social science
studies devoted to the Ebola Virus
Disease in Western Africa.
W
© Amnesty International / Anna Kari
© CIRMF
Abstracts for the international issue
/·,5'GDQVOHPRQGH
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