Global health

BIODILUTIQUE confirms the role of landscape characteristics in tick abundance: in large wooded areas, ticks are more numerous on vegetation. The overall prevalence of Borrelia spp. is 8.2%. Birds play a more significant role as reservoirs for Borrelia than small mammals. Roe deer density influences tick population dynamics.

SYNBIOTOX, through ecological and ecotoxicological monitoring of a pilot constructed wetland (CW) located in Seine-et-Marne, demonstrates that the risk posed by agricultural contaminant flows within the CW is significant for amphibians, and that negative behavioural and ecological effects are exerted on aquatic fauna. This thesis provides a better understanding of the potential impacts of agricultural contaminant flows on aquatic fauna in constructed wetlands.

Forests host exceptional biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services, ranging from carbon sequestration to disease regulation. Yet, deforestation, overexploitation, and anthropogenic pressures are weakening their resilience and fostering the emergence of health risks. In this context, the "One Health" approach—linking human, animal, and environmental health—offers a relevant framework to understand the interactions between forest health and human health. The SALUD project aims to explore these connections by studying the impacts of biodiversity and forest management history on two major issues: tick-borne diseases and fire risk. Thus, the project seeks to fill this gap by investigating how human activities, particularly forest management, affect forest ecosystem health and their potential repercussions on human health, such as the emergence of zoonotic diseases or wildfire risks.

Highly diversified agroforestry systems—orchard-market gardens, forest gardens, or successional agroforestry systems (also known as syntropic agroforestry systems) are emerging in France and Europe due to their significant ecological, agronomic, and social potential. Although promising in addressing current challenges (biodiversity loss, climate change, agroecological transition, among others), their adoption is still hindered by various technical, economic, and institutional barriers. The consortium built around this project aims to better understand the functioning and impacts of highly diversified agroforestry systems, which are still poorly studied, while laying the foundations for participatory and transdisciplinary research capable of addressing the agronomic, ecological, and societal challenges of current agriculture.

COP26 aims to build an interdisciplinary consortium around a comprehensive approach to assessing the environmental impact of the use of copper fungicides in agriculture. By inviting agronomists, biogeochemists, ecotoxicologists and ecologists to initiate a joint discussion on copper, its uses in crop protection, its dynamics in soils and waters, its effects on soil and aquatic organisms, and on the ecological functioning of soils and waters, this project aims to support INRAE on issues related to global health, in particular by bridging biodiversity, ecosystem services, plant health and animal health.

Trees are living beings that form part of the urban socio-ecosystem. They provide essential ecosystem services: they buffer extreme temperatures, mitigate pollution, support biodiversity and contribute directly and indirectly to improving well-being. However, their presence can be perceived as a nuisance—competition for space, allergy risks, damage to property and people—and their monitoring and maintenance generate costs for municipalities and individuals who own most of the trees in cities. The benefits of the services and the costs of the disservices associated with urban trees are difficult to quantify and compare in the absence of an appropriate analytical framework.

The emergence of tick-borne animal and zoonotic diseases is influenced by complex interactions between ticks, transmitted agents, vertebrate reservoir hosts and their habitats. Changes in the composition of the landscape can strongly alter the relationships between species and the abundance of populations, thereby affecting the 'acarological risk', defined as the density of ticks infected by a pathogen.

The increasing use of various kinds of plastics leads to the accumulation and long-term storage of microplastics (MP) in soils. There is a growing scientific literature linking the presence of MP and the consequences for soil organisms that perform essential ecological functions. However, for the most part, these are ecotoxicological approaches through effects on certain organisms studied separately (microorganisms, micro-, macrofauna and plants), without addressing ecotoxicity issues. Moreover, in agricultural soils, the presence of MP may be due to inputs via amendments with organic matrices and their impact on the biological functioning of soils is then little documented.