In this context, the role of the soil-water continuum in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services is increasingly questioned. However, this role is still very little studied, especially because of the compartmentalization of research by type of environment (e.g. soil vs surface water vs sediment) as well as of conceptual and methodological scientific limitations (including in terms of experimental set-ups that integrate terrestrial and aquatic compartments). 

Background and challenges

Agroecosystems, which carry high socio-economic stakes, are ecosystems that illustrate the importance of the soil-aquatic continuum, due to the close links between watersheds and adjacent aquatic environments, particularly in headwater sections. While these links are relatively well studied in terms of chemical transfers (e.g. nitrates, phosphates and pesticides), little attention is paid to biological exchanges between soil and aquatic environments. In agroecosystems, microbial communities are present in all environmental compartments, where they contribute to various ecological processes that contribute to a wide range of ecosystem functions and services.

The functioning of agroecosystems and the interfaces between their various compartments is highly dependent on agronomic practices, which interact with various natural factors (e.g. climate, slope, soil impermeability, etc.) and which can be multiple and diverse at the watershed scale. Taking into account the diversity of these practices is therefore needed to better understand the role of the soil-water continuum in maintaining functional microbial biodiversity in agroecosystems.

In this context, it is necessary to identify the conceptual and technical levers to enable the development of more ambitious projects around the following question: "How do the interfaces between terrestrial and aquatic environments and the interactions between activities influence functional microbial biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports in agroecosystems?". The aim of the CONTICOMIC project was therefore to promote the establishment of a scientific framework to help identify these levers and assess the related scientific challenges.

Resources

The CONTICOMIC project enabled a workshop to be organised, bringing together microbial ecologists and ecotoxicologists working in terrestrial and aquatic environments respectively, with the aim of leading a discussion using collective intelligence processes around : 

1.  The concepts of 'coalescence' and 'functional continuum' in agroecosystems,
2. Approaches/methods to be developed to explore these concepts based on the study of microbial biodiversity and certain services it supports.

INRAE units involved

• Département AGROECOSYSTEM
  • Agroecology Joint Research Unit
  • EMMAH Joint Research Unit - Mediterranean Environment and Modelling of Agroecosystems
• Département AQUA
  • RiverLy Research Unit, Interdisciplinarity Research Unit for the management and restoration of river systems and their catchments
  • CARRTEL Joint Research Unit - Alpine Center for research on trophic networks and limnic ecosystems

External partnerships

• LECA Joint Research Unit CNRS - Alpine Ecology Laboratory