Results from consortia

There are more than 20,000 species of wild bees worldwide and nearly 1,000 in France, playing an essential role in the pollination of wild and cultivated plants. This wide diversity of bee species, all differing in terms of morphology, mobility, floral preference, nesting sites and flight period, are collectively irreplaceable but unfortunately threatened pollinators. It is therefore important to assess the factors such as agricultural practices or land management, having an impact on the health of domestic bees (e.g. resistance to varroa mites) but also on the abundance and diversity of wild bees.

With the evolution of farming practices, climate change, and the increasing number of beekeepers and hives, tensions have been emerging in rural areas over floral resources (nectar, pollen) used by bees. Long considered unlimited, these resources now appear to be subject to competition—both interspecific, between wild and managed bees, and intraspecific, between managed bee colonies. This shift invites us to consider floral resources as a common good that requires collective management, involving not only beekeepers and biodiversity managers but also farmers, who shape landscapes and whose practices influence the availability of these resources.

Biogeochemical modeling is used to assess the impact of agricultural activities and climate on carbon cycles and ecosystem nutrients as well as associated services or di-service, such as biomass production, emissions/carbon storage and nutrient retention. From a perspective of agroecosystem, DIMIVEA is interested in the physico-chemical and biochemical characterization of soil, the functional diversity of plant and microbial communities and the definition of indicators of ecosystem services in order to better simulate the provision of ecosystem services.

Taking into consideration the environmental continuums, including the interface zones, to study and manage ecosystems is gradually gaining interest in both scientific and operational spheres. 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).

In a global context of loss and fragmentation of natural habitats, changes in land use and management practices, one question is central to understanding and analyzing the role of management types on biodiversity in our anthropized landscapes and proposing ways of organizing the landscape that are more favorable to biodiversity. What is the link between the heterogeneity of composition and configuration of the landscape mosaic and specific and functional multi-taxonomic diversity at different spatial scales?