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.