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Over the last 3,800 years, agro-pastoral activities have accelerated alpine soil erosion at a pace 4-10 times faster than their natural formation. The history of this erosion has just been revealed for the first time by a research team led by a CNRS scientist 1 . The team has shown that high-altitude soil was degraded first, under the combined effect of pastoralism and forest clearing to facilitate the movement of herds.

The NODSSUM interdisciplinary mission, led by CNRS and in collaboration with a team from Ifremer, ASNR and several national and international partners 1 , will set sail for a month on June 15. Scientists are planning two campaigns to use modern tools to map the main dumping zone for the many drums of radioactive waste that have been deliberately dumped for 40 years in the abyssal plains of the North-East Atlantic.

A French team coordinated by a CNRS 1 scientist has highlighted the harmful impact of chronic exposure to tebuconazole, one of the fungicides most widely used in agriculture in Europe, on sparrow reproduction. The results of this research, published in the journal Environmental Research , reveal a direct link between exposure to this fungicide and abnormal growth in sparrow chicks, as well as higher mortality in these young birds, particularly females.

The report on the interdisciplinary research carried out by researchers from Aix Marseille University and CNRS at the Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe (AMU/CNRS/Ministère de la Culture) and the Anthropologie bio-culturelle, Droit, Ethique et Santé laboratory (AMU/CNRS/Etablissement francais du sang), and froma laboratory at the University of Reading, UK (National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Department of Meteorology), has just been published on February 26, 2025 in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE .

Since 2000, the world's glaciers have lost 5% of their initial volume, and 273 billion tonnes of ice are disappearing every year - the equivalent of 3 Olympic swimming pools per second. These are the results of an in-depth study of the global evolution of glaciers (excluding the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets) between 2000 and 2023, based for the first time on a combination of field measurements and satellite observations.

In order to better protect ecosystems and biodiversity, several African countries have set up innovative management models in which protected areas are co-managed by government bodies and international or national NGOs through partnerships that can span several decades. An international research team, led by INRAE and involving Le Havre University, reviews this collaborative management model in 127 partnerships covering almost 1 million square kilometres.

An international team of researchers from the AMAP laboratory (Botany and Modeling of Plant and Vegetation Architecture), under the auspices of the University of Montpellier and INRAE, has investigated the consequences of deforestation and degradation of tropical forests. The study, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution on December 10, identified "winning" and "losing" species, leading to the functional impoverishment of tropical forest ecosystems.

Various complex processes enable the release of the sugars contained in wood, which are used in particular to produce second-generation bioethanol. Scientists from INRAE, the University of Reims-Champagne-Ardenne and the company Européenne de Biomasse have identified ranges of technological trade-off (temperature and pre-treatment time) that enable oak and poplar residues to be reclaimed while minimising the economic investment.

The seeds of maritime pines remember the temperatures they experienced during early development. This memory persists in young trees for at least two years after germination. The above discovery was made by researchers at INRAE, CEA, FCBA, the University of Orléans, the University of Perpignan, and the University of Lisbon.

Observe almost any animal or plant, in any weather, day or night. This has been made possible thanks to the work of an international team, led by researchers from Westlake University, China in collaboration with INRAE, who have designed an embedded vision camera capable of analysing images in real time.

INRAE scientists are exploring how products and byproducts can be transformed into new molecules and biomaterials with utility in a wide range of sectors, including the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, medical, chemical, agricultural, food processing, automotive, and construction industries. Building a strong bioeconomy is crucial if we wish to achieve carbon neutrality and limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The changing climate is leaving forests greatly exposed to droughts and intense heat waves, adversely affecting the strength of the trees. One current route being explored to improve forest resilience is that of increasing species diversity.

A European study, led by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences with the participation of INRAE, reviewed 20 years of research into the effects of climate change on deer populations in Europe, Asia and North America. The review, published in Global Change Biology, covered 218 scientific articles and showed that while many deer populations benefit from warmer winters, they may not be able to adapt to hotter and drier summers, which could push the animals towards more northerly areas.

The Water Law protects freshwater ecosystems by regulating activities and infrastructure with a potential impact on watercourses, whose legal definition was established in 2015. A research team at INRAE has developed the first national watercourse map. This map reveals disparities in how this definition is applied from one French département (administrative region) to another, to the detriment of small headwater streams - which are often rich in biodiversity - and intermittent streams.

Climate change is exposing forests to severe drought and heatwaves, leading to a weakening of the trees. One way of improving forest resistance is to diversify the species composition of forests. In a study published on September 24 in Global Change Biology and based on data from 5 experimental forests, an international consortium of scientists, involving INRAE and CIRAD and co-financed by ADEME, shows that 2 factors improve trees' chances of survival in mixed forests: the identity of the species concerned and the species composition of the forest .

Protected areas have historically been created to preserve biodiversity, but they are not immune to political decisions. Using the United States as an example, and relying on data from 2001 to 2018, researchers from INRAE, the Institut Agro Montpellier, Duke University and WWF have demonstrated that a shift to a Republican majority in state government increases the risk of reducing or downgrading protected areas.

To protect freshwater ecosystems, the Water Act regulates activities and facilities that can impact watercourses, which have been legally defined since 2015. Researchers at INRAE have drawn up the first national map of watercourses, which reveals inequalities between départements in the application of this definition, to the detriment of small streams at the head of basins, often rich in biodiversity, and intermittent streams.

Windstorms are extreme climatic events: rare occurrences with high environmental and economic costs. INRAE and AgroParisTech researchers used foresight modelling to simulate the effects of windstorms on French forests-important carbon sinks-and the French forestry industry through 2050. In one quarter of simulations, windstorms caused a 24% drop in carbon sequestration.