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To produce a significant reduction in mortality due to fine particulates, their average level should be reduced by at least 3 micrograms per m3 as a yearly average, concludes an interdisciplinary study led by researchers from Inserm, the CNRS, INRA, Atmo Auvergne Rhône-Alpes and the Université Grenoble Alpes.

How do you know if a seed is well suited to a given environment? How can you predict its yield for a particular climate? Farmers need to know the answers to these questions when choosing their seeds because yields depend on complex interactions between seed genotype and environmental conditions. Researchers at INRA and Wageningen University & Research (WUR, Netherlands) have developed a model to predict the yield of any maize hybrid based on its genes and environmental conditions.

Atmospheric CO2 levels have risen by 30% in a century. A Franco-Australian study by scientists from INRA, James Cook University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has evaluated the global impact of rising atmospheric CO2 levels on the terrestrial vegetation that uses this gas as a source to drive its growth.

An international research team that included INRA and CNRS scientists has revealed the key role played by rare plant species in maintaining ecosystem "multifunctionality": both species and evolutionary diversity is important. This work was recently been published in PNAS . Based on data from 123 sampling sites around the world, the results show that taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic biodiversity matters for ecosystem functioning.

Infectious diseases, the main causes of human mortality according to the WHO, have always been a particular concern for society. In a context of global change, the fight against infectious diseases remains a major challenge for the future and especially for Dominique Pontier and François-Loïc Cosset, researchers at the Université de Lyon.

Wednesday 7 November 2018 officially launches the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) for the pooling and streamlining of data and services of all kinds for the study of our planet. This initiative, for which the CNRS and BRGM are working together with the French Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, in part aims to better understand the mechanisms behind earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

After two and a half years navigating the Pacific, where over 40% of our planet's coral reefs are found, the schooner Tara returned to Lorient, its home port in Brittany, on October 27. Led by the Tara Expeditions Foundation, the Tara Pacific expedition deserves a round of applause: it has allowed scientists to study the impact of anthropogenic pressures on Pacific coral reefs using a novel approach on an unprecedented scale.

This summer's world-wide heatwave makes 2018 a particularly hot year. As will be the next few years, according to a study led by Florian Sévellec, a CNRS researcher at the Laboratory for Ocean Physics and Remote Sensing (LOPS) (CNRS/IFREMER/IRD/University of Brest) and at the University of Southampton, and published in the 14 August 2018 edition of Nature Communications .

The world's biggest colony of king penguins is found in the National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (TAAF). Using high-resolution satellite images, researchers from the Chizé Centre for Biological Studies (CNRS / University of La Rochelle) 1 have detected a massive 88% reduction in the size of the penguin colony, located on Île aux Cochons, in the Îles Crozet archipelago.

In a general context of climate change, researchers at the Centre d'écologie fonctionnelle et évolutive (CNRS/Université de Montpellier/Université Paul Valery/EPHE-PSL) and their international partners revealed the impact of ocean cycles, such as the Pacific decadal oscillation and El Niño, on the survival of the Nazca booby, a species found on the Galapagos Islands.

Upolu, one of the nine islands of Samoa, in the Pacific Ocean. Well-known among fans of diving, this isolated coral reef promised to be a site of rich biodiversity for the scientists on the Tara Pacific expedition, principally from the CNRS, the CEA 1 and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

France, the major bread-basket for Western Europe, experienced catastrophic yield losses in 2016. Scientists from INRA, CNRS and CEA 1 have shown that in 2016, and in other years, abnormally high temperatures in late autumn accentuated the negative effect on wheat production of excessive rainfall the next spring.

By studying calcium in fossil remains in deposits in Morocco and Niger, researchers have been able to reconstruct the food chains of the past, thus explaining how so many predators could coexist in the dinosaurs' time.

An international team of researchers 1 , including a CNRS researcher at the department of Écologie et Dynamique des Systèmes Anthropisés (CNRS / Université de Picardie Jules Verne) has observed an acceleration in the increase of biodiversity on mountain peaks in Europe.

Fields, streets and cities, but also forests planted in rank and file, and dead straight rivers: humans shape nature to better suit their purposes, and not only since the onset of industrialization. Such influences are well documented in the Amazonian rainforest. On the other hand, the influence of humans was debated in Central Africa where major interventions seem to have occurred there 2,600 years ago: Potsdam geoscientist Yannick Garcin and his team have published a report on their findings in the journal PNAS.

At a global scale, just 12 grape varieties (or 1% of cultivated varieties) occupy up to 80% of vineyards in some countries. Scientists from INRA and Harvard University in the USA have suggested that one of the levers that could be operated to adapt wine-growing to climate change is to exploit the diversity of other cultivated varieties by planting those that are less well known, and thus encouraging winegrowers and consumers to adopt new practices.

The Tara Oceans expedition (2009-2013) has enabled the collection of plankton samples in all of the world's oceans on board the schooner Tara , and the creation of catalogues of species and genes on a scale never before undertaken.

From producing food to regulating water runoff, urban agriculture has a lot to offer. Scientists from INRA and AgroParisTech have shown that rooftop vegetable gardens are an interesting way to recycle urban waste, produce food, and retain rainwater. Their The challenges of making today's cities more sustainable are legion: waste management, food supplies, sensitivity to heatwaves and the risk of flooding linked notably to the impermeabilisation of soils.

Scientists from the BOREA Biology of Aquatic Organisms and Ecosystems research unit (CNRS / MNHN / IRD / UPMC / University of Caen / Université des Antilles)—together with a colleague from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany—have shown that Parisian street gutters are oases of microscopic life, home to microalgae, fungi, sponges, and mollusks.

The bleaching of corals is a well-known consequence of climate change.