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Since 2013, a European Union (EU) moratorium has restricted the application of three neonicotinoids to crops that attract bees because of the harmful effects they are deemed to have on these insects. Yet researchers from the CNRS, INRA, and the Institut de l'Abeille (ITSAP) have just demonstrated that residues of these insecticides-and especially of imidacloprid-can still be detected in rape nectar from 48% of the plots of studied fields, their concentrations varying greatly over the years.

Scientists from Inra and the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Italy) have shown that not all weed communities (spontaneous vegetation) generate crop yield losses, even in unweeded conditions, and that high weed diversity is associated to a reduced risk of important crop yield losses. Published in Nature Sustainability , these results provide new grounds for sustainable weed management.

Researchers from INRA and CNRS have shown for the first time that bee pollination surpasses the use of pesticides in yield and especially in profitability of oilseed rape. The team of researchers analysed data collected over four years in farmers' fields in an agricultural plain in Deux-Sèvres (Nouvelle Aquitaine, western France).

Researchers from INRA and CNRS 1 , in collaboration with German, Spanish, English and Canadian teams, have examined the effect of field size and crop diversity on biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Published in PNAS , their work shows that increasing the complexity of the crop mosaic produces a considerable (and largely under-exploited) benefit in conserving and restoring the biodiversity of farm landscapes, while maintaining areas of land under agricultural production.

Scientists from INRA, CEA, CNRS, CNES and several international universities 1 have quantified - over the 2010-2017 period ' the time changes in the carbon stocks of aboveground vegetation biomass in the tropics. One main result is that over the studied time period, these stocks are almost constant: gains in biomass carbon stocks in some regions of the tropics are compensated by losses due to deforestation or diebacks linked to climate impacts (in particular the El Niño events).

A team of researchers from the CNRS, INRA, and the University of La Rochelle is now the first to have demonstrated that organic farming benefits honeybee colonies, especially when food is scarce in late spring. The scientists analysed six years of data collected through a unique system for monitoring domesticated bees that is unparalleled in Europe.

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.