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Research overview
ADOPT-IPM
Pest biological control
H3 Project
regenerative agriculture
Climate change
and pollination
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I am co-coordinator of the EU-funded programme ADOPT-IPM with Dr Nicolas Desneux. This in an international programme between Europe and China, aiming to develop and optimize new IPM tools and packages. Most importantly, its transdisciplinary nature will ensure such IPM tools are actually implemented in production farms by farmers.
aims to develop and optimize new IPM tools and packages, but most importantly ensure that they will be implemented by farmers, both in Europe and China. EU-funded ADOPT-IPM programme
Objective 1: Optimise IPM tools and practices for key crop pests, weeds and diseases.
Objective 2: Develop new IPM tools, including new biocontrol agents, beneficial bacteria, RNAi, biocontrol plants.
Objective 3: Assess and evaluate IPM tools and create optimized IPM packages
Objective 4: Assess and demonstrate IPM tools in field trials.
Objective 5: Disseminate knowledge to stakeholders.
I have been working on the UKRI-funded H3 project "Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People". I have contributed to WP3 about the wider environmental benefits of regenerative agriculture:
Regenerative agriculture aims to enhance soil health (or function, eg nutrient availability, microbial activity, carbon sequestration, ...) while maintaining high yields. Less is known about the potential wider benefits of regenerative to the environment.
Objective 1: experimentally assess the impact of regenerative agriculture on biodiversity and ecosystem services (including biological pest control and pollination)
Objective 2: investigate the perception and uptake of regenerative agriculture by farmers (linking to Geography and Social Sciences).
Two publications are currently under review for publication:
- Jaworski et al. (submitted to Soil Use & Management) looked into what practices are considered to be regenerative agriculture by UK farmers; we found that a diversity of practices and combinations of practices are being used, but not all of them are compatible with the principles of regenerative agriculture.
- Jackson et al. (submitted to Journal of Rural Studies) investigated the meaning of Regenerative agriculture to farmers enrolled in the H3 project; we asked if and how they were considering to be doing regenerative agriculture and for which reasons, and how they felt about the wider political context.
Pollination in a drier world: how floral traits' alteration impacts pollination networks
In Europe and specifically in the Mediterranean Basin, climate change causes the intensification of droughts and fire events. Understanding the consequences on plant-pollinator interactions is key to help mitigate pollinator decline. We investigate how climate change alters floral traits - scent, color, nectar production and floral display - and the consequences on pollination networks and plant reproduction. Using the CLIMED facility in a typical Mediterranean
shrubland close to Marseille, France, we have shown that the 30 % reduction in precipitation caused an alteration of floral scent in all studied plant species, along with reduced nectar production in the most drought-sensitive species. This affected plant-pollinator interactions but had limited consequences on reproduction in our study. The full article is accessible in open access in Journal of Ecology.
I am now pursuing this research, looking at the effects of wildfire on flowering plant and pollinator communities. While we have found already that younger plants growing after a wildfire smell different than their older and more experienced neighbours, the flowering plant community after a fire is more diverse, which could help sustain a diversity of endemic pollinator species in this biodiversity hotspot. More to come soon !
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