Montpellier Scientific Community



Pests and Diseases: risk analysis and management (B-AGR)

Director: Christian Cilas

Research area
Pests and diseases hamper the productivity and sustainability of most crops, and some also affect product quality. They are a particular concern with perennial crops, since the damage may accumulate over the years. The long life span of such crops thus calls for agroecological management methods that reduce the long-term impact of these threats. Developing such management strategies means looking for sources of sustainable resistance, but also establishing appropriate crop management sequences and cropping systems.

The unit's work centres on disease epidemiology and pest population dynamics. Its results serve to develop plant-pest and disease models for the main hazards, which are in turn used to define management systems suited to the socioeconomic situations of perennial crop producers.

Research highlights
During the last few years, progress has been made in the following fields:
- Improvement of cocoa resistance to Phythophthora spp. and Monliophthora perniciosa; new hybrids with a better resistance to black pod disease are now available in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire.
- Increasing of the knowledge on pest and disease development in agroforestry systems.
- Ecological mechanisms of pest and disease control, at field and landscape levels.
- Creation and improvement of biological control and trapping systems for pests and diseases.
- Population genetic of the migratory locust (Locusta m.) at the scale of the whole old world, better understanding of outbreak determinism in various areas of the world (Chad, Indonesia) and improvement of the early warning system in Madagascar.
- Biogeography of the Desert Locust in West Africa (Mauritania) and Maghreb (Algeria), better knowledge about the outbreak areas and various contributions to improve the early warning system and the preventive control strategy at the international scale.
- Better understanding of the ecology, population dynamics and seasonal migrations of the red locust (I.) in Madagascar.
- Various experiments (in Mauritania, Brazil, Sudan...) on new control methods (barrier treatments...) and products, including botanics and biopesticides.
- Providing expertise to help to organize locust control operations (Madagascar, Peru, Chad, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan...),project stewardship (China, Niger, Erythrea, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast...), training (Madagascar, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Cape Verde Islands ...).
- Publishing various books and training material on pests and diseases problems.
Staff profile
Research Org. ResearchersProfessors Research Eng. Techn. & Admin. staff Doct.
CIRAD
22
-
-
17
10
Research teams
The following topics are being addressed by the unit:
- Locust biology and ecology (including population genetic)
- Locust biotopes
- Control strategies (including remote sensing and GIS used to develop early warning systems)
- Pesticides (including bio-pesticides) and application technique
Platforms and other tools
- Information on locust and grasshoppers: http://locust.cirad.fr/
- Locust literature online: http://ispi-lit.cirad.fr/
- An interactive CD-ROM database on locusts
- Training programs in "Anti-locust survey : pest locust control" and "Application techniques in locust control and plant protection" (and others on request)
Most important international partnerships
- FAO (Locust Group), Italy
- USDA, Etats Unis - Bioversity, Italy
- CLCPRO (Commission de lutte contre le criquet pèlerin) and University of Blida, Algeria
- The Orthopterists' Society and the Association for Applied Acridology International (AAAI), USA
- CNLAA Mauritania antilocust center
- University of Tulear, CNA Antilocust center and FOFIFA, Madagascar - University of Kordofan, Sudan
- University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon
- University of Dshang, Cameroon
- University of Lomé, Togo - IRAD, Cameroon
- CATIE, Costa Rica
- ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya
- CORPOICA, Colombia
- EMBRAPA
- Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria (Biotechnology center, Brasilia), Brasil
- ISPI
- International Society for Pest Information, Darmstadt, Germany
- AGRHYMET Regional Centre, Niamey, Niger
- CRU, Trinidad
Facts and figures
Publications in international ranking journals
2010 : 19
2004-2009 : 74
Representative publications
1. Avelino J., Bouvret M.E., Salazar L.F., Cilas C. 2009. Relationships between agro-ecological factors and population densities of Meloidogyne exigua and Pratylenchus coffeae sensu lato in coffee roots, in Costa Rica. Applied soil ecology, 43 (1) : 95-105.

2. Babin R., Bisseleua H., Dibog L., Lumaret J.C. 2008. Rearing method and life-table data for the cocoa mirid bug Sahlbergella singularis Haglund (Hemiptera : Miridae). Journal of applied entomology, 132 (5) : 366-374.

3. Chapuis M.-P., Estoup A., Augé-Sabatier A., Foucart A., Lecoq M., Michalakis M. 2008. Genetic variation for parental effects on the propensity to gregarise in Locusta migratoria. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8: 37

4. Chapuis M.P., Loiseau A., Michalakis Y., Lecoq M., Franc A., Estoup A. 2009. Outbreaks, gene flow and effective population size in the migratory locust, Locusta migratoria : a regional-scale comparative survey. Molecular ecology, 18 (5) : 792-800.

5. Delvare G., Genson G., Borowiec N., Etienne J., Abdoul-Karime A.L., Beaudoin-Ollivier L. 2008. Description of Eretmocerus cocois sp. n. (Hymenoptera : Chalcidoidea), a parasitoid of Aleurotrachelus atratus (Hemiptera : Aleyrodidae) on the coconut palm. Zootaxa (1723) : 47-62.

6. Dibog L., Babin R., Amang a Mbang J., Decazy B., Nyassé S., Cilas C., Eskes A. 2008. Effect of genotype of cocoa (Theobroma cacao) on attractiveness to the mirid Sahlbergella singularis (Hemiptera: Miridae) in the laboratory. Pest management science, 64 (9) : 977-980.

7. Dufour B., Frérot B. 2008. Optimization of coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei Ferrari (Col., Scolytidae), mass trapping with an attractant mixture. Journal of applied entomology, 132 (7) : 591-600.

8. Lecoq M., Franc A., Luong-Skovmand M.H., Raveloson A., Ravelombony V. 2006. Ecology and migration patterns of solitary red locusts, Nomadacris septemfasciata (Serv.) (Orthop., Acrididae) in southwestern Madagascar. Annales de la Société entomologique de France 42(2):197-205

9. Franc A., Rabesisoa F.L., Luong-Skovmand M.H., Lecoq M. 2005. Red locust phases in Madagascar (Nomadacris septemfasciata Serville, Orthoptera, Cyrtacanthacridinae). International Journal of Tropical Insect Science 25(3): 182-189.

10. Guyot J., Cilas C., Sache I. 2008. Influence of host resistance and phenology on South American leaf blight of the rubber tree with special consideration of temporal dynamics. European journal of plant pathology, 120 (2) : 111-124.

11. Lachenaud P., Zhang D. 2008. Genetic diversity and population structure in wild stands of cacao trees (Theobroma cacao L.) in French Guiana. Annals of forest science, 65 (3) : [7] p.

12. Lecoq M., 2003. Desert Locust Threat to Agricultural Development and Food Security and FAO/ International Role in its Control. Arab Journal of Plant Protection 21:188-193.

13. Magalhães B.P., Lecoq M., De Faria M.R., Schmidt F.G.V., Guerra W.D., 2000. Field trial with the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae var. acridum against bands of the grasshopper Rhammatocerus schistocercoides in Brazil. Biocontrol Science and Technology 10: 427-441

14. Ndoumbé Nkeng M., Efombagn M.I.B., Nyassé S., Nyemb E., Sache I., Cilas C. 2009. Relationships between cocoa Phytophthora pod rot disease and climatic variables in Cameroon . Canadian journal of plant pathology, 31 (3) : 309-320.

15. Wu Y., Vassal J.M., Royer M., Pieretti I. 2009. A single linkage group confers dominant resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis d-endotoxin Cry1Ac in Helicoverpa armigera. Journal of applied entomology, 133 : 375-380.
Total annual budget
2008
2009
2010
Total annual budget (k€- including salaries) 
3 857
3 835
3 601
External contracts (k€):
794
889
662 
ANR
0
0
0
EU
69
88
78
Private sector & international banks
169
280
432
Others
556
521
152