Scientists from the CNRS, Université de Lorraine, and Inrae have developed the first cable-driven robot that can follow and interact with free-flying insects.
Smaller organisms are typically more abundant than larger ones, which is a fundamental characteristic of ecological communities. How environmental pulse disturbances affect these « abundance pyramids » remains poorly understood. In a study recently published in Ecology Letters, researchers from iEES Paris and the University of Zürich showed that disturbances which are not size-selective still […]
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In this prospective article, an international consortium coordinated by researchers from the University of Copenhagen examines the prospects for using the “third dimension” of agricultural land, i.e. the possibility, without resorting to new land, of increasing the volume of soil exploited by the root system of crops, thereby increasing the resource base available for agricultural production while minimizing the undesirable externalities frequently associated with current agroecosystems.
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City life could lead to differential evolution between urban and forest populations. Aurelie Khimoun and her collaborators showed, in their article published in Biology Letters, that urban populations of the tiny acorn ant are surprisingly not genetically differentiated from forest populations, suggesting expansion and lack of isolation. However, some genes display traces of selection that point towards an adaptation to the urban environment.
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Obama nungara is a species of land flatworm originating from South America; the species was recently described and distinguished from a similar species, Obama marmorata. Obama nungara has invaded several countries of Europe, but the extent of the invasion has not been thoroughly mapped.
For more than 10 years, the City of Paris and the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences of Paris have been collaborating on various issues of urban ecology. From these multiform collaborations at the interface between fundamental research and concrete techniques for the management of urban environments, several advances have been made on both scientific […]