In Axe 2, we address the following questions:

(1) How far cropping systems, based on a high level of temporal and spatial plant diversity, promote crop health and production objectives and limit environmental impacts?

(2) In alternative cropping systems, how to manage agro-biodiversity to allow trade-offs between provision of ecosystems services and economic performance?

More specifically, in real agricultural conditions, it is still challenging to demonstrate at field scale the capability of diversity-based farming systems to deliver services without limiting economic performance.

In addition, at a large scale, the relationships between biodiversity and service intensity have been often studied ignoring the role of grown biodiversity in or around the fields, natural regulation being often related to non agricultural part of landscape and not cultivated areas. Moreover, the choice of the cultivated biodiversity to be included in alternative agricultural systems, and its management, will impact their effects on ecosystems service delivery. However, it has received little attention in the literature. Therefore, it is important to reconsider the way to describe and to manage agro-biodiversity to better analyze the impact on ecosystem services and on yield performance.

Finally, in a multifunctional assessment of diversified cropping systems, it is crucial to improve (i) the way to analyze the trade-off or synergy between services and (ii) the choice of variables to measure ecosystems services.

Examples of reserch projects

How do cropping systems together with ecological developments (flowering strips) modify multi-trophic interactions and associated services? Establishment of a network of thirty farmers' fields

Project Casdar Alliance: quantify the ecosystem services provided by the "cash crops - service plants" mixtures for winter oilseed rape and winter wheat

Vidéos to visualise biological regulation in fields.

Example of publications

Autret B., Beaudoin B., Rakotovololona L., Bertrand M., Grandeau G., Gréhan E., Ferchaud F., Mary B., 2019. Can alternative cropping systems mitigate nitrogen losses and improve GHG balance? Results from a 19-yr experiment in Northern France. Geoderma 342, 20-33.

Valantin-Morison M., Verret V., Médiène S., Lorin M., Pelzer E., Celette F., Naudin C., 2019. ALLIANCE: Amélioration des performances écologiques et économiques par association de plantes de services légumineuses dans des systèmes de grandes cultures. Innovations Agronomiques 71, 349-365

Juhel, A. S., Barbu, C. M., Franck, P., Roger-Estrade, J., Butier, A., Bazot, M., & Valantin-Morison, M. (2017). Characterization of the pollen beetle, Brassicogethes aeneus, dispersal from woodlands to winter oilseed rape fields. PloS one, 12(8)

Verret V, Gardarin A, Pelzer E, Médiène S, Makowski D, Valantin-Morison M, 2017. Can legume companion plants control weeds without decreasing crop yield? A meta-analysis. Field Crops Research 204, 158-168. 

Current doctoral and post-doctoral work

Interactions between ecological structures and cropping systems supporting biodiversity and effects on the functioning of agro-ecosystems

Lola Seree

Supervision: Muriel Valantin-Morison, Antoine Gardarin et François Chiron (laboratoire ESE - AgroParisTech et Université Paris Sud)

Mixing species to produce ecosystem services: co-design of a tool integrating and sharing knowledge from science and practice by mobilizing concepts of functional ecology

Marie-Laure Balandier

Supervision: Safia Médiène & Muriel Valantin-Morison