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Context and Issues

Insects represent major crop pests, justifying the need for control strategies to limit population outbreaks and the dissemination of plant viruses they frequently transmit. Efficient and sustainable methods should however rely on solid knowledge of adaptation, interaction and regulation processes operating in populations and communities of insects associated with agro-ecosystems.

The EGI team develops researches on aphid and fly pests of arable and vegetable crops for understanding how they:

• evolve in response to human-induced changes
•  interact with biotic factors 
• participate in trophic networks

The EGI team also contributes to the development of durable control strategies based on decision making tools and integrated insect pest management.

Objectives

• Identify the underlying ecological, evolutionary and molecular mechanisms of relevant adaptive traits in phytophagous insects (aphids and flies) and their natural enemies (parasitoid wasps, predators)
• Describe and understand networks of interactions between phytophagous insects, their host-plants, natural enemies and microbial associates (bacterial symbionts, phytoviruses)
• Assess and predict the influence of  agricultural landscapes and practices on populations and communities of insects associated with agro-ecosystems
• Propose sustained strategies promoting integrated pest management and biological control

Expertise & Skills

Expertise

• Functional Genomics and Physiology
• Population Dynamics and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology
• Chemical and Behavioural Ecology, Agroecology

 Skills: Modelling, Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Molecular Biology, Axonomy

Team leader Anne-Marie Cortesero, Professor Phone: (+33) 2 23 48 70 76 - (+33) 2 02 23 23 61 59 Anne-Marie.Cortesero@univ-rennes1.fr