News
On the trail of the coral-killing starfish
19 December 2012
Acanthaster planci is the principle natural enemy of reef-building corals. Outbreaks of this coral-feeding starfish occur periodically, due to reasons that remain unclear. It decimates entire reefs in the space of just a few years, as has been the case in French Polynesia since 2004. A new study ...
EXBODI : exploration of the diversity and richness of the fauna from sea-mounds
02 September 2011
From day to day, follow campaign EXBODI off New Caledonia Read EXBODI diary pagebreak The EXBODI cruise began off the coast of New Caledonia on Friday September 2. Originally scheduled for late August in Vanuatu, the campaign aims to better understand the processes responsible for the diversity ...
What future for biodiversity? Scenarios for action
27 October 2010
Like their counterparts in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) on the future climate, life sciences specialists can now attempt to predict changes in the biodiversity. For that domain, the future is scarcely any brighter. Biological diversity will continue to decline throughout ...
Scientists working for responsible fishing in Peru
10 September 2010
The Peruvian seine fishery, the world’s largest fleet deployed for one particular species, anchovy, has a capacity three times that needed for optimal exploitation of the stock. Research scientists from IMARPE and the IRD point to this imbalance, a real “time bomb” for the Peruvian fishing ...
Réunion Island coral reefs in poor health
10 September 2010
The once splendid colours are dulled, algae growing everywhere and the biodiversity is impoverished Who would believe that this forlorn picture depicts Réunion Island’s coral reef, known for its beauty and rich living communities? Since the 1980s, these corals have lost much of their splendour, ...
Experimental cruise "MADE" in the Mozambique Channel - Logbook
10 March 2010
In an attempt to investigate means of mitigating the negative impacts of oceanic fisheries (pelagic longliners and tropical tuna purse seiners) on marine ecosystems , the european project MADE will undertake an experimental cruise in the Mozambique Channel. Because of the risk of piracy in the ...
Biodiversity models in question
30 November 2009
Many species manage to coexist in the same ecosystem. How do they do this and share the available resources? Since Darwin and his species theory 150 years ago, ecologists have been seeking to determine the factors favouring diversity in nature. In almost a century of research, the most strongly ...
Conservation of the natural evolutionary process a vital factor for New Caledonian biodiversity
28 September 2009
New Caledonia is considered as a priority zone of global significance for preservation of biodiversity, owing to the richness of its flora, exceptional in character but threatened. With the aim of achieving better understanding of the evolution of this flora, a phylogenetic study was conducted ...
