Science Bar “Can biological control save the world?”

Thursday, February 8, 2018, from 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Le Dôme Brewery – Montpellier
Free admission (subject to availability)

Biological control is a method of controlling pests, whether animal or plant, using antagonistic living organisms called biological control agents.
It is based on humans exploiting, for their own benefit, a natural relationship between two living beings according to the following principle:

• The target of the fight is an undesirable organism, a pest of a cultivated plant, a weed, a parasite of livestock, etc.
• The control agent is a different organism, most often a predator or pathogen of the first, which kills it or limits its development in the short or long term.

Naturally present in most ecosystems, biological control can be used deliberately in agriculture, among other areas, as a replacement for conventional pesticides.
With environmental protection becoming an increasingly important global concern, biological control could represent a viable alternative to chemical control.
This science-society debate will be moderated by:

• Fabrice Chandre, researcher atIRD (Institut de Research le Développement), particularly inthe joint research unit Infectious Diseases and Vectors: Ecology, Genetics, Evolution, and Control (MIVEGEC Laboratory). He is also Director of CNEV (National Center of Expertise dedicated to Vectors);
• Mylène Ogliastro, virology researcher atINRA (National Institute for Research ), and in particular at the Diversity, Genomes, and Microorganism-Insect Interactions (DGIMI) laboratory.

 
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