MULTAGRI will investigate how governance of agricultural landscapes can promote rural development by harnessing landscape and biological diversity as assets to promote the provisioning of public goods and sustainable intensification of agricultural production. We will do this by: * Determining empirically the spatial scale affecting a number of key farmland ecosystem services * Determining synergies and trade-offs between production of public goods and generation of supporting/regulating ecosystem services. * Valuing ecosystem services and public goods produced by European farms as a result of ecological intensification. * Modelling how payments for public goods and ecosystem services will affect regional agricultural development. * Assessing the multi-level governance system under which European farmers operate to understand how and why farmers choose to adopt specific management actions at farm and landscape scales. * Evaluating how European agricultural policies can contribute to more sustainable farming systems with payments for public goods and ecosystem services. * Disseminating project results effectively to both the scientific community and to stakeholders, particularly policy makers and farmers, but even the general public. To this end MULTAGRI coordinates scientific expertise across disciplinary divides and across European rural landscapes, to promote cross-disciplinary interaction among natural and social scientists and science-policy dialogue through mutual transdisciplinary interaction with stakeholders. The end product will be a synthesis: Governing rural land use and landscapes to support sustainable development.

The treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) represents a major medical challenge. IBD is a highly debilitating disease, which incidence is constantly growing in developed countries. The current therapies are costly, present severe side effects, and a number of patients are resistant to any forms of treatment. Therefore, intensive research has aimed at understanding the mechanisms of those diseases, to define new potential targets. Using pre-clinical models, we have identified previously unknown anti-inflammatory properties for Elafin, a protein naturally expressed in the human gut, that is able to inhibit elastolytic activity. We then have cloned the gene of human Elafin and expressed it in recombinant bacteria that are present in daily food: the Lactococcus lactis, assuming that Elafin delivery to the gut by such a probiotic strain, would exert protective effects against colitis. Treatments with those recombinant bacteria drastically reduced inflammatory symptoms associated with IBD in animal models. However, animal models provide limited knowledge as they have an etiology different from the human disease, and very often do not implicate the same mediators. In addition, the mechanisms by which Elafin delivery to the gut would be protective are unclear. Protease inhibition is probably implicated, but potentially antimicrobial properties and inhibition of nuclear factors are also involved. The cells on which Elafin exerts its anti-inflammatory properties are also undefined. If Elafin-recombinant L. lactis has to be considered as a possible treatment for IBD in human, there is an absolute need to define the mechanisms by which such recombinant L. lactis strains protects against intestinal inflammation, in a context that would be as close as possible to the human disease and its mediators. The general objective of the project is to investigate the mechanisms by which Elafin delivery is protective against intestinal inflammation, and to determine whether Elafin delivery by lactic acid bacteria protects from the deleterious environment present in tissues from IBD patients. Specifically, we aim at determining the effects of Elafin-recombinant L. lactis on three general types of cells that are in contact with the recombinant LAB: 1/ Intestinal Epithelial Cells 2/ Mucosal Immune Cells 3/ Microbiota For all those cellular targets, we will determine whether Elafin’s effects are due to protease inhibition or to other properties, by comparing the effects of wild-type or mutated forms of Elafin recombined in L. lactis. This approach will shed definitive and unique light on the mechanisms of action of Elafin upon mucosal inflammation.

Emerging plant viral diseases represent a significant burden to plant health, and their highest impact in Mediterranean agriculture is on vegetables grown under intensive horticultural practices. Intensive horticulture is very competitive and one of the most dynamic sectors in Mediterranean agriculture. The emergence of a new viral disease results from a complex interaction among several factors, including ecological changes of host and vector populations, and genetic changes due to the introduction of new crop varieties and the evolution of the viruses and/or vectors. A transnational consortium incorporating 12 research groups from 5 EU and 4 non-EU Mediterranean countries has been gathered to analyse different aspects of the ecology and biology of specific plant viruses, providing measures for the management and control of specific emergent viral diseases in Mediterranean horticulture and, importantly, a better understanding of the phenomenon of emergence itself. We will focus on a few undisputedly important case studies for Mediterranean horticulture, such as whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses in tomato and cucurbits, aphid-transmitted viruses in cucurbits and Pepino mosaic virus in tomato. Specific objectives of the project include (i) identification of host reservoirs for emergent viruses, (ii) development of advanced diagnostic tools, (iii) analysis of host-range determination and host-range modification, (iv) analysis of short- and long-range virus dispersion, including vector transmission and population genetics, (v) analysis of virus evolution, (vi) risks evaluation of virus emergence in a changing environment and (vii) development of sustainable strategies for the control of emerging plant viral diseases.

Recent biotechnological innovations currently allow the development of new approaches to apply genetic engineering to non-model organisms, including economically important salmonid species. This has been mediated by the introduction of the highly efficient CRISPR-Cas9 methodology, which allows mutating specific DNA sequences in any organism, thus permitting genetic studies on key traits for aquaculture. In recent years several studies have revealed that single SNPs in the genomes of salmonids (Berthelot et al. 2014, Lien et al. 2016) can explain important traits such as time of maturity (Ayllon et al. 2015) and disease resistance. Based on these findings further studies need to aim at elucidating how single nucleotide exchanges can alter important traits for aquaculture such as growth, reproduction and disease resistance. Hence, there is a need to develop technologies that can precisely alter single nucleotides in the genome. This can be obtained by knock in- by a combination of gene editing and homology-directed repair as previously done in zebrafish (Irion et al. 2014). So far knock out by gene editing has been established in both rainbow trout (Yano et al. 2012) and Atlantic salmon (Edvardsen et al. 2014). Both species of fish have a long generation time, therefore it will be necessary to perform double allelic knock in by homologous recombination already in the F0, which is challenging considering current low efficiencies of homologous recombination. We have successfully established a methodology using pigmentation as a tracer for double allelic mutations in Atlantic salmon (Wargelius et al. 2016), this methodology can be further explored for knocking in traits. The project will therefore focus on establishing an efficient knock in technology in salmon and rainbow trout. This will be done in combination with exploring the technology further in zebrafish and medaka as efficiency is still low in this species and also since testing out technologies is much faster in these model fish species with their short generation time and fast development. By doing so, we will focus our technology development on genes essential for pigmentation (Irion et al. 2016), sex determination (Herpin and Schartl 2011, Herpin and Schartl 2015), reproduction (Taranger et al. 2010) and egg quality (Bobe and Labbe 2010) since our groups have been exploring these fields for a long time and results produced can in addition to providing technological improvements explain mechanisms behind some key biological features in fish and other species.

During the last 2 decades, a growing literature has underlined potential effects of Climate Change (CC) on economic development, environment and wellbeing of population especially in tropical rural areas. While contributing to CC, agriculture is also strongly affected by CC and climate variability. Hence adaptation to CC has become a stringent challenge in vulnerable agricultural tropical landscape. To face this challenge, concepts to tackle CC issues in agriculture have been proposed, CC national adaptation policies framework have been formulated, and local initiatives have been flourishing. However, the lack of articulation between interpretations of concepts, policy design, levels and sectors in the implementation of policies, and farmers’ situation and practices may lead to maladaptation processes. The objective of ARTIMIX project is to determine the conditions of successful design and implementation of articulated adaptation to CC policy mixes in order to foster ecological transition in tropical vulnerable agricultural landscapes. For this purpose, the project will 1) analyze the concepts proposed to tackle adaptation issue in agriculture (Agro-ecology, Climate Smart Agriculture, Ecosystem Based Adaptation) and the way they are integrated in policies; 2) Identify the enabling and limiting factors for effective implementation of CC adaptation policies, considering their coordination and interactions with sectorial policies; 3) Characterize how current policy mix are affecting farmers’ practices and their related environmental, technical-economic and social outcomes. The ARTIMIX will be implemented by a multidisciplinary team encompassing policy scientists, economists, sociologists, agronomists, animal and environmental scientists. It will be implemented in Ultramarine French territories (Guadeloupe and Martinique), Brazil and Colombia. The innovation of the ARTIMIX project is twofold. First, it will develop and test an integrated and multilevel approach to address the different phases of policy cycle (design, implementation, effects) and the different levels from national to farmer level with emphases on the local arena. Second, it will support mainstreaming of CC adaptation in local actors and policies that are lagging in Martinique and Guadeloupe, mobilizing experience from Latin American countries (Colombia and Brazil) that are developing policies to tackle similar issues regarding CC adaptation. The expected overall outcomes of ARTIMIX is to contribute to the design or adjustment of CC adaptation policy mix that takes into account farmers’ strategy and local actors’ agenda. Specific scientific results will encompass: 1) A characterization of convergence and divergence between concepts to tackle CC adaptation and an assessment of their integration in the design of CC adaptation policy frameworks, 2) An identification of the factors affecting the implementation of the adaptation to CC policies and an analysis of synergies and trade-offs between instruments aiming to enhance farmers’ CC adaptation capacities; 3) An assessment of practices promoted by policies regarding their ability to increase farmers’ CC adaptation capacity and their socio-economic and environmental outcomes. In addition to publications and diffusion in academics and large audience, the results will be shared with stakeholders in the research sites through workshops. They will enable to define a set of specific recommendations: 1) for a better integration of concepts in the design of context-specific coherent policy mix aiming to strengthen farmers’ adaptation capacities; 2) for improving articulation among actors in implementation of relevant policy mix regarding local conditions; 3) for supporting farmers’ adoption of practices improving their adaptation capacity to face CC.