BIO-CIVIP: Biological control of insect vectors and insect pests

• Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) (France)

• Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'alimentation et l'Environnement (INRAE) (France)

• MUSCLEES project-team (ex-MAMBA),  Inria Paris Centre, Inria (France)

• Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (Colombia)

• Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM) (Chile)

• Universidad del Valle (Colombia)

• Universidad Nacional de Asunción (UNA) (Paraguay)

• Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (UTFSM) (Chile)

• Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)

• Universidade Estadual Paulista (Brazil)

• Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) (Brazil)

• Université Paris XIII (France)

This project is concerned with the mathematical study of new strategies to control the spread of some insects. Two types of applications are especially addressed: on the one hand, the control of mosquitoes that may transmit established or potentially (re)emerging diseases, such as Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, vectors of dengue, chikungunya and Zika; and on the other hand, the control of pests that pose significant threat to agriculture, such as Cydia pomonella, which feeds on fruits, Ceratitis capitata and Bactrocera dorsalis, which oviposit under the skin surface of their host fruits, or Scaphoideus titanus, which acts as vector in the transmission of Flavescence dorée, one of the most important and damaging phytoplasma diseases of the grapevine. The spread of all these plagues is likely to become a still more important issue in the future, including in the temperate zones of the world, due to global climate changes. Due to the widespread resistance to the insecticides traditionally used to control these species, and also to their impact on the biodiversity, the use of alternative control techniques is now considered. Biological control methods use beneficial insects (predators, parasitoids, competitors…) or pathogens that they transport (bacteria, fungi or viruses) to control unwanted insects, weeds, or diseases, and usually target specific species of interest, without harming other organisms. These biological control techniques aim either at reducing or eliminating insect population in a locality, or at replacing it by a harmless population. How to achieve practically successful release campaign on a large scale and for a limited cost is still a source of some central questions, which are the subject of this study. We will focus more specifically on issues related to the modelling of some sampled applications, on the spatial spreading of the treatment, on the definition of successful and cost-effective release schedule by optimal and non-optimal control approaches, and on the evaluation of the qualitative and quantitative effects of the performance hindrances (depending on the situation: unintentional release of sterile females, shortcomings of the sterilization process, disappearance of the trait rendering the population harmless, etc.).

In France: 

• Pierre-Alexandre Bliman, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, MUSCLEES (ex-MAMBA) project-team,  Inria Paris Centre, Inria

• Yves Dumont, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, CIRAD

• Alain Rapaport, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, INRAE

• Nicolas Vauchelet, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Université Paris XIII

In Chile: 

• Pablo Aguirre, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María

• Hector Ramirez, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Centro de Modelamiento Matemático

In Brazil: 

• Sergio Muniz Oliva Filho, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidade de São Paolo

• Max Oliveira de Souza, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF)

• Claudia Pio Ferreira, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidade Estadual Paulista

In Colombia: 

• Lilian Sofia Sepulveda Salcedo, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente

• Olga Vasilieva, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidad del Valle

In Paraguay: 

• Christian Schaerer, researcher, BIO-CIVIP coordinator, Universidad Nacional de Asunción