Researcher
IRD délégation régionale Ile-de-France – iEES Paris, 32 avenue Henri Varagnat, 93143 BONDY cedex
Tél Pro : +33 1 48 02 55 01
N°Orcid : 000-0002-2608-6370
Research outlook
My main research topic is to describe and explain the relationships between the major factors of the environment and their local or global modifications by human activities, biodiversity and soil functioning. The research is carried out mainly in the context of tropical agrosystems, particularly those where family farming prevails, which is a major socio-economic and ecological issue. Research is being developed mainly in Brazil, in the eastern Amazon (pioneer fronts, manual family farming).
My main objective is to study the effects that human activity, by modifying the biodiversity (vegetation and soil fauna) induces on certain chemical properties of the soil, on the dynamics of certain nutrients, particularly phosphorus, and on the dynamics of organic matter. Apart from the strictly disciplinary aspects, it is an integrated approach, involving close cooperation between agronomists, soil scientists, soil biologists, soil microbiologists and plant physiologists.
Another part of my research is devoted to the study of paleoenvironments, with the aim to reconstruct possible successions between forest and savannah over the last millennia, based on the analysis of the carbon (13C) isotopic composition of organic matter in soil profiles, coupled with carbon 14 dating.
More recently, I have become interested in technosols, more specifically in the structural properties related to water retention and soil shrinkage, which are strongly influenced by its initial composition in organic matter and by living organisms.
Projects
- IPAUP-C93 (2020-2023) : Pedological engineering at the service of Urban and Participatory Agriculture: Co-construction of innovative practices and knowledge to enhance the value of soils in Seine-Saint-Denis (93) (funding ADEME)
- SenCSoil (2018-2021): Interrelationship between soil erosion and the carbon cycle. Measurements via a network of sensors (funding Guyamazon program)
- Proxisol (2014-2017): Application of proxies in the analysis of soil management, land use change and climate interrelationships (funding Guyamazon program)