Miguel Lopez-Ferber

IMT Mines Alès | EMA · Laboratory of Industrial Environment Engineering (LGEI)

Le Canton Afema situé dans le département d’Aboisso a connu une exploitation minière de 1992 à 1998. A la fin de l’exploitation les sites n’ont pas subi de réels travaux de réhabilitation. Afin de déterminer l’impact de ces activités minières sur les caractéristiques physico-chimiques et la qualité des eaux souterraines, cette étude a été entrepris...

Afema Township, located in the department of Aboisso, was mined from 1992 to 1998. At the end of the exploitation, the sites did not undergo any real rehabilitation work. In order to determine the impact of these mining activities on the physicochemical characteristics and quality of groundwater, this study was undertaken. The results of the water...

Helicoverpa armigera single nucleopolyhedrovirus (HearSNPV) is a virulent pathogen of lepidopterans in the genera Heliothis and Helicoverpa, whereas Helicoverpa armigera multiple nu-cleopolyhedrovirus (HearSNPV) is a different virus species with a broader host range. This study aimed to examine the consequences of coocclusion of HearSNPV and HearMN...

Nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPV, Baculoviridae ) that infect lepidopteran pests have an established record as safe and effective biological insecticides. Here, we describe a new approach for the development of NPV-based insecticides. This technology takes advantage of the unique way in which these viruses are transmitted as collective infectious units,...

The genetic diversity of baculoviruses provides a sustainable agronomic solution when resistance to biopesticides seems to be on the rise. This genetic diversity promotes insect infection by several genotypes (i.e., multiple infections) that are more likely to kill the host. However, the mechanism and regulation of these virus interactions are stil...

Alphabaculoviruses (Baculoviridae) are pathogenic DNA viruses of Lepidoptera that have applications as the basis for biological insecticides and expression vectors in biotechnological processes. These viruses have a characteristic physical structure that facilitates the transmission of groups of genomes. We demonstrate that coinfection of a suscept...

Environmental impact assessment studies are mandatory for major industrial or infrastructure projects in most countries. These studies are usually limited to on-site impacts during exploitation but do not consider indirect impacts generated off-site or those concerning other steps of the project, including dismantling. National regulations in vario...

The success of biological control of the codling moth, Cydia pomonella, with commercial products based on C. pomonella granulovirus (CpGV) isolates relies both on the ingestion of a sufficient amount of occlusion bodies (OBs) between their hatching from the egg and the penetration inside the fruits, and the correct replication of the virus in the i...

Most revues consider the work on Lymantria monarcha in central Europe [...]

Many steps in the baculovirus life cycle, from initial ingestion to the subsequent infection of all larval cells, remain largely unknown; primarily because it has hitherto not been possible to follow individual genomes and their lineages. Use of ANCHORTM technology allows a high intensity fluorescent labelling of DNA. When applied to a virus genome...

Cydia pomonella granulovirus, in particular CpGV-M isolate, is used as a biological control against the codling moth (CM), Cydia pomonella. As a result of intensive control over the years, codling moth populations have developed resistance against this isolate. This resistance is now called type I resistance. Isolates, among them, CpGV-R5, have bee...

This chapter presents a summary of the possible uses of viruses to control insect pests of crops . Since the first relatively empirical works through to current developments, the potential of different families of viruses to regulate insect populations has been recognized . However, only viruses of one family, the baculovirus, have been able to be...

To test the importance of the host genotype in maintaining virus genetic diversity, five experimental populations were constructed by mixing two Cydia pomonella granulovirus isolates, the Mexican isolate CpGV-M and the CpGV-R5, in ratios of 99% M + 1% R, 95% M + 5% R, 90% M + 10% R, 50% M + 50% R, and 10% M + 90% R. CpGV-M and CpGV-R5 differ in the...

This chapter presents a summary of the possible uses of viruses to control insect pests of crops. Since the first relatively empirical works through to current developments, the potential of different families of viruses to regulate insect populations has been recognized. However, only viruses of one family, the baculovirus, have been able to be re...

Purpose Habitat change was identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as the main direct driver of biodiversity loss. However, while habitat loss is already implemented in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods, the additional impact on biodiversity due to habitat fragmentation is not assessed yet. Thus, the goal of this study was to in...

La présente invention a trait au domaine des systèmes rapporteurs. Plus particulièrement, la présente invention concerne un baculovirus modifié exprimant un système rapporteur permettant son identification directe par fluorescence. L'invention concerne également la quantification d'une population de baculovirus marqués, ainsi que l'utilisation de c...

La procédure d’Etude d’Impact Environnemental (EIE) est obligatoire dans tous les pays lors de la construction ou modification de sites liés à des activités industrielles. Elle vise à analyser les impacts environnementaux, et plus récemment aussi les impacts sociaux, de ces nouvelles activités. Cependant, le périmètre choisi pour l’analyse de ces i...

The fragmentation of natural environments is a critical issue involving major challenges for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management. Large-scale information on areas sensitive to fragmentation is needed to improve the effectiveness of planning efforts. One promising metric combining the landscape spatial configuration with species chara...

Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection is now widely implemented as a tertiary treatment for wastewater reclamation. The negative impact of suspended particles on UV disinfection efficiency has been established. The aim of this study was to provide plant operators with a simple way to predict water quality degradation. To this end, simple correlations betwe...

The old gold mine of Somiaf in Afema district (Southern of Côte d’Ivoire) ceased operating in 1998 without real site rehabilitation. In 2016, geochemical analyses of the soils, stream sediments and Hydrochemical characterization of waters of the surrounding area were carried out to assess the environmental impact of this mining site. The chemical a...

Tertiary treatment process (including filtration and/or disinfection) is necessary to obtain a water quality suited for high-quality reuse from wastewater treatment. Industrial pilots representing small real size treatment units were set up downstream of a conventional secondary treatment of a wastewater treatment plant in the South of France and t...

In a previous work we have measured virus productivity and pathogenicity of two virus isolates:CpGV-M, and CpGV-R5 (a type I resistance breaking isolate). We were not able to find significative differences between them. Another way of testing fitness differences is to analyse genotype replacement in mixed genotype experimental populations over succ...

The tomato leafminer Tuta absoluta (Meyrick 1917) (Lepidoptera:Gelechiidae) is a devastating pest, causing losses of up to 100%. An interesting tool for its control is the use of the insect specific viruses of Baculoviridae family. Despite its high potential, its use on T. absoluta larvae has been poorly studied. In this work, Colombian granuloviru...

The Mediterranean basin region is particularly concerned by the water stress issue. In touristic areas, the pressure applied on water resources may induce a competition between drinking water uses, recreational uses and agricultural uses. In this context, treated wastewater reuse may constitute an alternative water resource by answering quantitativ...

The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of ultraviolet/visible (UV/Vis) spectrometry as a complementary method for routine monitoring of reclaimed water production. Robustness of the models and compliance of their sensitivity with current quality limits are investigated. The following indicators are studied: total suspended solids (TS...

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been identified in the literature as a promising tool to increase the performance of environmental assessments at different steps in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure. However, few publications have proposed a methodology for an extensive integration, and none have compared the results with existing...

Conscious of their high energy consumption and dissipation, metropolitan port areas lead transition and adaption policies to achieve and contribute to a global shift toward a low-carbon future. However, we may ask if the adaptation strategies and processes contribute to the greater resilience of port cities. Defining port cities as a system, this a...

Among various Cydia pomonella granulovirus (CpGV) isolates, the Mexican isolate (CpGV-M) has demonstrated a significant ability to reduce damage induced by the oriental fruit moth, Grapholita molesta (Busck) (=Cydia molesta) in peach crops. To obtain a more efficient virus for G. molesta control, an experimental virus population was constructed by...

Production of virus occlusion bodies that occlude virions comprising genomes of different species of baculoviruses that can be used to combat insect pests. A method is presented for the production of occlusion derived virions (ODVs) that simultaneously comprise genomes of different baculovirus species, occluded in a viral occlusion body (OB) with t...

The mining industry is a main sector for economic and social development of a country. However, this industry generates many negative impacts on human and biophysical environments. Located south-east of Côte d'Ivoire, the old gold mine of Afema, operated from 1992 to 1998, was assigned to another mining company for a new operation. Prior to reexplo...

The detection of resistance in codling moth (Cydia pomonella) populations against the Mexican isolate of its granulovirus (CpGV-M), raised questions on the sustainability of the use of this biological insecticide. In resistant host cells, CpGV-M is not able to complete its replication cycle because replication is blocked at an early step. Virus iso...

In our article “Progressive Adaptation of a CpGV Isolate to Codling Moth Populations Resistant to CpGV-M.” (Viruses 2014, 6, 5135–5144; doi:10.3390/v6125135) [1] we obtained resistance values of the codling moth, Cydia pomonella, RGV laboratory colony [2], when challenged with Cydia pomonella Granulovirus, Mexican Isolate (CpGV-M), that were lower...

At the core of new chains of businesses for recycling wastes: Ports The transition toward a circular economy raises more than one question for ports, given their role in the importation of raw materials. Practices for recycling and reusing wastes, as they become widespread, might reduce the demand for raw materials while opening opportunities for n...

The durability of a control method for plant protection is defined as the persistence of its efficacy in space and time. It depends on (i) the selection pressure exerted by it on populations of plant pathogens and (ii) on the capacity of these pathogens to adapt to the control method. Erosion of effectiveness of conventional plant protection method...

After more than 70 years of chemical pesticide use, modern agriculture is increasingly using biological control products. Resistances to conventional insecticides are wide spread, while those to bio-insecticides have raised less attention, and resistance management is frequently neglected. However, a good knowledge of the limitations of a new techn...

Industrial port cities are essential components in a society dependant on fossil fuels and low cost energy. In the global move towards a low-carbon society, industrial port cities are emblematic of complex and integrated socio-ecological systems, which are experiencing transition processes related to interactions between bio-geo-physical components...

The durability of a control method for plant protection is defined as the persistence of its efficacy in space and time. It depends on (i) the selection pressure exerted by it on populations of plant pathogens and (ii) on the capacity of these pathogens to adapt to the control method. Erosion of effectiveness of conventional plant protection method...

Les territoires portuaires intègrent de manière croissante l’écologie industrielle et territoriale (ou économie circulaire) comme facteur de différenciation, dans un contexte mondial très compétitif entre places et régions portuaires. L’écologie industrielle et territoriale interpelle les acteurs portuaires (autorités portuaires, entreprises, colle...

The NPP-R1 isolate of CpGV is able to replicate on CpGV-M-resistant codling moths. However, its efficacy is not sufficient to provide acceptable levels of control in natural (orchard) conditions. A laboratory colony derived from resistant codling moths was established, which exhibited a homogeneous genetic background and a resistance level more tha...

The "11K" gene family is notable for having homologs in both baculoviruses and entomopoxviruses and are classified as either type 145 or type 150, according to their similarity with the ac145 or ac150 genes of Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV). One homolog of ac145 (sf138) and two homologs of ac150 (sf68 and sf95) are pr...

The tomato leafminer Tuta absoluta is an important insect pest of tomato crops worldwide. Biological control using entomopathogenic viruses such as isolates of Phthorimaea operculella granulovirus (PhopGV) can be a promising tool for suitably controlling this pest. However to date, few viral isolates from T. absoluta have been reported. Therefore,...

Industrial ecology can have different definitions and applications whether it is considered in its technical or human approaches. Among this diversity of approaches, a new research field enlightened the relationship between industrial ecology and its territorial dimension. This article paves the way toward further discussions on the consequences, f...

Unlabelled: Superinfection exclusion is the ability of an established virus to interfere with a second virus infection. This effect was studied in vitro during lepidopteran-specific nucleopolyhedrovirus (genus Alphabaculovirus, family Baculoviridae) infection. Homologous interference was detected in Sf9 cells sequentially infected with two genotyp...

A Nicaraguan isolate of Spodoptera frugiperda multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus is being studied as a possible biological insecticide. This virus exists as a mixture of complete and deletion genotypes; the latter depend on the former for the production of an essential per os transmission factor (pif1) in coinfected cells. We hypothesized that the virus...

A recombinant virus lacking the sf32 gene (Sf32null), unique to the Spodoptera frugiperda multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (SfMNPV), was generated by homologous recombination from a bacmid comprising the complete viral genome (Sfbac). Transcriptional analysis revealed that sf32 is an early gene. Occlusion bodies (OBs) of Sf32null contained 62% more ge...

Phthorimaea operculella granulovirus (PhopGV) belongs to the genus Betabaculovirus of the arthropod- infecting Baculoviridae. PhopGV is able to infect several gelechiid species. Among them are the potato tuber moths Phthorimaea operculella Zeller and Tecia solanivora Povolny (both Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). In various South American countries, Phop...

With the development of sensitive molecular techniques for detection of low levels of asymptomatic pathogens, it becoming clear that vertical transmission is a common feature of some insect pathogenic viruses, and likely to be essential to virus survival when opportunities for horizontal transmission are unfavorable. Vertical transmission of Spodop...

Standard curve for qPCR quantification. Linear regression with different critical quantification PCR values (Cq) following serial dilution of Spodoptera exigua multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (SeMNPV) genomic DNA. (TIF)

Industrial ecology (IE) is a new research field, mainly developed by engineers, which aims at saving materials and energy. Based on the analysis of industrial metabolism, it promotes symbiotic relations between actors (industries) on different territories. Originally designed to optimize flows of productive activities (on business parks for example...

The CpGV-R5 isolate is able to overcome resistant populations of codling moth to the CpGV-M isolate. The complete sequences of CpGV-R5 and the CpGV-M used for industrial production at Natural Plant Protection have been determined. Among the differences found, some are specific to the R5 isolate, others are common to various isolates able to overcom...

Failure in codling moth populations control with CpGV in apple orchards has been attributed to the action of a single allele located in the Z chromosome. However, differences in the mortality patterns between genetically homogeneous susceptible and resistant insects in the laboratory strongly suggest that other mechanisms are responsible of variati...

The control efficiency of a Phthorimaea operculella granulovirus isolate from Costa Rica (PhopGV-CR1) against the concurrent insect pests P. operculella (Zeller) and Tecia solanivora (Povolny) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) was evaluated. In warehouses, the best control efficiency was achieved with a powder formulate applied inside bags, which reduced...

In 2004, resistance to a commercial formulation of the Cydia pomonella granulovirus (CpGV) was identified in a field population of Cydia pomonella from an organic orchard in southern France. The genetic inheritance of this resistance was analysed in the resistant laboratory strain RGV. This strain was obtained using successive crosses between the r...