Scientific objectives and research project

IRN (previously GDRI-Sud) NSSN-X, which was itself an international expansion of the French Network on Xanthomonads (FNX, https://www.reseau-xantho.org). The main objective of this IRN was to build on this scaffold in order to create new North-South and South-South partnerships. The FNX, created in 2008, federates all the French research teams whose objects of study are species of the plant pathogenic bacterium Xanthomonas, infecting most economically important crop plants, such as banana, bean, cabbage, cassava, citrus, rice, wheat and many more. The structuring effect of the FNX allowed coordinating research in the fields of genomics, diagnostics, epidemiology, surveillance, and molecular biology of xanthomonads, which was successfully supported by several grants. The IRN NSSN-X-2 will continue to foster existing and to create new links between FNX members and partners in the South by holding Annual Conferences in France (and Africa), and by organizing Training Schools and Workshops in West- (Senegal) and East-Africa (Kenya), and in Latin America (Colombia, Ecuador) in the fields of disease diagnostics, epidemiology and molecular breeding, in relation with diseases provoked by Xanthomonas. Experts from France (IRD and other institutes) and from the South will act as trainers and discussion moderators during these activities in the South. New South-South partnerships are expected to emerge from these activities, which together with the North-South partnerships will contribute to realistic and sustainable solutions in the management of Xanthomonas-caused plant diseases. Two new dimensions will be considered: • fostering a critical mass of experts in East-Africa with respect to Xanthomonas-caused disease epidemio-survey, diagnostic, population genetics and phylogenomics, owed to the sudden emergences of banana and rice diseases and the urgent need building capacities locally, • open our community to a multi-disciplinary and agro-ecological understanding of plant health, particularly in the context of tropical bacterial diseases caused by the pathogen Xanthomonas.

IRD units involved

• DEPARTEMENT ECOLOGIE, BIODIVERSITE ET FONCTIONNEMENT DES ECOSYSTEMES CONTINENTAUX (ODIV ET ECOSYS CONTINENTAUX)
• PHIM

Member Institutions

PUCE : Pontificia universidad catolica del Ecuador

UNIANDES : Universidad de los Andes

TARI : Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute

Targeted Sustainable Development Goal(s)

ODD02 - FAIM "ZERO"

ODD15 - VIE TERRESTRE

ODD17 - PARTENARIATS POUR LA REALISATION DES OBJECTIFS