Research interests
During my PhD, I studied the evolutionary consequences of Parsley frog’s breeding strategies. It is a small frog that is common in Mediterranean ponds. I performed fieldwork in the Montpellier Region to study the breeding pattern of local populations. I use molecular markers to do standard genetic structure analyses and also to infer individual breeding strategies (with relatedness measures). In parallel, I built an experimental rearing device to characterize larval traits of tadpoles linked with each breeding strategy.
I showed that Parsley frog display highly plastic larval traits and probably use a bet-hedging breeding strategy.
In my post-doc, I will study sex-reversal in amphibian, more precisely treefrogs (Hyla arborea) and common frog (Rana temporaria). Sex-reversed individuals have the genotype of one sex and are turned into the other sex under environmental induction (by temperature or hormones). I will determine recombination rates in sex-reversed frogs (reversed in the lab) compared to “normal frogs” and test the following hypothesis: recombination patterns depend on the phenotypic sex and not the genotypic sex. This project is included in a broader study of sex chromosome evolution (see Nicolas Perrin’s group).
Curriculum vitae
2011 –
Post-doctoral fellow (Marie Heim-Vötglin grant, FNS) with Nicolas Perrin “Evolutionary consequences of sex-reversal in amphibians”
2007 – 2010
PhD thesis in Evolutionary Ecology at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, in Montpellier, France (with P. David and P-A Crochet): “Variability of life history traits in fragmented populations: breeding strategies in Parsley frog, Pelodytes punctatus”.
Teaching at the University of Montpellier (practical courses)
2006 – 2007
One year-training period at the Evolutionary Sciences Institute of Montpellier (with D. McKenzie): “Metabolic prioritization in sea bass, Dicentrarchus labrax”
Fall 2005
5 month-training period at the department of zoology, UBC, Vancouver Canada (with D. R. Jones): “Evolution of blood pressure in fish”
Spring 2005
4 month-training period at the INSERM, Lyon, France (with G. Mithieux): “Metabolic zonation of G6-phosphatase localization”
Summer 2004
2 month-training period at the Center for Ecology and Energetic Physiology, Strasbourg, France (Y. Le Maho): “Proteolysis during long term fasting in Adélie penguin, Pygoscelis adeliae”
2004 – 2006
Master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the École Normale Supérieure of Lyon, France
