Evolution, Behaviour, Adaptation Group

Members

The Evolution, Adaptation and Behavior group aims at studying the evolution of phenotypic and behavioral traits through a combination of long-term monitoring of natural populations, of field and lab experiments, of molecular analyses, and of mathematical and computational modeling. Our research mainly focuses on animals, in particular mammals (alpine marmot, giraffe), birds (white-throated dipper, collared flycatcher, great tit) and insects (various Drosophila species, the parasitoid wasp Venturia canescens).

 
We study the evolution of fitness-related traits in interaction, either selective or plastic, with an individual’s biotic and abiotic environment. Interactions between individuals have a special importance in our reasoning and are thus the object of a first axis of research on group dynamics and social interactions. We also consider the environment as providing resources and informative signals through two other axes, one on phenotypic plasticity and the other on resource allocation and the sensitivity to environmental variables. In both, we consider the impact of stress factors caused by human activities — such as global warming, artificial lighting or invading species — or by the presence of pathogens.
 
 
Group dynamics and social interaction. The environment encountered by numerous animals contains, on top of resources and other elements, other individuals. Social interactions vary immensely between species, from a solitary lifestyle to such an extreme degree of cooperation that a part of the group sacrifices their reproduction at the benefit of others, specialized in this task. In this axis, we try to understand how groups form and how social structures are maintained, at various scales extending from unicellular organisms to cooperative mammals.
Here are a few examples of questions that we address:

  • Evolution of sociality: what are the consequences of climate change on the benefits of group living (in the alpine marmot)? How does that impact group composition and the probability and age of dispersal?
  • Group dynamics: how does the size and composition of familial groups evolve in the context of climate change? In giraffes, how do temporary groups form, and what role do kinship play in the probability and duration of pairing?
  • Which evolutionary trajectories have led to multicellular organisms expressing differentiated cell types, a part of which sacrifice their reproduction?
  • What are the neurogenomic determinants that signal the presence of related individuals in solitary individuals, triggering altruistic behaviors?

 
Phenotypic plasticity. Evolution by natural selection can drive phenotype changes on short timescales, in the order of a few generations. Yet it remains inefficient to track more frequent environmental changes. Phenotypic plasticity is a means to buffer such environmental variations, either through informed decisions or fixed reaction norms, which are the object of study in this axis.
Here are a few examples of questions that we address:

  • How do individual characteristics, in particular personality traits, shape the use of information on the environment for decision-making?
  • Is there a trade-off between the speed of decision making and its accuracy? What conditions favor genotypes that make fast, error-prone decisions, or slower, more accurate genotypes?
  • What types of environmental variations select for plastic genotypes?
  • Do changes in gene expression observed during environmental fluctuations induce behavioral changes?

 
Resource allocation and sensitivity to environmental variables. Organisms make other decisions throughout their lives as they decide how much resources to allocate to various traits, such as survival, growth, reproduction or immunity. This differential allocation of resources relies on complex systems, or instance the endocrine system in animals, that we study. These systems can be disturbed by anthropogenic changes that disrupt the long-term ecological setting in which they have evolves, resulting in major phenotype perturbations.
Here are a few examples of questions that we address:

  • How do endocrine systems — that allow the communication between tissues and control the differential allocation of resources — evolve?
  • How do chemical pollutants affect physiological processes, ageing and thereby life-history strategies in response to environmental variation?
  • What role do climatic fluctuations play in the heterogeneity of parasite infection, especially at stages that go through the external environment?

 

Publications

Display of 91 to 120 publications on 449 in total

Biological Invasion Theories: Merging Perspectives from Population, Community and Ecosystem Scales

Olivier Chabrerie, François Massol, Benoit Facon, Romain Thevenoux, Manon Hess, Romain Ulmer...

Biological Reviews .

DOI: 10.20944/preprints201910.0327.v1

Preprint

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Trophy hunting mediates sex‐specific associations between early‐life environmental conditions and adult mortality in bighorn sheep

Mathieu Douhard, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Julie Landes, Fanie Pelletier

Journal of Animal Ecology . 88 ( 5 ) : 734-745

DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12970

Journal article

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Maternal longevity and offspring sex in wild ungulates

Mathieu Douhard, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Sandra Hamel, Daniel Nussey, Steeve Côté, Josephine Pemberton...

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 286 ( 1896 ) : 20181968

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1968

Journal article

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Phenotypic plasticity in the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii: activity rhythms and gene expression in response to temperature

Christophe Plantamp, Hélène Henri, Thibault Andrieux, Corinne Régis, Gladys Mialdea, Stéphane Dray...

Journal of Experimental Biology . 222 : jeb199398

DOI: 10.1242/jeb.199398

Journal article

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Mechanistic, ecological, and evolutionary consequences of artificial light at night for insects: review and prospective

Emmanuel Desouhant, Elisa Gomes, Nathalie Mondy, Isabelle Amat

Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata . 167 ( 1 ) : 37-58

DOI: 10.1111/eea.12754

Journal article

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Transient growth-enhancing effects of elevated maternal thyroid hormones at no apparent oxidative cost during early postnatal period

Bin-Yan Hsu, Blandine Doligez, Lars Gustafsson, Suvi Ruuskanen

Journal of Avian Biology . 50 ( 1 )

DOI: 10.1111/jav.01919

Journal article

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Hormonal pleiotropy and the evolution of allocation trade‐offs

Salomé Bourg, Laurent Jacob, Frédéric Menu, Etienne Rajon

Evolution - International Journal of Organic Evolution . 73 ( 4 ) : 661-674

DOI: 10.1111/evo.13693

Journal article

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Insects and incest: Sib‐mating tolerance in natural populations of a parasitoid wasp

Marie Collet, Isabelle Amat, Sandrine Sauzet, Alexandra Auguste, Xavier Fauvergue, Laurence Mouton...

Molecular Ecology . 29 ( 3 ) : 596-609

DOI: 10.1111/mec.15340

Journal article

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Evidence for risk-taking behavioural types and potential effects on resource acquisition in a parasitoid wasp

Elisa Gomes, Emmanuel Desouhant, Isabelle Amat

Animal Behaviour . 154 : 17-28

DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.06.002

Journal article

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(In)exhaustible Suppliers for Evolution? Epistatic Selection Tunes the Adaptive Potential of Nongenetic Inheritance

Etienne Rajon, Sylvain Charlat

The American Naturalist . 194 ( 4 ) : 470-481

DOI: 10.1086/704772

Journal article

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Pollen limitation as a main driver of fruiting dynamics in oak populations

Marie-Claude Bel-Venner, David Fouchet, Aurélie Siberchicot, Vincent Boulanger, Thomas Caignard, Michel Thibaudon...

Ecology Letters . 22 ( 1 ) : 98-107

DOI: 10.1111/ele.13171

Journal article

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Absence of paramyxovirus RNA in non-human primate sanctuaries and a primatology center in Gabon

Barthélémy Ngoubangoye, Gael Darren Maganga, Larson Boundenga, Thierry Audrey Tsoumbou, Virginie Rougeron, Illich Manfred Mombo...

Journal of Epidemiological Research . 5 ( 2 ) : 6

DOI: 10.5430/jer.v5n2p6

Journal article

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No evidence for behavioural syndrome and genetic basis for three personality traits in a wild bird population

Jennifer Morinay, Grégory Daniel, Lars Gustafsson, Blandine Doligez

Animal Behaviour . 153 : 69-82

DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.05.001

Journal article

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The repeatability of cognitive performance: a meta-analysis

Maxime Cauchoix, P K y Chow, J O van Horik, C M Atance, E. Barbeau, Gladys Barragan-Jason...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 14

DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4153862

Journal article

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Phenotypic plasticity, global change, and the speed of adaptive evolution

Patricia Gibert, Vincent Debat, Cameron K Ghalambor

Current Opinion in Insect Science . 35 : 34-40

DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2019.06.007

Journal article

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Antioxidant capacity is repeatable across years but does not consistently correlate with a marker of peroxidation in a free-living passerine bird

Charlotte Récapet, Mathilde Arrivé, Blandine Doligez, Pierre Bize

Journal of Comparative Physiology B . 189 ( 2 ) : 283-298

DOI: 10.1007/s00360-019-01211-1

Journal article

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Hétérogénéités d’infestations parasitaires : origines et conséquences détectables lors d’infestations naturelles

Marie-Pierre Callait-Cardinal

HDR

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Drivers and demographic consequences of seasonal mass changes in an alpine ungulate

Mathieu Douhard, Simon Guillemette, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Fanie Pelletier

Ecology . 99 ( 3 ) : 724-734

DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2141

Journal article

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Mating-induced differential peptidomics of neuropeptides and protein hormones in Agrotis ipsilon moths

Max Diesner, Aurore Gallot, Hellena Binz, Cyril Gaertner, Simon Vitecek, Jörg Kahnt...

Journal of Proteome Research . 17 ( 4 ) : 1397-1414

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.7b00779

Journal article

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Coexistence of two sympatric cryptic bat species in French Guiana: insights from genetic, acoustic and ecological data

Ondine Filippi-Codaccioni, Marie-Pauline Beugin, Damien de Vienne, Elodie Portanier, David Fouchet, Cécile Kaerle...

BMC Evolutionary Biology . 18 ( 1 )

DOI: 10.1186/s12862-018-1289-8

Journal article

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Coexistence de deux espèces cryptiques de chauves-souris en Guyane française : apprentissages à partir de la génétique de l’acoustique et de l’écologie

Ondine Filippi-Codaccioni, Marie-Pauline Beugin, Damien M. de Vienne, Elodie Portanier, David Fouchet, Cécile Kaerle...

Plume de Naturalistes . 2 : 169-190

Journal article

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Effects of interspecific coexistence on laying date and clutch size in two closely related species of hole-nesting birds

Anders Pape Møller, Javier Balbontin, André Dhondt, Vladimir Remeš, Frank Adriaensen, Clotilde Biard...

Journal of Animal Ecology . 87 ( 6 ) : 1738-1748

DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12896

Journal article

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Back and forth Wolbachia transfers reveal efficient strains to control spotted wing drosophila populations

Julien Cattel, Katerina Nikolouli, Thibault Andrieux, Julien Martinez, Francis Jiggins, Sylvain Charlat...

Journal of Applied Ecology . 55 ( 5 ) : 2408-2418

DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13101

Journal article

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Insect personality: what can we learn from metamorphosis?

Isabelle Amat, Emmanuel Desouhant, Elisa Gomes, Jérôme Moreau, Karine Monceau

Current Opinion in Insect Science . 27 : 46-51

DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2018.02.014

Journal article

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Robust Frankia phylogeny, species delineation and intraspecies diversity based on Multi-Locus Sequence Analysis (MLSA) and Single-Locus Strain Typing (SLST) adapted to a large sample size

Adrien C Pozzi, Hector Bautista-Guerrero, Sophie S. Abby, Aude P Herrera-Belaroussi, Danis Abrouk, Philippe Normand...

Systematic and Applied Microbiology . 41 ( 4 ) : 311-323

DOI: 10.1016/j.syapm.2018.03.002

Journal article

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Sterile insect technique and Wolbachia symbiosis as potential tools for the control of the invasive species Drosophila suzukii

Katerina Nikolouli, Hervé Colinet, D Renault, Thomas Enriquez, Laurence Mouton, Patricia Gibert...

Journal of Pest Science . 91 ( 2 ) : 489-503

DOI: 10.1007/s10340-017-0944-y

Journal article

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Transposable Element Dynamics in an Invasive Species

V. Mérel, Marie Fablet, M. Boulesteix, Arnaud A Estoup, Patricia Gibert, Cristina Vieira

Congrès National des Éléments Transposables (CNET 2018) .

Conference paper

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Development of a PCR-RFLP assay to identify Drosophila melanogaster among field-collected larvae

Vincent Raquin, Hélène Henri, Marine Vallat, François Leulier, Patricia Gibert, Natacha Kremer

Ecology and Evolution . 8 ( 20 ) : 10067 - 10074

DOI: 10.1002/ece3.4453

Journal article

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