Staff directory

Doctorante

Enseignant Chercheur

Ingénieur

Senior scientist

Enseignante-chercheure

Ingénieure

Technicien

Chercheur

Assistant ingénieur

My research is focused on understanding selective and ecological processes maintaining variation within populations. In particular I want to understand why oak populations display so much within population diversity and what is the influence of this within species variation on the insect and microbial communities. My model traits are leaf specialized metabolites. In general, the natural variation of these traits is genetically tractable thanks to simple genetics and high heritabilities. They are also know to influence plant resistance to insect herbivores and pathogens, and to contribute to the extended phenotype of plants and trees in particular. My overall working hypothesis is that biotic environment contributes to maintaining within population phenotypic variation by processes analogous to those contributing to maintaining species diversity tropical forests. Investigating this question necessarily involves investigating the ecological function of within species phenotypic variation, in a manner analogous to ecological studies investigating the effect of species diversity on herbivores and pest. Understanding the functional role of within species variation in the forest ecosystem is likely key for long-term success of forest management strategies in the context of global change. Keywords: evolution, natural selection, adaptation, defense, herbivores, pathogens, oak, genomics,metabolomics, association mapping