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 181 to 210 publications on 449 in total

Evolutionary signals of selection on cognition from the great tit genome and methylome

V.N. Laine, T.I. Gossmann, K.M. Schachtschneider, C.J. Garroway, O. Madsen, K.J. Verhoeven...

Nature Communications . 7 : 10474

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10474

Journal article

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Interspecific variation in the relationship between clutch size, laying date and intensity of urbanization in four species of hole-nesting birds.

Marie Vaugoyeau, Frank Adriaensen, Alexandr Artemyev, Jerzy Bańbura, Emilio Barba, Clotilde Biard...

Ecology and Evolution . 6 ( 16 ) : 5907-5920

DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2335

Journal article

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Solutions for archiving data in long-term studies: a reply to whitlock et al.

James A. Mills, Céline Teplitsky, Beatriz Arroyo, Anne Charmantier, Peter H Becker, Tim R. Birkhead...

Trends in Ecology & Evolution . 31 ( 2 ) : 85-87

DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2015.12.004

Journal article

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Differences in the oxidative balance of dispersing and non-dispersing individuals: an experimental approach in a passerine bird

Charlotte Récapet, Alexandre Zahariev, Stéphane Blanc, Mathilde Arrivé, François Criscuolo, Pierre Bize...

BMC Evolutionary Biology . 16 : 125

DOI: 10.1186/s12862-016-0697-x

Journal article

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Introduced Drosophila subobscura populations perform better than native populations during an oviposition choice task due to increased fecundity but similar learning ability

Julien Foucaud, Celine Moreno, Marta Pascual, Enrico L. Rezende, Luis E. Castaneda, Patricia Gibert...

Ecology and Evolution . 6 ( 6 ) : 1725 - 1736

DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2015

Journal article

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Wolbachia in European Populations of the Invasive Pest Drosophila suzukii: Regional Variation in Infection Frequencies

Julien Cattel, Rupinder Kaur, Patricia Gibert, Julien Martinez, Antoine Fraimout, Francis Jiggins...

PLoS ONE . 11 ( 1 ) : e0147766

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147766

Journal article

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The influence of weather conditions during gestation on life histories in a wild Arctic ungulate

Mathieu Douhard, Leif Egil Loe, Audun Stien, Christophe Bonenfant, R. Justin Irvine, Vebjørn Veiberg...

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 283 ( 1841 )

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1760

Journal article

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Drosophila as models to understand the adaptive process during invasion

Patricia Gibert, Matthew Hill, Marta Pascual, Christophe Plantamp, John Terblanche, Amir Yassin...

Biological Invasions . 18 ( 4 ) : 1089 - 1103

DOI: 10.1007/s10530-016-1087-4

Journal article

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Life Histories, Axes of Variation in

Jean-Michel Gaillard, Jean-François Lemaître, Vérane Berger, Christophe Bonenfant, S. Devillard, Mathieu Douhard...

The Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology . 978-0-12-800049-6 : 312-323

Book chapter

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High Juvenile Mortality Is Associated with Sex-Specific Adult Survival and Lifespan in Wild Roe Deer

Michael Garratt, Jean-François Lemaître, Mathieu Douhard, Christophe Bonenfant, Gilles Capron, Claude Warnant...

Current Biology - CB . 25 ( 6 ) : 759-763

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.11.071

Journal article

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The influence of birth date via body mass on individual fitness in a long-lived mammal

F. Plard, J. M. Gaillard, T. Coulson, A. J. Hewison, M. Douhard, F. Klein...

Ecology . 96 ( 6 ) : 1516-1528

DOI: 10.1890/14-0106.1

Journal article

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Spatial analysis when the location of infection is uncertain: an innovative approach using an animal- herd-level weighted analysis

Céline Dupuy, Claire Morlot, Pierre Demont, Marie-Pierre Callait-Cardinal, Christian Ducrot, Didier Calavas...

Food Control . 7 ( 1 ) : e21

DOI: 10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5686

Journal article

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Spatial analysis of bovine cysticercosis in France in 2010

Céline Dupuy, Claire Morlot, Pierre Demont, Marie-Pierre Callait-Cardinal, Christian Ducrot, Didier Calavas...

Food Control . 47 : 348-352

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodcont.2014.07.025

Journal article

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Archiving Primary Data: Solutions for Long-Term Studies

James Mills, Céline Teplitsky, Beatriz Arroyo, Anne Charmantier, Peter. Becker, Tim Birkhead...

Trends in Ecology & Evolution . 30 ( 10 ) : 581-589

DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2015.07.006

Journal article

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Large-scale genotyping of highly polymorphic loci by next-generation sequencing: how to overcome the challenges to reliably genotype individuals?

M Ferrandiz-Rovira, T Bigot, D. Allaine, Marie-Pierre Callait-Cardinal, A. Cohas

Heredity . 114 ( 5 ) : 485-493

Journal article

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Differential expression of the chemosensory transcriptome in two populations of the stemborer Sesamia nonagrioides

Nicolas Glaser, Aurore Gallot, Fabrice Legeai, Myriam Harry, Laure Kaiser, Bruno Le Ru...

Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology . 65 : 28-34

DOI: 10.1016/j.ibmb.2015.07.008

Journal article

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The Wide Potential Trophic Niche of the Asiatic Fruit Fly Drosophila suzukii: The Key of Its Invasion Success in Temperate Europe?

Mathilde Poyet, Vincent Le Roux, Patricia Gibert, Antoine Meirland, Geneviève Prevost, Patrice Eslin...

PLoS ONE . 10 ( 11 ) : e0142785

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142785

Journal article

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High juvenile mortality is associated with sex-specific adult survival and lifespan in wild roe deer

M. Garratt, Jf. Lemaitre, M. Douhard, C. Bonenfant, G. Capron, C. Warnant...

Current Biology - CB . 25 ( 6 ) : 759-63

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.11.071

Journal article

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Early-late life trade-offs and the evolution of ageing in the wild

Jean-François Lemaître, V. Berger, C. Bonenfant, M. Douhard, M. Gamelon, F. Plard...

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 282 ( 1806 ) : 20150209

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.0209

Journal article

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Sterile males in a parasitoid wasp with complementary sex determination: from fitness costs to population extinction

Xavier Fauvergue, Anna Chuine, Chloé Vayssade, Alexandra Auguste, Emmanuel Desouhant

BMC Ecology . 15

DOI: 10.1186/s12898-014-0032-6

Journal article

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Immunocompetence handicap hypothesis in tree frog: trade-off between sexual signals and immunity ?

Julia L. Desprat, Thierry Lengagne, Adeline Dumet, Emmanuel Desouhant, Nathalie Mondy

Behavioral Ecology . 26 ( 4 ) : 1138–1146

DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arv057

Journal article

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Consequences of genetic incompatibility on fitness and mate choice: the male point of view

A. Chuine, S. Sauzet, F. Debias, Emmanuel Desouhant

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . 114 ( 2 ) : 279-286

DOI: 10.1111/bij.12421

Journal article

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Parasite-Parasite Interactions in the Wild: How To Detect Them?

Eléonore Hellard, David Fouchet, Fabrice Vavre, Dominique Pontier

Trends in Parasitology .

Journal article

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Unknown age in health disorders: A method to account for its cumulative effect and an application to feline viruses interactions.

Eléonore Hellard, Dominique Pontier, Aurélie Siberchicot, Frank Sauvage, David Fouchet

Epidemics . 11 : 48-55

DOI: 10.1016/j.epidem.2015.02.004

Journal article

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Sympatric divergence and clinal variation in multiple coloration traits of Ficedula flycatchers

T. Laaksonen, P. M. Sirkia, S. Calhim, J. E. Brommer, P. K. Leskinen, C. R. Primmer...

Journal of Evolutionary Biology . 28 ( 4 ) : 779-90

DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12604

Journal article

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Worldwide invasion by Drosophila suzukii : does being the "cousin" of a model organism really help setting up biological control ? hopes, disenchantments and new perspectives

Alessia Iacovone, Pierre Girod, Nicolas Ris, Claire Weydert, Patricia Gibert, Marylène Poirie...

Revue d'Écologie . 70

Journal article

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Worldwide invasion by Drosophila suzukii : does being the "cousin" of a model organism really help setting up biological control ? hopes, disenchantments and new perspectives

A. Lacovone, P. Girod, N. Ris, C. Weydert, Patricia Gibert, M. Poiré...

Revue d'Écologie . 70 : 207-214

Journal article

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Changes in horn size of Stone's sheep over four decades correlate with trophy hunting pressure

Mathieu Douhard, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Fanie Pelletier, Jean-Michel Gaillard, Christophe Bonenfant

Ecological Applications . 26 : 309-321

DOI: 10.1890/14-1461.1

Journal article

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Invasion biology of spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii): a global perspective and future priorities

Mark Asplen, Gianfranco A Anfora, Antonio Biondi, Deuk-Soo Choi, Dong Chu, Kent Daane...

Journal of Pest Science . 88 ( 3 ) : 469 - 494

DOI: 10.1007/s10340-015-0681-z

Journal article

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The chemosensory transcriptome of the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis

Emmanuelle Joly, Erwan Poivet, Aurore Gallot, Fabrice Legeai, Nicolas Montagné

24. Annual Meeting of the European-Chemoreception-Research-Organization (ECRO) . 40 ( 3 )

Conference paper

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