Hello all,
Timema field season is on again. I am back to California with Patrik and Laura to study Timema adaptation/maladaptation (crypsis) and its impact on the arthropods community associated with Timema.
It’s nice to be back in California and to take cool pictures of Timema! Above a melanic Timema cristinae male on a dead Ceanothus spinosus twig.
Cheers,
Romain
I just arrived in Montpellier a couple of days ago. I can’t wait to experience this city. Looking for a shared house/flat at the moment.
Cheers,
Romain
Hello all,
Clarissa’s Evolution 2018 talk and mine can be found online. Follow the links:
Clarissa’s great talk.
Mine. I do sound stressed and I was, hehe.
Cheers,
Romain
Dear Visitor,
I have been offered a postdoctoral postion in Montpellier to work on Timema stick insects once again with Patrik Nosil.
I am really looking forward to it, and happy at the idea to be back in France (especially with Brexit approaching…)!
Cheers,
Romain
Dear visitor,
Great news! I have been awarded a grant from the Johnston Post-Doctoral Development Fund to study colour variation in different species of phasmids.
More specifically, I will measure the amount of plasticity for colour in 11 distant species of phasmids to see if the evolution of cryptic colouration in phasmids is a good model to study genetic accommodation and test its theoretical assumptions.
This award will allow me to buy equipment to conduct this project: rearing boxes, camera equipment, forceps…
Many thanks to the committee!
Cheers,
Romain
Dear Visitor,
Our paper on Timema crisitinae colour variation and the predictability of evolution is out. Check it out here !
Following the evolution of the frequency of different colour morph over ~20 years in natural populations of Timema cristinae we found that a good part of evolution in morph frequency is adaptive. However, despite being adaptive, evolution of morph frequency was difficult to predict over a long period of time.
Cheers,
Romain
Dear visitor(s),
Our study on pleiotropy and evolution of a population of Arabidopsis thaliana recently got out.
Following a genetically diverse population of A. thaliana across a period of 10 years we observed evolution for many adaptive traits. Looking at the genetic basis of these traits, we identified numerous genomic regions with intermediate to high level of pleiotropy. Interestingly, and contrary to my expectations based on Fisher’s geometrical model, genetic regions with intermediate level of pleiotropy evolved the most in this population.
Check it out here.
Cheers,
Romain
Dear visitor(s),
Doro’s chromosomal variant paper in Timema cristinae recently got out.
Check it out here.
Cheers,
Romain
Dear Visitor(s),
I had the chance to join Callum Mcgregor and Sean Clough for fieldwork! It was a really nice experience and allowed me to know more about butterflies and see part of UK I did not know. I also exercised at taking macro of butterflies, which can be quite tricky!
Cheers,
Romain
Dear Visitor(s),
Again, my website is a bit behind in term of infos.
In April I joined the Saccheri lab to work on a very interesting collaborative project.
One of the aim of this project is to evaluate the adaptive response of different species of Lepidoptera to environmental changes due to the industrial revolution and subsequent human activities. One of the objectives is to detect the genetic basis of these adaptations in different species, and quantify the level of parallelism between species. This would be realized by sequencing samples pre and post changes from the same geographical area in UK and by performing some temporal Fst scans coupled with some selective sweep analysis in contemporary samples. We are lucky enough to collaborate with the NHM of London, giving us access to huge historical sampling collection for many species.
Many thanks to Ilik Saccheri for allowing me to join this really interesting project, and many thanks to all people involved in this project for their past and future help!
Cheers,
Romain