About
32
Publications
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Introduction
My research focuses on the interplay between physiology and ecology in wild mammals. I aim to understand which physiological mechanisms support adaptive responses to environmental challenges, and to which extent particular stressors can disrupt homeostasis. I have studied the regulation of energy saving mechanisms in lemurs, the implication of glucocorticoids for survival in rodents, and I am currently investigating whether contaminants alter physiology, performance and senescence in ungulates.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 2019 - present
Position
- Professor (Associate)
Description
- Ecophysiology and ecotoxicology of wild ungulates
October 2010 - November 2013
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- Extent and limits of physiological flexibility in response to energetic constraints in a heterothermic primate, the grey mouse lemur
February 2019 - September 2019
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Long-term consequences of male reproductive senescence in a promiscuous bird, the houbara bustard
Education
October 2010 - November 2013
September 2009 - June 2010
September 2008 - June 2009
Publications
Publications (32)
Phenotypic flexibility is a major mechanism in compensating climate‐driven changes in resource availability. Heterotherms can use daily torpor to overcome resource shortages and adverse environmental conditions. The expression of this adaptive energy‐saving strategy varies among individuals, but the factors constraining individual flexibility remai...
Hibernation and daily torpor (heterothermy) have long been assumed to be adaptive responses to seasonal energy shortage. Laboratory studies have demonstrated that food shortage alone can trigger the use of heterothermy. However, their potential to predict heterothermic responses in the wild is limited, and few field studies demonstrate the dependen...
According to the cort-fitness hypothesis, glucocorticoid levels correlate negatively with fitness. However, field studies found mixed support for this hypothesis, potentially because the association between glucocorticoids and fitness might depend on prevailing environmental conditions. Based on the long-term monitoring of a natural rodent populati...
Parental age has profound consequences for offspring’s phenotype. However, whether patrilineal age affects offspring sperm production remains unknown, despite the importance of sperm production for male reproductive success in species facing post‐copulatory sexual selection. Using a longitudinal dataset on ejaculate attributes of the houbara bustar...
Ejaculate attributes are important factors driving the probability of fertilizing eggs. When females mate with several males, competition between sperm to fertilize eggs should accentuate selection on ejaculate attributes. We tested this hypothesis in the North African houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata) by comparing the strength of sel...
Low levels of essential mineral elements such as cobalt, copper, and iron, in organisms reduce immune function, increasing the chances of parasitic infection. This phenomenon has been demonstrated widely in domestic animals but rarely in wildlife. In this study, we used data from 7‐ to 9‐month‐old roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), living in two diffe...
Immunosenescence corresponds to the progressive decline of immune functions with increasing age. Although it is critical to understand what modulates such a decline, the ecological and physiological drivers of immunosenescence remain poorly understood in the wild. Among them, the level of glucocorticoids (GCs) during early life are good candidates...
Most chemical elements are crucial for life maintenance, but the intake of non-essential elements or inadequate concentrations of essential ones can have major consequences on wildlife health. However, concentrations of minor and trace elements remain largely unknown in free-ranging animals. This study aimed to establish the first reference values...
Environmental fluctuations force animals to adjust glucocorticoids (GCs) secretion and release to current conditions. GCs are a widely used proxy of an individual stress level. While short‐term elevation in GCs is arguably beneficial for fitness components, previous studies have documented that the relationship between long‐term baseline GCs elevat...
Environmental fluctuations force animals to adjust glucocorticoids (GCs) secretion and release to current conditions. GCs are a widely used proxy of an individual stress level. While short-term elevation in GCs is arguably beneficial for fitness components, previous studies have documented that the relationship between long-term baseline GCs elevat...
We document an upper upper Albian (Mortoniceras rostratum Zone) cephalopod assemblage from Clansayes (Drôme, south-eastern France). Although fossils are rare in local exposures and in the single sampled level, a decade of intensive fossil collecting yielded 290 ammonite and 5 nautilid specimens. In total, we describe 1 spe- cies of nautilid and 24...
While uncovering the costs and benefits of polyandry has attracted considerable attention, assessing the net effect of sexual selection on population fitness requires the experimental manipulation of female mating over generations, which is usually only achievable in laboratory populations of arthropods. However, knowing if sexual selection improve...
The Salazac locality (Gard, southeastern France) is renowned for the richness of its cephalopod fauna (especially ammonites) from the Mortoniceras fallax Zone (uppermost Albian, Lower Cretaceous). However, most ammonite species have paradoxically been scarcely illustrated up to now. Furthermore, the rare assessments of ammonite taxonomic diversity...
Male senescence has detrimental effects on reproductive success and offspring fitness. When females mate with multiple males during the same reproductive bout, post-copulatory sexual selection that operates either through sperm competition or cryptic female choice might allow females to skew fertilization success towards young males and as such lim...
Offspring resulting from mating among close relatives can suffer from impaired fitness through the expression of recessive alleles with deleterious effects. Post‐copulatory sperm selection (a pre‐zygotic mechanism of cryptic female choice) has been suggested to be an effective way to avoid inbreeding. To investigate whether post‐copulatory female c...
Family groups with helpers occur in several species of fish, birds and mammals. In such cooperatively breeding species all group members help with raising the offspring, i.e. parents and offspring from previous litters. While the ecological reasons and ultimate consequences of allo-parental care have been studied in detail, we know little about its...
Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are involved in a variety of physiological mechanisms, including heterothermy preparation and expression. However, the effects of the two major classes of PUFAs, n-6 and n-3, can differ substantially. While n-6 PUFAs enhance torpor expression, n-3 PUFAs reduce the ability to decrease body temperature. This negati...
Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) alternate foraging periods at sea, where they replenish their body fuels, and periods on land where they fast to complete their breeding cycle and moult. Unlike most phocid species, Southern elephant seals experience a catastrophic moult where they not only replace their hair but also their epidermis when...
Timing of winter phenotype expression determines individual chances of survival until the next reproductive season. Environmental cues triggering this seasonal phenotypic transition have rarely been investigated, although they play a central role in the compensation of climatic fluctuations via plastic phenotypic adjustments. Initiation of winter d...
Food availability is expected to trigger hibernation and torpor (ie heterothermy) use. Yet, laboratory experiments under controlled conditions dominate, and this hypothesis remains largely untested under natural conditions. Further experimental manipulations of food availability must therefore be conducted in the wild, accounting for other covaryin...
Climate change research is an interdisciplinary field, and understanding its social, political, and environmental implications requires integration across fields of research where different tools may be used to address common concerns [Baerwald, 2010]. One of the many advantages of interdisciplinary approaches is that they open communication betwee...
Hibernation and daily torpor are considered to be adaptations to seasonal energy shortage and environmental uncertainty. Although energy availability is commonly assumed to determine heterothermy patterns, few field data support this hypothesis. Yet, as climate and habitats change, energy availability is expected to become more variable, i.e. less...
Energy allocation is determined by resource availability and trade-offs among traits, and so organisms have to give some traits priority over others to maximize their fitness according to their environment. In this study, we investigated the geographic variations in life history traits and potential trade-offs in populations of the parasitoid Lepto...
Questions
Question (1)
I am working on post-copulatory sexual selection in birds, and I would like to assess egg fertilization success. Visual inspection of the yolk does not allow to distinguish between non-fertilization and very early death of the embryo, and fluorescent coloration of the germinal disc and the perivitelline layer does not always provide reliable results. So I am looking for an alternative method.
Is anyone aware of a molecular/genetic technique to distinguish non-fertilized eggs from early embryonic death which could be applied to birds?
