Students and Postdocs

Léa Genty is a postdoc who defended her thesis in November 2023 and started working with us in January 2024. During her thesis, she worked on two ecosystem services delivered by spontaneous vegetation in olive groves and vineyards in southern France: providing a forage resource for domestic herbivores and a floral resource for insects. To assess these services and understand how agricultural practices affect them, she used functional ecology approaches. She did her thesis at the UMR Absys in Montpellier, where she worked with a multi-disciplinary team, comprising two ecologists and an agronomist. She studied how the digestibility and flower presence and abundance were modified by agricultural practices and by pedoclimatic variables during one agricultural year. In her postdoctoral work, supervised by Guillaume Fried and Christine Meynard, she will focus on how coleopterans and plant communities of agricultural field margins across France respond to management at different spatial scales and over time (500+ sites, “500 ENI” network). She will use both functional and taxonomic approaches. Her scientific updates are available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lea-Genty-2

Benoit PENEL, PhD student, started in October 2022. Benoit is passionate about new technologies and new methodologies allowing the use of DNA/eDNA as a new resource, in the context of ecological studies and monitoring of biodiversity, for the taxonomic identification of organisms. That interest is at the origin of his multidisciplinary education, mixing masters in ecology and bioinformatics, and now a thesis supervised by Christine Meynard (CBGP – INRAE), Gael Kergoat (CBGP – INRAE) and Julien Haran (CBGP – CIRAD). His thesis is entitled « Effects of agricultural practices on the diversity of agricultural field margin beetles: metabarcoding and community ecology approaches applied to large-scale biodiversity monitoring ». It will rely on a national monitoring effort that takes place yearly since 2012 in field margins of major crops in continental France (500+ sites), to follow the non-intentional effects of agricultural practices on field margins beetle communities. You can follow him on twitter @BenoitPenelEcol.

Other members of the lab

Because of the way things work in France, it is not always easy to delimit who works "in my lab", because many people are involved in one way or another in our work. Instead, a lot of the resources of the lab and technicians are shared between several researchers. You can find descriptions for them in the general lab website.

Here I list only the ones that are funded and work directly in my projects...

Thomas Schneider-Bruchon, PhD, started working with us on April 1, 2024 as a research engineer. He previously completed a thesis at the "Centre d'études biologiques de Chizé" modeling long-term trends in farmland bird populations in France. His work at CBGP, under the supervision of Christine Meynard and Guillaume Fried (Anses), will focus on organizing and structuring the "500 ENI" database. He will also be in charge of updating the data received annually and integrating it with other sources of environmental data (e.g. landscape composition), as well as automating output reports for observers and agricultural organizations interested in the monitoring of biodiversity around agricultural field margins. He will also work closely with our collaborators at the CESCO-MNHN in Paris, to create outreach content for the 500 ENI network and beyond.

Axel Bourdonné joined the CBGP in February 2022 as a parataxonomist of Coleoptera, but has become over time a real taxonomist and expert on coleopterans. His previous experience includes a position as a study manager at the National Forest Entomology Center in Quillan (Aude), where he was responsible for the identification of saproxylic beetles. This experience allowed him to develop skills in insect classification and identification, which is crucial to his current role. Within the CBGP, he is now responsible for managing interactions with observers of the 500 ENI monitoring network (https://ecophytopic.fr/pic/exposition-et-impacts/reseau-500-eni-biovigilance) in continental France (+ Corsica) in the context of the ANR AgriBiodiv, receiving all coleopteran samples, grouping them by morphospecies, then coordinating with the metabarcoding team to register the samples on a database and annotating their abundance and other information. His work therefore involves the pre-identification of Coleoptera as well as their preparation for molecular biology. In addition, he ensures the correspondence between the molecular identification and the photographs previously taken, allowing a hybrid molecular-taxonomist approach to large-scale monitoring and ensuring the best consistency of the data used for further biodiversity analysis.

Past students and postdocs

2024 - 2025

Pedro Nunes started a postdoc with us in January 2024, and worked at the CBGP until May 2025. Pedro started working with invasive insect species during his masters at the Forest research center in Lisbon (CEF), with a focus on the usage of geographical data analysis. He did his PhD thesis at ISA at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, supervised by Hervé Jactel, INRAE, and supported by the HOMED project. His thesis focused on the use of landscape variables for modelling of invasive species dispersal. He worked with two different invasive species, the pine wood nematode in France, and the African citrus psyllid, vector of the citrus greening disease, in Portugal. He developed three different spatial modelling approaches for the study of the invasive species dispersal in the landscape at local scale or at a national scale. His postdoctoral work, supervised by Christine Meynard (CBGP), Virginie Ravigne (PHIM) and Nicolas Sauvion (PHIM), focused on mapping the geographic invasive threat of the citrus greening disease at a global scale, to provide useful guidance for the surveillance and control efforts against it, and is funded by the project BEYOND. His scientific updates are available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pedro-Nunes-31

2021 - 2025

Fanny Herbillon, PhD student, started in October 2021 and defended in February 2025. Fanny is passionate about ecological modelling and worked with Christine Meynard (CBGP – INRAE) and Cyril Piou (CBGP - Cirad) on a thesis entitled “Study of the past and future effects of climate change on the population dynamics of the Desert Locust”. She recently graduated from a double-degree: an Engineering Program in Agronomy where she specialized in Agroecology, and a Master's Degree in Ecology with specialization in Biodiversity Dynamics and Conservation. During her M2 masters’ internship supervised by Cyril, she heard a lot about the Desert Locust, and was immediately interested in participating in the research helping to prevent critical situations due to these insects in Africa. Using models combining historical monitoring data and past climatic variables, a first objective of the thesis is to assess how these variables, have already changed during the last decades and have modified the population dynamics of the Desert Locust. A second objective is to explore climate change scenarios with a Desert Locust population dynamics simulator to assess how these populations could respond to climate change within the next 30 years or so.

2023

Marie-Charlotte Bopp was a postdoc with us between March and August 2023. Freshly graduated from her PhD, she was interested in understanding how agricultural practices and environmental factors shape non-crop plant communities of agricultural fields and their margins, and how these plant communities provide ecosystem services for crop protection and pollination. She did her PhD at the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) in Montpellier, France, where she worked on weed communities in vineyards. During her thesis she used a trait-based approach to explore how weed communities responded to management at different spatial scales and over time, and how weed communities influenced organic matter recycling processes (decomposition, microbial activities). Her postdoc work, supervised by Christine Meynard and Guillaume Fried, aimed at understanding how field margins influence ecosystem service provisioning in major crops in continental France (500+ sites, “500 ENI” network) and how management and landscape factors impact field margin functionality, using a trait-based approach. You can follow her research on: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marie-Charlotte-Bopp-2

2020 - 2023

Isis Poinas was a PhD student with Christine Meynard and Guillaume Fried between March 2020 and June 2023, and then followed with a short postdoc on the same topics until August 2023. She is interested in community ecology and ecological statistics and worked with Christine Meynard (CBGP - INRAE) and Guillaume Fried (LSV - ANSES) on a thesis entitled « Agricultural practices and ecological processes structuring field margin communities: spatial, temporal and multi-scales approaches ». She also has a Master’s Degree in Ecology with a specialization in Plant Biodiversity and Management of Tropical Ecosystems. Her M2 masters’ internship dealt with the long-term impact of pre-Columbian Amerindian activities on the multi-taxa composition of a Guyanese forest and reinforced her motivation to study anthropogenic impacts from an ecological perspective. Her PhD thesis relied on a national monitoring effort that takes place yearly since 2012 in field margins of major crops in continental France (500+ sites), to follow the non-intentional effects of agricultural practices on biodiversity of field margins. A first objective was to assess the influence of spatial scale and temporal dynamics on the structuring of plant field margin communities, using multivariate and metacommunity statistical analyses. A second objective was to explore how patterns of plant and beetle communities are determined by agricultural practices in a regional network of vineyards.

Cyril Marty was a master student at the M1 level at the University of Montpellier (mention "Gestion de l’Environnement, master Ingénierie en Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité"), with Gael Kergoat and Julien Haran for the entomological component, and with Christine Meynard for the functional diversity components, working with us between march and august 2023. Cyril was interested in diversity patterns at large scales. He worked during his masters compiling a functional trait database for coleopterans of agricultural environments in France. He used this dataset to characterize and explore functional composition of coleopteran communities in agricultural field margins.

2022

Laura Henckel was a postdoc with us between March 2020 and December 2022. She worked with me, Guillaume Fried, Benoit Ricci and Jean-Philippe Guillemin, on analysis of a national monitoring dataset for the 500 ENI network, a national monitoring effort based on the survey of biodiversity on 500+ agricultural field margins aimed at assessing the unintended effects of agricultural practices (and especially pesticides) on biodiversity. The aim of her postdoc was to evaluate the effects of herbicides on field margin plants and underlying ecosystem services, depending on their mode of action, date of spraying and quantity.

2021

Margaux Lefèvre did a M2 masters' internship with Isis, me, and Guillaume Fried on patterns of coleopteran diversity in field margins in France (January-July 2021). Her project is titled "Coleopteran biodiversity in agricultural field margins in France: links between richness, functional diversity, and agricultural practices". She is analysing a subset of the 500 ENI sites mentioned above where we have better taxonomic resolution of coleopteran communities. This subset allows looking at potential biases in the larger 500-ENI network related to the lack of entomological expertise of observers. It also allows looking at the relationships between species richness and the broader categories (e.g. richness within morphogroups) that are in fact gathered in the 500-ENI network.

Julien Tchilinguirian did a M1 masters's internship working with Enric Frago (CBGP-Cirad) and me on a simplified experimental predator-prey system to study the trades-offs between dispersal, predation and competition in plants under hydric stress (March - August 2021). His project is titled "Influence of hydric stress and dispersal on the population dynamics and biological control of phytophagus spider mites using their natural enemies". This study has implications for agriculture since the two prey species used here Spider Mites that are a common pest in Solenacea such as tomato and beans, and the predator species are being considered for biological control in the field.

2020

Dorian Frisch (M1 master student, University of Rennes) was a student with me and Guila Ganem (ISEM-CNRS). Distribution of the African striated mouse in a context of increasing aridity.

2019

Livia Rodrigues de Sa (M2 master student, University of Montpellier) was a student with me and Gael Kergoat (CBGP-INRAE). Niche and trait conservatism as tools to assess new agricultural risks under climate change scenarios: a case study with stemborer moths (Noctuidae: Apameini: Sesamiina) in Africa.

2018

Leyli Borner did a 6-month postdoc with me and Maria Navajas. She worked on species distribution models for some important agricultural pests, assessing the effects of different pseudo-absence and background strategies on potential distributions when presence-only data are available.

2016-2017

Luke Bassett (masters student in the American system) was my graduate student at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary while I was working there. Climate Change Impacts on Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity of Chesapeake Bay Teleosts.

2014

Valentine Delattre (master 2), master student at the University of Montpellier 2 in a program of biodiversity and evolution. Collaboration with Fabien Leprieur, Camille Albouy, Bastien Mérigot. Functional diversity loss among marine mammals under different scenarios of extinction.

2013

Valentine Delattre (master 1), master student at the University of Montpellier 2 in a program of biodiversity and evolution. Collaboration with Fabien Leprieur, and Bastien Mérigot. Defining functional groups within marine mammals of the world.

Paula Iturralde (master 2), master student at the university of Tours in a biodiversity program. Mammalian species distributions under climate change and conservation implications in Ecuador.

Bastien Louboutin (master 2), master student at the University of Montpellier 2 in a biodiversity program. Defining typical species for Natura 2000 habitats: a case study in Languedoc-Roussillon using grasshoppers, butterflies and dragonflies.

2012

Andrea Murillo (master 2), ERASMUS master student (European program including several universities and countries) in a program of evolution and ecology. Intraspecific relationship between probability of occurrence and abundance patterns.

Annabelle Sueur, master student at the Université de la Loire on a bioinformatics program. Incorporating phylogenetic and functional diversity into systematic conservation planning: does it really change the results?

Rémi Genevest, master student at the Ecole Agronomique de Toulouse. Mechanistic species distribution models for Tetranychidae: potential effects of climate change and evolution on species distributions.

2009-2010

Manon Perrigault (master 2), master student at Université de Montpellier 2 in a program of ecology and biodiversity management. Description of the environmental niche of the African striped mouse at two spatial scales: within sub-Saharan Africa and within the Republic of South Africa.

Gwénaelle Delaruelle (license 3), student in a biological undergraduate program at the Université de Montpellier II. Using geographic information systems (GIS) in the study of Teleost distribution and conservation in the Mediterranean Sea.

2006-2007

Carlos Lara, student at a marine biology undergraduate program at the Universidad Austral de Chile. Macrophyte vegetation cover in the Valdivia river estuary: a multi-temporal analysis using satellite images.

PhD thesis committees

Jingwei Song, PhD student at VIMS (2016-2019), directed by Jan McDowell. Understanding local adaptation of Spotted Seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) along the U.S. southeast coast.

Adela Roa-Varon, PhD student at VIMS (2014-2019), directed by Eric Hilton. Multi-scale phylogenetics of Gadiformes with emphasis on hakes (Merluccius, Merlucciidae), a high-priority group for fisheries conservation.

Florian Holon, SIBAGHE PhD student at the ISEM (institute of evolution of Montpellier) lab, directed by Nicolas Mouquet. Diversity of coral assemblages in the French coastal Mediterranean Sea: study of distributions, with applications in conservation and ecological monitoring.

Victoria Sundov, SIBAGHE PhD student at the EME (marine exploited ecosystems) lab, co-directed by Bastien Mérigot and Jean-Marc Fromentin. Spatio-temporal modeling of diversity in demersal expoited fish within the Mediterranean Sea.

Claire Dufour, SIBAGHE PhD student at the ISEM (institute of evolution of Montpellier) lab, directed by Guila Ganem. Ecological niche of sympatric and allopatric populations of the African Striped Mice (Rhabdomys): identifying relevant dimensions for the radiation of the clade.

Arame Ndiaye-Ndao, PhD student at the University of CA Diop-Dakar, Senegal (Healt-environment-life graduate program), co-directed by Mbacké SEMBENE and Laurent Granjon. Phylogeny and phylogeography of rodents within the genre Gerbillus.

Jeanne Tonnabel, PhD student at the ISEM (institute of evolution of Montpellier) lab, thesis directed by Ophélie Ronce. Evolution of life-history traits in fire-prone systems: theoretical and empirical approaches using the South-African fynbos Leucadendron. Graduated in December 2013.

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