News
2024: officially free from cancer, I am back! Analyzing some cool results on metal pollution and health in PKD-infected trout of Ariège with Laurine and colleagues. Don't forget to attend the IUF days at Paul Sabatier University on friday 29.3 morning! I'll be giving some tips for the next IUF Junior campaign!
2023: On sick leave for breast cancer all 2023... We are fighting back with chemo and awsome dedicated doctors from Toulouse Oncopole.
July 2023: Laurine is setting up small Airbnbs (cages) for fish in the beautiful rivers of Ariège. She will study the effects of metals on trout immunity in realistic field conditions within rivers. Stay tuned!
Spring 2023. Laurine just got her first PhD paper accepted on the use of blood as a biomonitoring tool of metal contamination in brown trout. Congrats Laurine!
Jan 2023. We just got a TULIP New Frontiers grant to study the effects of pollution of fish microbiota and health with Joel White!!
Winter 2022: Quentin just published a cool paper on parallel physiological responses to metal contamination in gudgeons using reciprocal transplantation between rivers. Well done Quentin!
Fall 2022: New teaching season!
Oct 2022: Je donne une conférence grand public pour la Fête de la Science à Castelnaudary!
Summer 2022: Our baby son is born. I'll be on maternity leave until October 2022!
July 2022: New field season lead by Laurine! Swabs, trout fish, old mines and sunscreen. Everything is going well in Pyrenees.
June 2022: we organized a special joint EDB/LEFE seminar on gender equality in research!
May 2022: aquatic ecology teaching in the field with M1 students. Caught a nice catfish illustrating the rise of invasive species in our aquatic systems!
March 2022: je donne une conférence grand public sur la coloration animale au Festival Scientilivre, plus d'infos ici
March 2022: C'est le mois de l'égalité F/H à l'Université!
Jan 2022: Jessica just published a cool paper showing how eutrophication alters fish skin microbiota in FEMS Microbiol. Congrats Jessica! Eutrophication from intensive agriculture remains a big threat in French rivers and strongly affects fish-bacteria interactions with potential impacts on their health.
Happy new 2022 year to you all!
Sept-Dec 2021: Teaching season until december! Very happy to meet our new students IRL
Oct 2021: Laurine Gouthier has been granted the PhD grant from the Région Occitanie/UFTMIP to work on PKD infected trout! Welcome back Laurine!
July 2021: I've been nominated as a Junior IUF (Institut Universitaire de France) laureate for the next 5 years!! Wow. This is a great honor and joy. I'm very thankful to the researchers who supported my application and colleagues who encouraged me to apply.
July 2021: ANR JCJC granted! We'll start a new project on the effects of historic metal contamination on brown trout health in the beautiful mountains of Pyrénées, funded by the ANR! Stay tuned!
8th of March 2021: Happy women's rights day!
Nov 2020. Jessica Côte just published a cool paper in Freshwater Biology showing how intensive agriculture and eutrophication leads to strong morphological and physiological divergence in fish populations from human-altered rivers. A plea to change our intensive agriculture system to preserve freshwater biodiversity.
Sep 2020. It's teaching season until December! We are developing online courses and will do our best to teach for everyone whatever the sanitary situation despite chronically low financial investment in french public university. Stay safe!
August 2020. Quentin just published his field results in STOTEN on how multiple stressors affect fish health in the Garonne watershed. Combination of temperature and pollution drastically reduced fish growth and led to cell damage. A plea to take into account multiple changes due to human activities on aquatic organisms. We are now testing further how multiple stressors interact on fish in the lab.
Jun 2020. Nice field session looking for PKD infected trout in the beautiful rivers of Ariège!
May 2020. Laurine Gouthier successfully defended her master's thesis. Congrats!
Apr 2020: Due to the sanitary crisis, there is no new internship this summer season, but stay tuned for future field session!
Dec 2019: Quentin Petitjean defended his PhD on the intraspecific variability of responses to multiple stressors in fish! Congratulations Quentin!
Teaching season until January! It's a great pleasure to meet our new students this year!
Sep 2019. Quentin Petitjean just published an experimental paper in Journal of Fish Physiology and Biochemistry showing interactive effects of temperature and immune challenges on gudgeon health. Multiple stressors led to unexpected behavioral changes.
On maternity leave until August :)
June 2019. Jessica Côte just published a paper in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society showing how organic pollution decreases melanin-based coloration in cross-transplanted gudgeon. This supports the "economy of pigment" hypothesis: fish seem to produce less melanins in low-visibility environments, with potential effects on sexual selection.
May 2019. Quentin Petitjean just published a review in Science of the Total Environment! We propose new avenues of research to bridge the gap between physiological and evolutionary approaches in multistress studies. Hopefully this will help to better understand the evolution of fish stress responses and their implications for population (mal)adaptation to global changes.
Jan 2019. Accepted paper in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety! With colleagues from Ecolab and Marseille, we showed that high temperature aggravates the effects of pesticides on goldfish liver and gill structure. This study is based on realistic pesticide cocktails and temperatures found in the Garonne watershed and raises serious concerns on synergistic effects of heat waves and intensive agriculture for freshwater fish populations.
Jan 2019. Happy new year! Shiyu Jin published new papers on crayfish responses to environmental changes with the Institute of Hydrobiology of Wuhan, China. Well done Shiyu!
Sept 2018-Dec 2018: It's teaching season! Project-based courses with undergrad and grad students.
Sept 2018: Field work with Quentin Petitjean in the beautiful rivers of Lot. Testing for adaptation to pollution using reciprocal transplantation experiments within rivers.
June 2018. Paper accepted in Proceedings of the Royal Society B ! A review of literature show that melanin-based coloration could signal parasite resistance in vertebrates through correlated effects on behaviour and immunity.
Sept 2017-Dec 2017: It's teaching season! We are testing project-based courses with undergrad and grad students.
August 2017: new paper on melanin-based coloration and changing environments in Behavioral Ecology! Differently colored trout differently adjust their reproductive effort under variable water levels. Since global changes are rapidly affecting water levels, this raises concerns about the maintenance of intraspecific diversity in wild fish populations.
April 2017: new paper on color polymorphism and extinction risk in birds in Global Change Biology! Analyses on a compiled database of all birds of the world show that intraspecific diversity of coloration acts as a buffer against extinction. Maybe because more diverse species are more resilient in changing environments? We will test this cool hypothesis in the field with different species of fishes and birds.
Oct 2016: Welcome to Quentin Petitjean, SDU2E PhD student who is joining the Garonne team! He will develop experiments to test the effects of pollution and temperature on gudgeon-parasite interactions co-supervised by P Laffaille, S Jean, and me!
March 2016: AEAG grant awarded! Welcome to Jessica Côte (AEAG postdoctoral fellowship), we are now preparing for the field season in the Garonne!
Sept 2014. Just started as a lecturer at Toulouse 3 University! I am joining the Aquatic Ecology team to study the consequences of intraspecific diversity for ecosystem health in human-altered rivers. New projects coming soon!
May 2014. The field season just started in the beautiful rivers of Pays Basque.
Me and Vincent trying to measure risk-taking behaviours in wild brown trouts directly within the river (this experiment was an epic, but fun, failure...).
March 2014. McGill Montréal- le retour. Snow storm, baby F2 guppies, and maple syrup. Everything is going well in Québec.
Jan 2014. Very good news! Amandine Boniface (M2 Dijon) just received the QCBS international award to fund her Master's project (maternal effects of parasites on personality in guppys) at Mcgill. Congrats Amandine and welcome in the guppy team!