Research

My research goal is to better understand the ecology of predator-prey interactions and the role of biotic and abiotic factors in shaping those interactions. My research encompasses cognitive ecology (how do prey acquire and process information about their predators and what affects their decision making?), behavioural ecology (how do prey assess and respond to predation risk using behavioural, morphological and life-history adaptations? how do these different 'types' of responses affect one another? how do these adaptions affect trophic interactions?) and evolutionary ecology (how does evolutionary history explain the plasticity and constraints associated with risk assessment? Inversely, can we predict the ability of different species to respond adaptively to novel predators based in their evolutionary history?) My interests take root from both from a fundamental and an applied research viewpoint. Although seemingly different, those two perspectives are actually quite similar. Examples of questions related to biotic factors include: 'How does the diversity of a predator community shape the way prey respond to their predators?' (fundamental research) or 'What is the effect of predator addition (exotic species) or removal (endangered or extinct species) on a community?' (applied research). Those two types of questions are tightly linked because we need to understand how prey respond to their natural predators in order to understand how prey will respond to invasive predators.

Framework: Tinbergen's Big Four - 1: My training is in behavioural ecology, so I often use an economic (costs/benefits trade-offs), sensory (at the functional level) and evolutionary approach to understand why animals do what they do. However, I have never found myself studying the more proximate mechanisms explaining the some of the whys (i.e., the genetic, neuronal or hormonal mechanisms).

Study system: I am not a "speci-cist"! Most of my work focuses on aquatic predator-prey systems. I have worked on freshwater (insects, fishes, larval amphibians), brackish (estuary fishes) and marine (coral reef fishes) systems, and I am comfortable enough referring to myself as a fish biologist. However, I am not a person that will fit the question to the system. I would rather find the question first, and later decide which system would be the most suitable to answer the question. Daphnia, spiders, birds or cows... if that's our best shot, that's fine with me.

The Aquatic Predation and Environmental Change Research Lab (APEC Lab) is a world-class facility that includes a behavioural assessment unit, designed for both short- and long-term experiments of either cold- or warm-water species, a breeding unit with high-precision temperature control, a shuttle box, an intermittent respirometry system, a swim tunnel, and various chambers (burst speed, lateralization, etc). The APEC is linked to the RJF Smith Center for Aquatic Ecology, a newly-renovated facility, with an exceptional holding capacity, and a large behavioural assessment / breeding units, available to all my students.