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Mentoring programmes
Biodiversity - Bioresources

Are you curious about science, particularly in biology?

  • What are the careers available in research, both in and outside the lab?

  • Which training programmes lead to these careers?

  • How does work in a laboratory actually happen?

  • How are scientific experiments conducted?

  • How are scientific findings communicated?

Would you like to:

  • Receive guidance to answer these questions (and more)?

  • Discuss your academic and professional goals

  • Explore careers and gain an insider’s view of how laboratories operate?

     

Mentors

  • Guide students in their scientific orientation and in identifying the skills needed for their career plans.

  • Provide support for students’ Master’s projects.

  • Share information about laboratory operations, institutional structures, and career development in the scientific field.

  • Invite students to observe ongoing experiments, participate in team meetings, and interact with laboratory staff (especially PhD students).

  • Make their research activities more accessible and visible.

Students

  • Regularly schedule meetings with their mentor.

  • Prepare for these meetings by defining specific questions about scientific orientation, career development, opportunities, and institutional operations.

  • Participate in team meetings when invited.

Steps to Follow:

  1. Identify a mentor based on the theme that interests you (https://graduate-plus.fr/biodiversite-bioressources/).

  2. Send an email to emmanuel.desouhant[at]univ-lyon1.fr to register no later than December 12, 2024.

  3. Groups will be formed (2 or 3 students per mentor) by the end of December 2024.

Mentorship: When? How? Who?

  • Timeline: Second semester (January–June 2025).

  • Format: 4 to 5 meetings/discussions, with opportunities to participate in team meetings and observe experiments.

  • Mentors: Researchers, professors, postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, engineers, and technicians.

Evaluation: no formal evaluation! This is an experience-sharing initiative designed to ensure everyone benefits as much as possible.

Mentors

Currently a postdoctoral researcher, I am investigating “How environmental conditions, particularly exposure to anthropogenic pollution such as light pollution, impact the health (immunity, microbiome) of animals in natural habitats.”

  • Keywords: Eco-immunology, microbiome, wildlife.

 

How do animals make decisions, and what are the consequences for their reproductive success? These are two of the questions driving my research on animal behaviour, focusing on two main themes: sexual selection (e.g., how and why do animals choose a mate?) and foraging behaviour (what, when, where, and how do they eat?).

  • Keywords: Mate choice, social environment, nocturnal light pollution, insects.

My research lies at the interface of evolutionary ecology and the management and conservation of animal biodiversity, particularly carnivorous mammals. Drawing on empirical field data, I aim to define effective conservation and management measures through a quantitative analysis of ecological processes, from individuals to populations. My approaches combine population genetics and genomics, demography, spatial ecology, and interspecific analyses.

  • Keywords: Evidence-based management and conservation, mammals, carnivores, field and laboratory work, quantitative ecology.

One of the questions that drives our research is: how and why do animals communicate? At the community level, we focus on interspecific communication and sensory competition. We are developing studies on the relationship between communication and predation, as well as the link between communication and noise, radiation, and light pollution.

  • Keywords: Communication, cognition, behavior, interspecific interactions, birds, amphibians.

Understanding the dynamics that govern gene evolution — molecular phylogeny — is possible through the comparison of genomes between different species. For example, to understand the evolution of immune resistance to coronaviruses, we compare the genes involved in this resistance between primates or bats. This comparison is made possible by implementing molecular evolution models and computational data analysis methods, with the aim of extracting useful information for biologists.

  • Keywords: Bioinformatics, phylogeny, modeling, molecular evolution.

One of the questions driving my research is: “How do organisms control their genomic parasites: interactions between host, virus, and genomic parasites?” I use approaches from molecular biology, experimental infections, bioinformatics, and high-throughput sequencing.

  • Keywords: Evolutionary genomics, evolution of interactions, transposable elements, viral infections, RNA interference, drosophila.

Microbes are often in “cohabitation” within their host, raising many questions. For example: why are they more pathogenic or beneficial? How do they communicate (molecularly) with their host, or how do they persist? To address these questions, I use various approaches, such as life-history measurements, molecular biology, transcriptomics, or comparative metabolomics.

  • Keywords: Evolution, symbiosis, insects (bedbugs, drosophila, etc.)

  • Chercheuse 

  • anamaria.necsulea[at]univ-lyon1.fr

  • https://lbbe.univ-lyon1.fr/fr

My research focuses on the evolution and functionality of genomes. Thanks to new sequencing technologies, a wealth of functional genomics data is now available for many species and biological conditions. The comparative analysis of these data through species phylogeny allows for the identification of elements conserved over evolutionary time, thereby revealing genomic features preserved by natural selection, which are crucial for organisms. I carry out these analyses using bioinformatics and biostatistical methods that leverage large amounts of functional data.

  • Keywords: Evolutionary genomics, functional genomics, phylogeny, evolution.

Why do most enzymes have an efficiency lower than what would be physically possible? Why do some organisms excrete metabolites into their environment, which others use as an energy source? My work aims to provide plausible answers to these questions (and others!), by building theoretical models (mathematical, computational) based on well-described mechanisms.

  • Keywords: Theory / modeling in evolution.

My research focuses on the analysis of interactions in insects, using an evolutionary genetics approach. We primarily work on two biological models: parasitoid insects and bed bugs. For the first model, we investigate interactions with viruses, which sometimes affect the behavior of parasitoids, while other times contribute to enriching the parasitoid gene pool through horizontal gene transfers, occasionally leading to major genetic innovations. For the second model, we focus on the adaptation to humans and the insecticides they use to combat them.

  • Keywords: Genetics, genomics, evolution, symbiosis, viruses, insects.

Who are we? Who am I? These two intriguing questions perfectly define my research interests. I study symbiotic interactions, using the model of interactions between arthropods and bacteria, primarily transmitted vertically (from mother to offspring), in order to understand the factors that drive these interactions from intimacy to conflict or cooperation. The goal is to understand the dynamics of this chimeric individual and the consequences on the extended phenotype of the individual and the evolution of each partner.

  • Keywords: Symbiosis, insects, evolution.
 

My research focuses on the involvement of physiological mechanisms (particularly oxygen consumption, ATP production, and the production of free radicals (Reactive Oxygen Species: ROS)) in the organization of life history traits. The role of these physiological performances and their consequences are studied through internal variations (senescence) or external factors (mainly temperature changes). The biological models studied are primarily ectothermic vertebrates (Amphibians, Lepidosaurians, “Fish”).

  • Keywords: Ecophysiology, thermoregulation, oxidative stress, thermal stochasticity.
 

Currently in my second year of PhD, I am working on characterising the physiological and metabolic responses of freshwater fish to rising temperatures. I study fish from the Rhône River (spirlin, chub, barbel) and adopt an integrative approach; at the whole-organism level, I measure oxygen consumption, which is a proxy for aerobic metabolism, and perform thermal tolerance/preference tests. At the cellular level, I study mitochondria, which are organelles that consume oxygen and nutrients to produce cellular energy: ATP.

  • Keywords: Ecophysiology, climate change, fish, metabolism, integrative scale.