Postdoc – Université de Montpellier

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• environmental psychology, social geography, human and social sciences ;
• human relations with nature, children relations with nature ;
• biodiversity conservation, education, human health ;
• participatory research action ;
• urban environments, marine and coastal areas, protected areas.

Directrice de recherche (DRCE)

CEFE/CNRS
Campus du CNRS
1919, route de Mende
34293 Montpellier 5

E-mail : anne.charmantier[at]cefe.cnrs.fr

Thèmes de recherche: Evolution et génétique quantitative dans les populations naturelles; sénescence; sélection sexuelle.

 Directeur de Recherche Emerite au CNRS / Emeritus Senior Scientist at CNRS

J’étudie les réponses des communautés animales et végétales aux changements d’origine humaine (espèces introduites, usage des sols), en milieu tempéré et méditerranéen.

I study plant and animal community response to human induced change (introduced  species, land use) in temperate and méditerranean systems.

Courriel: jean-louis.martin [at] cefe.cnrs.fr

Professeur(Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III)

Tél : +33 (0) 4 67 14 23 15

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Laurine Mathieu - PhD Student 2023/2026

Supervised by Anne Charmantier (CEFE-CNRS) and Samuel Caro (CEFE-CNRS)

Contact

CNRS - CEFE UMR5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 34283 Montpellier

Aile B Etage 2 Office 206

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____________________________________________________

Project

Urbanisation is one of the most rapid and profound environmental transformations, reshaping habitats and generating novel selective pressures on wildlife. Our research investigates how birds adjust physiologically and evolutionarily to urban environments, focusing on great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) from Montpellier and nearby forests.

Using a combination of long-term field monitoring (CEFE TIT PROJECT), capture-based physiological assessments, and common garden experiments on hand-reared birds, I aim to disentangle the effects of phenotypic plasticity and genetic differentiation in responses to urbanisation.

The first part of this work examines reproductive physiology, focusing on how urban conditions influence hormone dynamics and reproductive traits such as laying date, clutch size, egg size, and fertilisation success. The second part investigates stress physiology through the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, assessing both baseline and stress-induced glucocorticoid levels. Finally, the third part explores metabolic adaptations to the urban heat island effect using respirometry, measuring thermal physiology and heat tolerance in both wild and experimental settings.

Overall, this thesis integrates field and experimental approaches to provide a comprehensive assessment of how tits adjust to urban environments through endocrine, reproductive, stressrelated, and metabolic pathways. This work will offer novel insights into the physiological bases of urban adaptation and, more broadly, into the capacity of wild vertebrates to cope with rapid anthropogenic environmental change.

More information: ACACIA Project

Bio

• 2021-2023 Master in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, Ecology, Evolution and Genomics (Lyon 1)
  • 2^nd year Master thesis: Genetic architecture and gene expression underlying sexual antagonistics traits in Gerromorpha - IGFL (Lyon) - supervised by Abderrahman Khila
  • 1^st year Master thesis: Cognitive abilities in relation to the reproductive success of great tits and ringed flycatchers - LBBE (Lyon)/ Gotland (Sweden) - supervised by Blandine Doligez & Laure Cauchard
• 2020-2021 Licence in Biodiversity (Lyon 1)
• 2018-2020 CPGE BCPST (Lyon)

Conferences

• Novembre 2024          Parus Net - Présentation - Paris
• August 2025          Ecology & Behaviour - Organisation - Montpellier
  • https://ecobhvr2025.sciencesconf.org/
• August 2025          Congress of European Society for Evolutionary Biology - Presentation - Barcelona

Laurine Mathieu - PhD Student 2023/2026

Supervised by Anne Charmantier (CEFE-CNRS) and Samuel Caro (CEFE-CNRS)

Contact

CNRS - CEFE UMR5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 34283 Montpellier

Aile B Etage 2 Office 206

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

____________________________________________________

Project

Urbanisation is one of the most rapid and profound environmental transformations, reshaping habitats and generating novel selective pressures on wildlife. Our research investigates how birds adjust physiologically and evolutionarily to urban environments, focusing on great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) from Montpellier and nearby forests.

Using a combination of long-term field monitoring (CEFE TIT PROJECT), capture-based physiological assessments, and common garden experiments on hand-reared birds, I aim to disentangle the effects of phenotypic plasticity and genetic differentiation in responses to urbanisation.

The first part of this work examines reproductive physiology, focusing on how urban conditions influence hormone dynamics and reproductive traits such as laying date, clutch size, egg size, and fertilisation success. The second part investigates stress physiology through the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, assessing both baseline and stress-induced glucocorticoid levels. Finally, the third part explores metabolic adaptations to the urban heat island effect using respirometry, measuring thermal physiology and heat tolerance in both wild and experimental settings.

Overall, this thesis integrates field and experimental approaches to provide a comprehensive assessment of how tits adjust to urban environments through endocrine, reproductive, stressrelated, and metabolic pathways. This work will offer novel insights into the physiological bases of urban adaptation and, more broadly, into the capacity of wild vertebrates to cope with rapid anthropogenic environmental change.

More information: ACACIA Project

Bio

• 2021-2023 Master in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, Ecology, Evolution and Genomics (Lyon 1)
  • 2^nd year Master thesis: Genetic architecture and gene expression underlying sexual antagonistics traits in Gerromorpha - IGFL (Lyon) - supervised by Abderrahman Khila
  • 1^st year Master thesis: Cognitive abilities in relation to the reproductive success of great tits and ringed flycatchers - LBBE (Lyon)/ Gotland (Sweden) - supervised by Blandine Doligez & Laure Cauchard
• 2020-2021 Licence in Biodiversity (Lyon 1)
• 2018-2020 CPGE BCPST (Lyon)

Conferences

• Novembre 2024          Parus Net - Présentation - Paris
• August 2025          Ecology & Behaviour - Organisation - Montpellier
  • https://ecobhvr2025.sciencesconf.org/
• August 2025          Congress of European Society for Evolutionary Biology - Presentation - Barcelona

PhD student

I am a PhD student in evolutionary ecology using great and blue
tits to compare coloured signals of forest, urban and corsican
birds to assess the impacts of urbanisation and climate
change on these traits and selection associated.

Contact:
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ORCID - Bluesky - ResearchGate

Supervisors: Claire Doutrelant (CEFE - CNRS, Montpellier) & Arnaud Grégoire (CEFE - University of Montpellier).
Project in collaboration with David López Idiáquez.

Thesis project: Climatic, anthropic and intrinsic determinants of ornaments expression and their association to fitness.

Urbanisation and climate change are two major factors driving ongoign environmental changes in wirld populations worldwide. Research has revealed plastic and genetic responses to these anthropogenic changes. A shift in environmental conditions are expected to impose novel slective forces that can shape phenotypic variation of populations living in urban environments. Ornaments such as conspicuous colourations play a crucial role shaping interactions between individuals in inter and intra-sexual contexts. Ornamentals surch as feathers, with carotenoid-based (yellow to red), structural (blue) and melanic colours, are expected to be associated with variation in environmental conditions. Phenotypic divergences are known in urban environments, however understanding the underlying mechanisms driving colour variation are not investigated.

This projects uses a long time dataset from the following of four blue tits populations, three in Corsica and one near Montpellier, and two great tits populations from the city of Montpellier and a nearby forest. Overall it covers 10 to nearly 20 years of colouration data. This dataset results from the work of numerous researchers and students from the CEFE TIT PROJECT.

This thesis aims to:

• Unravel the effects of urbanisation and climate change on carotenoid colouration in the great tits, and investigate whether phenotypic divergence has a temporal pattern.
• Understand which urban characteristic is causing changes in bird colouration using
  1/ common garden experiments to see whether there is plastic or genetic changes.
  2/ metabarcoding data to see what urban and forest birds are eating while they renew their feathers.
• Investigate selection by survival on coloured ornaments for both blue and great tits and compare it between environments.

Bio:

• 2022: Master's degree in evolutionary ecology, Sorbonne Université, France.
        - 2nd year Master thesis: Sublethal effects of pesticides on passerine's health and behaviour. Under the supervision of Jerome Moreau (CEBC - La Rochelle Université, France).
        - 1st year Master thesis: Adaptive effects of rock pigeon (Columbia livia)beak's morphology on the regulation of feather's ectoparasites. Under the supervision of Julien Gasparini (Sorbonne Université, France).
• 2019: Bachelor degree in Life Sciences, Sorbonne Université, France.

Publications: More to come soon

• Preprint: Sandmeyer L., López Idiáquez D., Fargevieille A., Giovannini P., Perret S., del Rey Granado M., Charmantier A., Doutrelant C., Grégoire A.,  2025. BioRxiv. 

• Tchana C. N., Fargevieille A., Sandmeyer L., del Rey Granado M., Grégoire A., Teplitsky C., Loiseau C., Doutrelant C. 2025. Protocalliphora larvae: a moderate lasting impact on yearling coloration and carry-over effects on mother coloration.  Behavioral Ecology 36(4). 
• Jeantet A.,Sandmeyer L., Campech C., Audebert F., Agostini S., Pellerin A., Gasparini J. 2023. The “parasite detoxification hypothesis” : lead exposure potentially changes the ecological interaction from parasitism to mutualism. Ecotoxicology 32(5):666-673.

Grants:

• 2000€ ESEB Hewitt Mobility Award 2024 to visit another laboratory - NTNU, Norway
• 2000€ SQUID Student Fellowship in 2023 to visit another laboratoty - NTNU, Norway
• 300£ BOU Member conference attendance grant in 2023

Directeur de recherche au CNRS

CEFE/CNRS
Campus du CNRS
1919, route de Mende
34293 Montpellier cedex 5

Tél : +33/0 4 67 61 33 10
Fax : +33/0 4 67 61 33 36
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Mots clés

Discipline : Ecologie évolutive, Ecologie comportementale, Ecophysiologie
Thématiques : Biologie des populations, Traits d’histoire de vie, Changements environnementaux, Hétérogénéité de l’habitat
Organismes biologiques : Aves, Parus (Mésanges)
Milieux : Région méditerranéenne, Milieux forestiers
Techniques :  Suivi d’individus marqués dans le cadre d’un programme à long terme
Autres mots clés : Interactions entre espèces, Ressources, Climat

Directeur de Recherche au CNRS (DR2)

CEFE/CNRS
Campus du CNRS
1919, route de Mende
34293 Montpellier cedex 5

tél : +33 4 67 61 33 07
fax: +33 4 67 41 21 38

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Thématique de recherche

Je développe un travail d’écologie évolutive qui vise à analyser les traits d'histoire de vie chez les plantes (systèmes de reproduction, traits floraux, dispersion). L’accent est mis l'accent sur l'importance de la dynamique écologique (dynamique des métapopulations, démographie) comme un processus de sélection dans l'évolution contemporaine. Mon approche combine (1) Analyse des patrons d’adaptation et méthodes d’inférence des traits d’histoires de vie dans les métapopulations de plantes, en milieu naturel (2) élaboration de modèles formels en écologie évolutive (3) expérimentations et tests d’hypothèses en conditions contrôlées.

Most-clés :Métapopulation-traits d'histoire de vie-Ecologie évolutive théorique-dispersion-systèmes de reproduction-plasticité-Epigénétique

Cotutelle PhD student

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UMR 5175 CEFE
Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III
route de Mende
34199 Montpellier cedex 5
tel (+33)(0)4 67 14 23 15

Research goals

I revisited the environmental filtering metaphor in urban ecology context, in particular zooming on urban parks in Mediterranean Region (Naples and Montpellier cities).Even though urban parks are considered as biodiversity hot-spots within the cities, they are usually still far from reaching this status. Indeed, spatial and temporal landscape discontinuities, as well as the management disturbances may be exacerbated, causing decays of soil biodiversity.

The main goals of the thesis are to understand whether the collembolan species and trait communities are shaped by: 1- factors which are indicators of management practices of urban parks; 2- the landscape and the temporal heterogeneity of the studied sites.