Doctorante

CNRS CEFE UMR 5175 - CNRS UMR MARBEC

PhD Project (2014 – 2017)

Estimation de la connectivité génétique  en milieu marin

Estimation of genetic connectivity in marine environment

(as part of the SEACONNECT project)

Supervisors: Stéphanie Manel (EPHE, CEFE Montpellier) & David Mouillot (UM, MARBEC Montpellier)

Abstract:

The increase of human activities along the coasts is becoming a worldwide preoccupation, due to the number of ecosystem services provided by marine ecosystems. One objective of the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 advocates that at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas be conserved by 2020. To achieve this ambitious goal, it is necessary to integrate a regional perspective in conservation planning, to take into account the complexity of larval, juvenile and adult dispersal that allow the connectivity of marine species.

Population dynamics in marine environment is related to landscape connectivity, a landscape feature measuring the movement capacity of species between different habitats. Quantifying connectivity is thus essential for the conservation of populations, but also for a sustainable management of fishery stocks. Connectivity in the marine environment has been estimated and modeled in many studies (see Kool, et al. (2013) and Magris, et al. (2014) for reviews), and integrated in conservation and management issues in different areas worldwide. These estimations relied mostly on biophysical modeling, but empirical data of genetic connectivity at large scale are still lacking to understand how Marine Protected Areas (MPA) can maintain connectivity between populations at regional scale.

In the Mediterranean Sea, a former project (FISHCONNECT, 2011-2014) has developed biophysical models, which estimate connectivity between Marine Protected Areas, using larval dispersal of coastal benthic species. My PhD project fits in the line of that project, and is part of a starting project (SEACONNECT, 2014-2017), which aims to optimize future networks of MPAs in response to global change by combining genetic connectivity and biophysical models.

More specifically, the aims of my PhD project are: i) Estimating genetic connectivity in the Mediterranean Sea for two commercial fish species (the stripped red mullet: Mullus surmuletus and the white seabream: Diplodus sargus) using genomic data (SNPs). ii) Compare these estimations with predictions from the biophysical model developed in the FISHCONNECT project. iii) Include these estimations in a multi-species and multi-criteria approach of reserve design in the Mediterranean Sea.

Keywords:

Population genetic, Conservation biology, Landscape genetic, Biogeography, Mediterranean Sea, Mullus surmuletus, Diplodus sargus, SNPs

Research experiences:

2013 – 2014 - Research assistant (6 months) with the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD), and research unit AMAP (Montpellier, France): Meta-analysis as part of the FISHCONNECT project: spatial analysis of genetic diversity and differentiation of Mediterranean fishes. Supervisor: Dr Stéphanie Manel.

2013 - Master Thesis (5 months) with the Ecology of Costal Marine Systems lab (Montpellier, France): Relative influence of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity on biomass of coral fish communities. Supervisor: Dr David Mouillot.

2011 – 2012 - Internship (6 months) with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (Cairns, Queensland, Australia). Dynamic of biomass and stem density in tropical rainforests of Australia. Supervisors: Matt Bradford & Dr. Helen Murphy.

2011 - Internship (3 months) with the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Heraklion, Crete, Greece). Genetic barcoding of marine fishes in Crete.  Supervisor: Dr Costas Tsigenopoulos.

Voluntary work:

2013 - Volunteering program (2 months) with Marine Conservation Cambodia (Sihanoukville, Cambodia). Scuba diving fieldwork: seahorses’ habitat surveys and reef check surveys.

Publications:

Dalongeville A., Andrello M., Mouillot D., Albouy C., Manel S. (2016) Ecological traits shape genetic diversity patterns across the Mediterranean Sea: a quantitative review on fishes. Journal of Biogeography, 43: 845-857.

Murphy H.T., Bradford M.G., Dalongeville A., Ford A.J. & Metcalfe D.J. (2013). No evidence for long-term increases in biomass and stem density in the tropical rainforests of Australia. Journal of Ecology, 101: 1589–1597.

Communications:

Dalongeville A., Andrello M., Mouillot D., Albouy C., Manel S. (2015) Large scale patterns of genetic diversity and connectivity in the Mediterranean Sea. [Talk]. 5^th annual meeting of the GDR MarCo "Marine Connectivity" (Montpellier, France).

Dalongeville A., Andrello M., Mouillot D., Albouy C., Manel S. (2015) Large scale patterns of genetic diversity and connectivity in the Mediterranean Sea. [Talk]. 27^th International Congress for Conservation Biology, ICCB-ECCB 2015 (Montpellier, France).