I just won a Marie Skłodowska Curie grant for investigating the genetic and chemical components of host recognition by plant-ants, in Devil’s gardens.
I will work with Naomi Pierce and Axel Mithöfer, at Harvard Museum of Comparative Biology and at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.
No doubt that many wonderful things will happen in the next three years, including a move to Boston, several field trips to Amazon and amazing discoveries about mutualisms.
Stay tuned!
The paper about the reproduction mode of the ant-plant Hirtella physophora has just been published in Arthropod-Plant Interactions. Here is the complete reference:
Malé P-JG, Leroy C, Lusignan L, Petitclerc F, Quilichini A, Orivel J (2015). The reproductive biology of the myrmecophyte, Hirtella physophora, and the limitation of negative interactions between pollinators and ants. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 9: 23-31.
It can be found here. I wish you good reading!
The article about phylogenomics of rare museum Poaceae samples is now available on the Journal of Experimental Botany website. It deals with a small grass lineage which is the C3 sister group of an important C4 genus. One of the focal species is only known from a single specimen collected 100 years ago!
This article is a result of a collaboration with Guillaume Besnard, Pascal-Antoine Christin, Emeline Luillier, Christine Lauzeral, Eric Coissac and Maria Vorontsova.
It is titled "From museums to genomics: old herbarium specimen sheds light on a C3 to C4 transition".
I hope you enjoy reading it!
The manuscript about phylogenomics of rare museum Poaceae samples has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Botany. It deals with a small grass lineage which is the C3 sister group of an important C4 genus. One of the focal species is only known from a single specimen collected 100 years ago!
This article is a result of a collaboration with Guillaume Besnard, Pascal-Antoine Christin, Emeline Lhuillier, Christine Lauzeral, Eric Coissac and Maria Vorontsova.
It is titled "From museums to genomics: old herbarium specimen sheds light on a C3 to C4 transition" and will hopefully be online soon.
The paper about the use of Next-Gen Sequencing in resolving the phylogeny of the tropical tree family Chrysobalanaceae has just been included in a paginated issue of Molecular Ecology Resources. Here is the complete reference:
Malé P-JG, Bardon L, Besnard G, Coissac E, Delsuc F, Engel J, Lhuillier E, Scotti-Saintagne C, Tinaut A, Chave J (2014) Genome skimming by shotgun sequencing helps resolve the phylogeny of a pantropical tree family. Mol Ecol Resour 14(5): 966-975.
It can be found here. I wish you good reading!
Eric Youngerman and I will be presenting our latest results about the ecology and evolution of Devil’s Gardens at the SINNERS conference in Philadelphia on May 28 at 9:20.
The article about the use of Next-Gen Sequencing in resolving the phylogeny of the tropical tree family Chrysobalanaceae is online.
It is titled "Genome skimming by shotgun sequencing helps resolve the phylogeny of a pantropical tree family" and deals with the easy, rapid and cost-efficient sequencing of tree organelles.
I hope you enjoy reading it!
I will be giving a talk titled “Evolutionary stability of mutualisms and control mechanisms: insights from ant-plant relationships” at the Atwood Colloquium in Ecology & Evolution, Friday 11 at 3:45.
The article about the use of Next-Gen Sequencing in resolving the phylogeny of the tropical tree family Chrysobalanaceae has been accepted for publication in Molecular Ecology Resources.
It is titled "Genome skimming by shotgun sequencing helps resolve the phylogeny of a pantropical tree family" and will hopefully be online soon.
The paper about retaliation against cheating ants by their host-plant has just been included in a paginated issue of Evolutionary Biology. Here is the complete reference:
Malé P-JG, Ferdy J-B, Leroy C, Roux O, Lauth J, Avilez A, Dejean A, Quilichini A, & Orivel J (2014) Retaliation in response to castration promotes a low level of virulence in an ant-plant mutualism. Evolutionary Biology, 41(1):22-28. DOI: 10.1007/s11692-013-9242-7
It can be found here.