The Schärer Group: Lucas Marie-Orleach

Evolutionary Biology

Schärer Group

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Schärer Group
Evolutionary Biology
Zoological Institute
University of Basel
Vesalgasse 1
CH-4051 Basel
Switzerland

Lucas Marie-Orleach

email: l.marie-orleach@unibas.ch
phone: +41 61 267 03 75
fax: +41 61 267 03 62

I am a Ph.D. student in the research group of Dr. Lukas Schärer and I am investigating mechanisms of post-copulatory sexual selection in hermaphrodites.

Current research

I am interested in evolutionary forces shaping the fertilisation success at the post-copulatory stage. I aim to take advantage of the outcrossing hermaphroditic flatworm Macrostomum lignano. Its transparency and the use of individuals expressing the ubiquitous green fluorescent protein* enable in vivo tracking of transferred sperm and easy paternity analysis. Together with the use of inbred-lines, it enables to address the genetic compatibility hypothesis and to test whether the fertilisation success may be affected by the genotype of the sperm donor, the one of the sperm recipient and/or donor-recipient genetic interaction. *established by K. de Mulder (Hubrecht Inst.), E. Berezikov (Hubrecht Inst.) and P. Ladurner (Uni. of Innsbruck).

Former research

My previous research dealt with sexual selection in Atlantic salmon (Salar salar). It focused on the link between males’ colouration and their genetic quality in an alternative reproductive tactic. Briefly, we found that darker and redder individuals sired respectively more viable and larger offspring. However these two ornaments were also linked to a delay in offspring emergence.
Experiments were performed in the INRA of Rennes, and supervised by Drs. Guillaume Evanno and Jean-Marc Roussel.

Curriculum vitae

Born in 1986 in Bayeux, France.
2010 to present	Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology, University of Basel.
2007-2009	M.Sc. in Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology, University of Rennes 1.
2004-2007	B.Sc. in Biology of Organisms, University of Caen.

Conferences

Marie-Orleach L., Janicke T. and Schärer L. (2011) - Poster.
Copulatory and post-copulatory mating behaviours depend on the mating status of both partners in a simultaneous hermaphrodite.
Biology 2011, Zürich, Switzerland.

Marie-Orleach L., Janicke T. and Schärer L. (2010) - Talk.
Copulation behaviour and mating history in Macrostomum lignano.
4^th International Macrostomum Meeting, Basel, Switzerland.

Marie-Orleach L., Roussel J.M. and Evanno G. (2010) - Talk.
The colouration of Atlantic salmon sneaker males is linked to the viability and emergence timing of their offspring.
New directions in sexual selection research: Unifying behavioural & genomic approaches, Bath, UK.

Publications

coming soon

this page was last updated on Saturday, February 19, 2011