Contract duration: 18 Months
Closing: 31 March 2023
location: Montpellier
General areas of responsibility
The post-doctoral contract will be positioned in the Biological Resources and Environment Department (RBE) and within the Marine Biodversity, Conservation and Exploitation (MARBEC) unit and the Evolution and Genetics of Marine Populations laboratory (LEGPM). The Ifremer unit integrated in the UMR MARBEC conducts research on marine biodiversity, its uses and conservation, particularly in fisheries ecology and sustainable aquaculture. The activities of the LEGPM, which is one of the components of this unit, are developed along two axes: (i) understanding and predicting the Darwinian evolution of natural or exploited marine biocenoses and associated ecosystem services, particularly in response to the various facets of global change, and (ii) the use of genetic and genomic tools for the study of the ecology of marine populations and communities.
Scientific background
Evolution is the driving force behind the adaptation of organisms to changes in their environment. Understanding the determinants of the adaptive potential of species is a major challenge in the context of global change and the search for sustainability in fisheries. Research efforts to understand the adaptability of marine organisms, especially fish species, have so far focused on the evolution of their life history traits, with the aim of identifying climatic or anthropogenic factors influencing them, as well as on the quantification of the genetic variability of species, supposedly reflecting their adaptive potential. However, the complex links between the genetic diversity of a species and its biological traits remain to be clarified. In a context where the erosion of marine biodiversity is observed at different scales (intraspecific, interspecific and functional diversity), we wonder about the real factors involved in the resilience, vulnerability or adaptability of species to global change. It is therefore more necessary than ever to understand to what extent the functional traits of a species influence its genetic diversity, and what the consequences are for its adaptive potential.
