Ah and also, big news this month, I am now on twitter @AnneCharmantier   

  • September 2017: I am back in Montpellier. A huge thanks to Denis Réale and his GRECA group for a fantastic and productive year in Montreal! Moose in Algonquin Park
 
  • August 2017: Don't miss the Montpellier tit group at ESEB in Groningen :
-Monday 21st: Amélie's talk on the evolution of female ornamentation (12h50 room K)
-Tuesday 22nd: Anne's talk on local adaptation (10h room M), Boris' talk about conserved G matrices (11h50 room M), Suzanne's talk on selection on skewed characters (12h30, room M), Claire's talk on microevolution of coloured ornaments (16h20, room L).
-Wednesday 23rd: Charle's talk on the genomics of urban great tits (12h30, room G).
-Also, wednesday morning in room G, we expect a big crowd for the first ever Urban Evolution Symposium at ESEB (co-organised by Marta Szulkin and Anne).

  • June 2017: Bravo Gab for a brilliant thesis defence on 19 June! Gabrielle's PhD work was on Environmental heterogeneity and evolution of personalities in blue tits.
  • May 2017: Pascal Marrot is publishing this month a paper from his thesis where he demonstrates that extreme climatic events (extreme heat in spring) increases the force of natural selection favouring earlier breeding in blue tits. This paper is part of a Philosophical Transactions B theme issue on 'Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events' .
  • March 2017: 2017 Tit field season is on! Chris, Boris, Raph & Suzanne are already back from Corsica with 163 openfield data from D-Muro & E-Muro ! An all-times record. 
  • January 2017: happy New Year to all! 
 
  • Check out our new Heredity publication on the quantitative genetics of colour ornamentation in male and female blue tits ! And thanks to an amazing picture by Christophe de Franceschi we made the cover of Heredity!!
In this paper, we use nine years of measurements on five colour ornaments to 1. provide estimates of cross-sex genetic (co)variances, 2. provide a comprehensive power analysis for sex-linked variance estiation which reveals major power limitations that most probably concern all previous studies tackling this question.

  • 14 December 2016: Congratulations to Virginie Demeyrier who successfully defended her thesis on Great tits in urbanised habitats in Montpellier.
  • 30 November 2016: Congratulations to Pascal Marrot who defended his thesis on Natural selection: methodological constraints and climatic drivers in Sherbrooke University. He obtained the highest distinction and a double diploma from the Universities of Montpellier and Sherbrooke.
 
  • October 2016:
Let's hit the road in Quebec ! While in Montreal, Anne will be giving seminars on her latest research at the following Universities:
McGill: 13/10/16, UQAM: 19/10/16, Laval: 27/01/17, Queen's: 19/01/17, Sherbrooke: 05/04/17, Ottawa: 10/04/17.

  • August 2016: Anne is hosted in Prof. Denis Réale 's group in Montreal (UQAM) for a sabbatical year. Back in Montpellier in August 2017!
 
  • 22 July 2016: Last nest-box check in La Rouvière forest (thanks to Boris and Christophe for this last effort..).
Field season is over and was a fantastic success. Thanks to everyone for the hard work! 
  •  April 2016: Charles Perrier and Anne Charmantier are looking for a motivated student to conduct a PhD project on the Genomics of Local Adaptation . The project is funded by the ERC, apart from the student salary. PhD fundings can be obtained by applying to the concours of the Ecole Doctorale GAIA .
 
  • March 2016: And a new field season has started! The Corsican 'openfield trials crew' has successfully captured 150 blue tits in 7 days!
 Philippe, Bernadette, Sam, Raph, Anne
  •  December 2015: Our blue tits and Gab are staring in the latest episode of the National Geographic Series "Into the French Wild" which is focused on the Fango valley.Check out the short video introduction of this movie.
  • November 2015: The online webmag 'CampusMagLR' is highlighting our long term study of Mediterranean tits in an issue dedicated to research on climate change adaptation: watch the video on youtube . The youtube English subtitle option will give you a particular thrill (alhtough not an adequate translation! check out 1'37"..).
  • October 2015: Marta Szulkin has left our group to start a new position at the University of Varsaw. She is setting up a new, long term study of great tits within an urban gradient in the city of Varsaw, and we wish her great things for this exciting new project! 
  • 10-14 August 2015: ESEB in Lausanne
Lots of stuff from our group to check out at ESEB! Amélie's poster on temporal and spatial variation in assortative mating (session 1-poster 195), Marta's talk on the genomics of blue tit local adaptation (Tuesday 11/08 at 14:45, POLB), Gab's poster on blue tit personality and pace of life (session 2 - poster 172), Pascal's talk on temporal fluctuation of selection (Tuesday 11/08 at 11:30, POLA) and Viriginie's talk on great tits facing an urban ecological trap (Thursday 13/08, 16:35, MAX 410). You will get a good taste of what we have been up to!
  •  July 2015: A wonderful blue tit / great tit season is finally over. Well done everyone. Below a pict' of the Pirio team.
  • February 2015:
Our blue tit project is welcoming three new postdocs next month! Marta Szulkin (ERC funded) is starting a new project on the ecological genomics of great tits in urban habitats; Charles Perrier (ERC funded) will work on the ecological genomics of Mediteranean blue tits, and Boris Delahaie (ANR funded) will investigate local adaptation through a Pst/Qst/Fst approach. An exciting growth of our group just before the breeding season!  
  •  September 2014
Christophe de Franceschi will be working on the ERC SHE project for two years (at least!) managing field work and our blue tit database, and also studying dispersal in the blue tits of Corsica using istopic signatures. Welcome to Christophe!
  • June 2014
 2 postdoc positions available:
* A 2-year ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) funded postdoc in Wild Quantitative Genetics
 * A 2-year ERC funded postdoc (renewable) in Ecological Genomics
  • March 2014
 Some great news after more than two years of hard work: our book on Quantitative Genetics in the Wild is now complete and the publication date is scheduled for 3rd Apr’14 (two months later in North America). You can already find it on sale on the web, as hardback or paperback. Thanks to Samuel Caro for the eye-catching cover picture!
  • January 2014
Congratulations to Gabrielle Dubuc-Messier for securing multiple PhD funding (CRSNG + Frontenac +  bourse à la mobilité de l'UQAM) to study Blue tit personalities in a heterogeneous environment.

This month is an exiting one since it is the kick-off of my ERC Staring Grant SHE (Selection in a Heterogeneous Environment)!

Also, Virginie Demeyrier is starting a PhD project co-supervised by Arnaud Grégoire and myself, to investigate great tit adaptation to urban environments, and test the 'ecological trap' hypothesis. Welcome to Virginie!
  •  March 2013
Congratulations to Mélody for receiving the Stephen O'Brien Award 2012 from the American Genetic Association for her paper published in Journal of Heredity!
  • September 2012
Congratulations to Jeff Lane for two new babies this month, one of them being his Nature paper regarding the delay in hibernation dates of Columbian ground squirrels in the Rocky Mountains. Check it out here .
Spermophilus columbianus (Author : The Lilac Breasted Roller)
  • August 2012
In the next six months, I will be located in Prof. Tim Clutton-Brock's 'LARG' research group in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, thanks to an Overseas Fellowship in Churchill College funded by the French Ambassy in the UK. See my contact page for new posting address and telephone number.
  • March 2012
Welcome to Pascal Marrot and Gabrielle Dubuc-Messier who will soon be starting PhD projects on evolutionary ecology and evolution of personnalities in the blue tit. The Blue tit field season has already started, but our first impression is that it will be a late start this year..
  • January 2012
Welcome to Pauline Beis and Mandy Thion who are starting master projects on an integrated analysis of response to selection and sexual selection of female ornamentation, using long-term data collected in our Mediterranean Blue Tit populations.
  • Sept 2011
From 19-22 Sept, 39 researchers from across the world gathered in Galeria, Corsica, for the 4th Wild Animal Model Bi-Annual Meeting (WAMBAM), i.e. to discuss applications of quantitative genetics to natural populations. A real success!
  • June 2011
Nicolas Rode published in Evolution the results of a time-shift experiment in Artemia franciscana where females were mated to males from their past, present and future. The study shows that male-female coevolution can occur over a short evolutionary time scale. To read paper, click here.
  • March 2011
WAMBAM 2011 will happen on 19-23 Sept 2011 in Galeria, Corsica. Please contact me if you are interested in participating or see the website .
  • Feb 2011
Welcome to Sihem Moualhi who will be working for three months on building the mute swan database. Also, Josh and I have published a paper on cross-sex age effects on reproduction in the blue tit in Oikos which got some news coverage:
Eureka Alert 
National Science Foundation
  •  Jan 2011
I am now part of the group 'Génétique et Ecologie Evolutive' in the CEFE.
  • Sept 2010
Welcome to Jeff Lane who is starting a one-year postdoc funded by the ANR to work on the evolutionary ecology of hibernation phenology in Columbian Ground Squirrels, and welcome to Denis Réale who is with us for a sabbatical stay until May 2011.
We are looking for a student to finalize an ACCESS dataset for the mute swan projet. For more details, see the job description in French .
  • July 2010
A wet but successful breeding season for the blue tits this year, with unexpected delays in hatching.
  •  July 2009 
Congratulations to Coline Arnaud who has been awarded a PhD fellowship from AXA Research Fund for a project on "Global change and reproductive behaviour: plasticity or microevolution" under the supervision of Steve Dobson and myself.
  •  May 2009
I am back in my office, and also back on the field.
We have lost a valued friend and colleague. Don Thomas died suddenly in Corsica on May 30, during our field work. In his memory, the Donald W. Thomas Fund has been created.
  •  November 2008 
I will be away from the office between mid-November 2008 and April 2009.
  •  October 2008
Welcome to Josh Auld who just arrived at the CEFE for a one-year postdoc to work on the evolution of senescence and sexual conflicts in collaboration with Patrice David and myself.
  •  August 2008
The French National Research Agency (L'Agence nationale de la recherche), the ANR, will found my research on "Evolutionary Potential in Changing Environments- a quantitative genetics approach" (programme ANR-Jeune Chercheur) for 2009-2011.
  •  May 2008
I published a paper in Science in collaboration with Ben Sheldon and colleagues from Oxford and Edinburgh, dissecting the mechanisms that have enabled great tits in Wytham woods, Oxford, to track changing environments over nearly five decades. To read paper, click here. For full media coverage, click here.