Dr Nicolas Derome, Assistant professor

Department of Biology
Pavillon Charles-Eugène-Marchand
1030, Avenue de la Médecine
Room 1255
Université Laval
Québec (Québec) G1V 0A6
Canada

Phone: 1 418 656-7726
Fax: 1 418 656-2043
Email: Nicolas.Derome@bio.ulaval.ca

RESEARCH PROGRAM

The long term objective of my research program is to predict the adaptive response of microbial communities facing selective pressures in the context of environmental changes in the wild.

Recently, our knowledge of microorganisms improved significantly: first of all, microbes (including 90% of bacteria) represent an enormous biomass, superior by far to both plant and animals. Then, owing diverse metabolic functions, microorganisms play a central role in the ecosystem stability. Last but not least, they are able to react rapidly when confronted to environmental changes. Therefore, as the global warming accelerates the deterioration of numerous ecosystems, it is crucial to elucidate how the adaptive mechanisms of the microorganisms impact their stability.

However, our knowledge on evolutionary process that structure and maintain the diversity of microbial communities is still in its infancy. Indeed, even if high-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA samples revealed extremely diversified microbial communities, identifying new species, genes and previously unknown metabolic pathways, two central questions remain. First, how does natural selection and genetic exchanges shape the diversification of new ecological species (ecotypes)? Then, how these ones integrate and interact with the rest of the community ?

These questions are central because they challenge two foundations of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution: the biological species concept, based on the identity by descent, and ecological species concept, based on the unique relationship between given specie and its own ecological niche.

ONGOING RESEARCH

• Infections caused by opportunistic pathogens in brook charr (Salvelinus fontinalis) aquaculture: impact on the microbial community.
• • Dissection the genetic architecture of response to a breeding selection program in brook charr (Salvelinus fontinalis).

• • Dissection the genetic architecture of reproductive isolation and adaptive phenotypic variation between sympatric forms of the lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis Salmonidae) by combining a linkage map and the analysis of transcription profiles of genes.

• • Genetic bases of post-zygotic isolation in Drosophila simulans complex, a functional genomic approach.