Macroevolution and development team

In the Macroevolution and Development team (MaD), we study biodiversity from the phenotypic evolution perspective, within short- or long- evolutionary time-scales and with a focus on the evolution of developmental mechanisms in vertebrates. Our shared groups of interest and technical complementarity have made us build strong collaborations with the Phylogeny and Molecular Evolution team: genomic evolution aspects related to developmental genes (long evolutionary time); analysis of phylogenetic and demographic relationships (short evolutionary time). We also have collaborations with the Palaeontology team (for projects concerning deep evolutionary events or in the variations of faunal corteges of the Anthropocene). Our team is also developing several bioinformatic and statistical tools for the analysis of genomic and phenotypic diversity patterns (R environment).
Our biological groups of interest are: mammals (chiropterans, rodents) and cartilaginous fish to understand the evolution of development mechanisms relating to the vertebrate skeleton (cartilage, bones and teeth); continental vertebrates to understand the effects of anthropogenic stresses on biodiversity in tropical environments (applications in conservation biology and in the field of contemporary developments). On this second point, our fieldwork is mainly in South-East Asia and the West Indies (effects of changes in land use, deforestation/reforestation, current and past overexploitation… etc) and focuses on reptiles, amphibians and felines.