My research interests focus on links between species ecology and molecular evolution. More particularly, I study genome evolution of species with a eusocial lifestyle or atypical reproductive systems. My main model species is the barbarian harvester ant Messor barbarus, a species with an unusual reproductive system where royalty is genetically determined. In this system (social hybridogenesis), two queen genetic lineages can only produce queens and males by their own while they need to hybridize to produce workers. I use approaches in phylogeny, population genetics and experimental biology to resolve the origin of this system along with other general questions in evolutionary biology.