Watch our documentary: "Searching for the mangrove rivulus"
The Laboratory of Evolutionary and Adaptive Physiology LEAP (Silvestre Lab) from the University of Namur, Belgium, is one of the 4 laboratories belonging to the Research Unit in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology (URBE) within the Department of Biology. It is also a member of the Institute of Life, Earth and Environment (ILEE).
Our researches belong to integrative, comparative and evolutionary physiology. We aim to investigate the impacts of environmental changes (pollution, temperature, salinity, etc) on aquatic organisms at different levels: molecular, physiological, phenotypic. Different aquatic species are studied with priorities given to fish models. If we are using zebrafish as a common laboratory model, our main current interests concern two killifish species: the mangrove rivulus, Kryptolebias marmoratus, and the Turquoise killifish, Nothobranchius furzeri. The former has a unique mixed-mating system that allows self-fertilization, while the latest has a very short life-span (around 20 weeks). Our approaches try to understand how these organisms are affected by environmental stress and how they can acclimate, adapt and evolve. The mangrove rivulus, with its very low genetic diversity, is a perfect model to study the role of epigenetics in adaptation and evolution, while the turquoise killifish is great to decipher the interplay between pollutants and aging. We have developed a workflow of DNA methylation analysis and strive to correlate environmental cues, epigenetic mechanisms, molecular phenotype (at transcriptomic and proteomic levels) and organism phenotype, mainly of behavioural traits. We are combining laboratory experiments (e.g. pollutant exposure, DNA methylation analysis, fish respirometry, fish behaviour) with bioinformatic analyses and field experiments and sampling (in Florida and Belize). All together we aim at investigating proximate (mechanistic) and ultimate (evolutionary) consequences of environmental changes on organisms.
Recent News
- Frédéric Silvestre is in New Zealand !November 27, 2024From November 22nd till December 6th, Frédéric Silvestre will visit the University of Otago in the South-East […]
- New academic position in biodiversityOctober 22, 2024We’re happy to announce that our research unit at UNamur (Research Unit in Environmental and […]
- Master thesis 2025 at LEAPOctober 10, 2024The topics available to work on a master thesis at LEAP are available here. Please don’t wait too long […]
- New publication in collaboration with our colleagues of NancyOctober 5, 2024UNamur and ULorraine are collaborating for few years on a topics related to fish domestication and […]
- 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary BiologyAugust 5, 2024The 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology was held in Montreal in July 2024. It is a huge scientific […]
- Field trip 2024 in the PyreneanJuly 15, 2024The summer 2024 pluridisciplinary field trip took 31 students from all scientific disciplines to the Pyrenean […]
- New research project in EcuatorJune 21, 2024We are proud and happy to start a new collaboration with the Universidad Central del Ecuador, thanks to […]
- LEAP was at Banyuls for the ECOBIM 2024 conferenceMay 25, 2024After having organized the ECOBIM conference in Namur in 2022, the LEAP was present in Banyuls-sur-mer (La […]
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin
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