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
Festival International Nature Namur 2023
October 20, 2023The FINN is a festival dedicated to nature movies and photography. Every year, UNamur has a booth where the […]Julie Hétru, our new PhD student
October 20, 2023Since the beginning of October, we’ve been pleased to welcome Julie Hétru, MSc, in our lab to start a […]Master thesis proposals at LEAP for 2024
October 10, 2023LEAP is proposing 2 topics for new master students who are dedicated to study killifish in a perspective of […]Editorial in Epigenomes
October 10, 2023Frédéric Silvestre has published an editorial view with his colleague Dr Bambarendage (University of […]New publication from Anthony Mathiron
August 16, 2023Our new article has been written by our former post-doc researcher, Anthony Mathiron, and has been published […]A field expedition in the mangrove of Belize
June 3, 2023Version français en bas de page In May 2023, Justine Belik (young teaching assistant), Ivan Blanco (FRIA […]New publication about the insecticide permethrin
April 26, 2023Our post-doc researcher Anthony Mathiron just published a research article in Aquatic Toxicology about the […]Documentary about the mangrove rivulus
March 29, 2023LEAP has published on its youtube channel a documentary of 29 minutes about the mangrove rivulus and the […]
“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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