[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]My name is Alessandra Carion and I graduated in biological sciences at Namur University (UNamur) in 2014 with the “organisms’ biology and ecology” option for my Master degree. I had my first lab experience with my Master’s thesis carried out in the lab of Prof. Frédéric Silvestre at UNamur and was aimed to investigate the effects of copper on the central nervous system of zebrafish, Danio rerio, with the perspective of studying its interactions with elevated temperature. For that purpose we used behavioral (boldness and aggressiveness tests) and proteomic approaches (2D-DIGE). Promising results found have shown that an environmental pollutant can induce changes in brain proteome potentially leading to changes in organisms’ behavior. During this work, I obtained experience in rearing zebrafish, conducting exposure experiments, extracting brain from very small organisms, carrying out behavioral tests and using proteomic analyses.
For the last part of my Master’s program, I performed a four months internship in the lab of Katharina Fabricius, coral reef ecologist, at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS), Queensland, Australia (http://www.aims.gov.au/). During this internship I was involved in a project aimed at studying the physiological effects of increased nutrient content on the scleractinian coral Acropora tenuis in order to assess coral response to global warming in a nutrient enriched habitat. Results showed that in a context of global warming, nutrient enrichments would not help coral resistance and resilience to bleaching. With these research projects, I have acquired experience studying the effects of environmental stressors on both freshwater and marine organisms.
Today I am a FNRS PhD student at UNamur with F. Silvestre as supervisor, M. Denoël from University of Liège (ULg) as co-supervisor, R. Earley (University of Alabama), A. Sih and D. Kültz (University of California, Davis) as collaborators. My project aims to investigate the developmental plasticity of behavioral traits (aggressiveness and boldness) in one of two self-fertilizing hermaphroditic vertebrate species, the mangrove rivulus (Kryptolebias marmoratus). This fish presents the unique advantage of being able to produce, after many generations of exclusive self-fertilization in the wild, completely homozygous offspring whose progeny are genetically identical to the parent and all siblings. The first objective will be to examine the effects of an environmental stimulus (low salinity) and social environment (kin and non-kin contacts in dyads) applied during early life stages (ELS) of individuals from two distinct isogenic lineages, on aggressiveness and boldness during adulthood.
Second, we will investigate the biochemical and molecular mechanisms in brain associated with behavioral variations and with environmental and social stimuli during ELS. Linking behavioral traits and the cellular phenotype of each lineage will allow a deep understanding of the sequence of molecular events leading to behavioral modifications that permit the organism to cope with new environmental conditions.[/vc_column_text][vc_message color=”alert-info”]Contacts : alessandra.carion@unamur.be[/vc_message][vc_column_text]Main publications :
Alessandra Carion, MS student 2013, UNamur.
Does acclimation of zebrafish Danio rerio to elevated temperature interact with subsequent copper exposure? Proteomic, behavioural and epigenetic approaches.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]