Ongoing climate change has altered both mean and short-term temporal variability of environmental conditions (such as temperature or food resources). While there is strong evidence that wild populations are deeply influenced by changes in the mean environmental conditions and respond accordingly (e.g., shifts in phenology, in species ranges), population responses to changes in the magnitude of environmental fluctuations are poorly understood. This knowledge is, however, crucial to better predict and anticipate climate change impacts on biodiversity. Hosted at the Institute of Mathematics of Bordeaux (University of Bordeaux), the project “DROVE” will be coordinated by Christie Le Coeur, a specialist in population ecology, who will benefit from the supervisor’s (Dr. F. Barraquand) expertise in ecological statistics and theory. This project aims to provide a robust statistical and theoretical framework to unravel the effects of changes in environmental variability on dynamics of wild populations, and to characterise the demographic mechanisms responsible for their persistence under climate change. This goal will be achieved by defining metrics to measure population persistence and demographic strategies in a variable but also density-dependent environment (when population growth slows down as population density increases) as previous work on variable environments has ignored this almost ubiquitous population regulation. The researcher will then build population models with data from long-term, individual-based population datasets of a well-studied species across Europe, the great tit (Parus major), to explain intra- and inter-population variations in demographic strategies and persistence in varying environments. Combining long-term empirical surveys with state-of-the-art model development, this project will provide statistical tools solidly grounded in population dynamics theory to understand environmental variability effects on wild populations under climate change.

Sudden Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a common cause of adult mortality in western countries, accounting in Europe for about 350 000 cases annually. Most SCDs are caused by ventricular arrhythmias generated from an arrhythmogenic ‘substrate’ present within the heart. Paradoxically, despite the existence of efficient preventive therapies, the sole available predictor of SCD is a measure of cardiac contractility, an indirect metric, which applies only to a subset of patients. At present, most patients at risk cannot be identified pre-emptively to prevent sudden death. My aim is to develop a novel non-invasive body-surface mapping and pacing system, which will allow detection of cardiac signals related directly to the substrate responsible for lethal arrhythmias, for efficient SCD prediction. The unique approach proposed to achieve this objective will consist in: (1) combining electrocardiographic mapping and ultrasonic pacing technologies during cardiac signal acquisition from a high-density array of body surface electrodes; (2) characterizing micro-scale temporal, spectral and spatial features of substrate signals, at baseline and during pacing to unmask hidden signals; (3) establishing critical signal features specific of arrhythmogenic substrates using multi-parametric signal analysis on the body surface, based on unique electrophysiological data from explanted human hearts and from SCD survivors; (4) developing risk prediction scores from well-phenotyped groups of patients monitored by implanted devices. This project will constitute a new paradigm in clinical cardiac investigations and allow a major breakthrough in the prevention of premature arrhythmic deaths in the world. The capability of detecting and influencing cardiac electrical signals will also dramatically impact the management of populations suffering from other cardiac pathologies, enabling earlier diagnosis of heart disease, and better guidance to drug, interventional or preventive therapies.

The ability of light to carry angular momentum has been the subject of an active scientific research since the beginning of 20th century, and yet the knowledge in this area still has many gaps and overlooked possibilities for technological innovation. In particular, a non-dissipative technology enabling an optomechanical transduction of the angular momentum irrespective of its spin or orbital nature is yet to be achieved. The project “OSCILLIGHT” offers an original solution to this problem by exploiting the inherent vector nature of angular momentum. During the two-year fellowship at University of Bordeaux (France), Dr. Georgiy Tkachenko (Researcher) guided by Dr. Etienne Brasselet (Supervisor) will realize proof-of-concept experimental demonstrations of the universal transfer of angular momentum that will lead to the implementation of a mechanical oscillator, whose size will eventually make it compatible with on-chip photonic systems. This work will therefore answer the key strategic orientation of the European Commission towards the development of digital, enabling and emerging technologies for micro/nanoelectronics and photonics. The proposed research is timely, as the scientific literature over the last 5 years has seen the increasing emergence of studies on integrated optomechanical devices, including those driven by angular momentum of light. After the last few years of the relevant preparatory work done by the Supervisor, his students and collaborators, the stage is now set for an effective implementation of this proposal, and the Researcher is the perfect candidate for the leading role to be played under the Supervisor’s guidance. Most importantly, the successful realization of this project will be beneficial to both the host university and the Researcher’s career path to securing a stable academic position and eventually leading his own research group.

Traditional foodways: Innovation, REsilience and ContinUity in the Ancient Mexican Highlands (TIRECUA) aims at reconstructing the diet of ancient Mesoamerican populations from the Western Mexican Highlands. Food is a highly multidimensional character which not only translates the necessity of eating but also fundamental cultural processes, subsistence practices and environmental constraints. Today, our food practices have an increasing impact on human health and on the environment, and the rediscovery of more traditional eating habits has the potential of reducing our environmental footprint, increasing global health and improving the future of food security. This research will focus on Mesoamerica, a region traditionally relying on an original and economically important set of food products but where Indigenous knowledge is seldomly recognised. TIRECUA will develop an innovative multidisciplinary approach to understand what food was consumed by whom, and how it varied through time. This EU-funded research project will set-up a state-of-the-art framework for biomolecular diet analyses including stable isotopes, palaeoproteomics and ancient DNA by combining the skills of the applicant with the host institution. The outcomes of TIRECUA are expected to be of interest to a large public by highlighting ancestral recipes, acknowledging the cultural origin of this food in the deep-time and promoting alternative, healthy and sustainable meals.

The trans-Golgi network (TGN) serves as a central sorting station of membrane traffic standing at the intersection of secretory and endocytic pathways, a feature that is now proposed to be a common trait between plant, yeast and animal cells. The multi-identity of TGN relies on its partitioning in subdomains but, due to the lack of resolution in conventional microscopy, it is still poorly understood how TGN subdomains relate dynamically to each other, or acquire their identity, and how they achieve the sorting of a variety of cargo proteins to different destinations. The applicant previously identified of at least two subdomains, one labeled by the R-SNARE VAMP721 and the coat protein AP-1 and that is involved in secretory trafficking, and another labeled by VAMP727 and AP-4 and that is involved in vacuolar trafficking. The host lab previously demonstrated by lipidomic analyses that sphingolipids with very long chain fatty acid were enriched in Q-SNARE SYP61-labelled TGN compartments and were critical for polar sorting of the auxin carrier PIN2 to apical plasma membrane. The goal of this project is now to join forces, expertise and scientific networks to gain from each other and tackle the challenging questions of: 1) what is the exact structure of TGN, how are TGN subdomains spatially arranged between each other and how do they behave dynamically, this will be addressed by super-resolution microscopy, 2) what is the proteo-lipidic composition of TGN subdomains and what is the role of lipids in TGN partitioning, 3) how the identified subdomains are functionally important for cargo sorting and trafficking to different destination by employing a novel pulse-chase method. This project is timely, realistic, focused and represents a unique combination of expertise from the applicant in super-resolution 3D live imaging of TGN subdomains and the host lab in TGN-mediated trafficking, lipid analytical biochemistry and super-resolution imaging.