We are lucky to have a bunch of great PhD students working with the various ONCFS teams, often in collaboration with other labs, who will help with the organisation of the congress. You can ask them for your badge when you first arrive, on how to check your powerpoint presentation, or for any question relative to the logistics. Their name badge will be of a different colour than for the regular participants.

Meet them below, and make sure you also talk to them about their research during the congress. Some are also about to defend their thesis, and already looking for a post-doc position…

Marianne BERNARD

Marianne’s thesis is on the “Joint impact of deer browsing and climate change on mixed fir – spruce – beech forests regeneration”. The rationale behind this is that deer populations (red deer Cervus elaphus and roe deer Capreolus capreolus) have dramatically increased for the last decades. Their diets overlap in winter, including Silver fir Abies alba and Norway spruce Picea abies. Silver fir being much more palatable to deer than Norway spruce, deer exert a more important pressure on the former by their browsing, and almost do not affect European beech Fagus sylvatica. Climate change also exerts a selective pressure on tree species: European beech and Norway spruce seem to be jeopardized while Silver fir is less. Her PhD aims to differentiate between both impacts on mixed fir – spruce – beech forests regeneration.

Her work is conducted under supervision of Sonia Saïd at ONCFS, Vincent Boulanger at the Office National des Forêts and Xavier Morin at the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive, CNRS, Montpellier.

You can talk to Marianne preferentially in French, English and Spanish, but also in Italian.

Coline CANONNE

Coline’s thesis is on the “Impacts of global changes on mountain Galliformes populations”. She plans to carry out a comparative analysis of Galliformes demography ata global scale, and try to unravel the impact of climate on the populations of these birds. Integrated populations models will be used to study these exploited populations.

Her work is conducted under supervision of Daniel Maillard and Marc Montadert at ONCFS, as well as Aurélien Besnard at the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive, CNRS, Montpellier.

You can talk to Coline preferentially in French and English, but also in Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese.

Agathe CHASSAGNEUX

Agathe’s thesis is on the “Effects of hunting and environmental variations on the spatial behaviour of wild boar (Sus scrofa) and red deer (Cervus elaphus)”. In recent decades, ungulate populations have drastically increased in the northern hemisphere, resulting in extensive damage to forest vegetation and crops. Therefore, studies have recently focused on hunting as a management tool to control populations. In fact, most of the ungulate species are also known as popular game species and hunting can act as a predation process affecting space use and foraging patterns. But today, we still need more information about how hunting affects the spatial behaviour of wild ungulate species. Thus, her PhD project aims to model the influence of human hunting and environmental variations (e.g. forest fruiting) on the movement patterns of two game species, wild boar and red deer.

Her work is conducted under supervision of Sonia Saïd, Eric Baubet and Clément Calenge at ONCFS.

You can talk to Agathe in French and English.

Benjamin FOLLIOT

Benjamin’s thesis is on the ``Demographics of exploited populations: the case of Common Pochard Aythya ferina and Tufted duck A. fuligula in Europe ``. The aim of his thesis is to better understand the population dynamics of these two harvested wildfowl species. He will try to estimate demographic parameters thanks to CMR data, and will then rely on Integrated Population Models to assess population sizes and growth rates. Some methodological issues will also be tackled, such as the probabilistic definition of flyway boundaries and the validity of duck counts. The thesis will eventually aim at the management of the hunting activity, with recommendations for sustainable harvest.

His work is conducted under supervision of Alain Caizergues and Matthieu Guillemain at ONCFS, with co-supervision by Jocelyn Champagnon from the Tour du Valat Research Institute.

You can talk to Benjamin in French and English, as well as in Norman dialect!

Adrienne GASTINEAU

Adrienne’s thesis is on the ``Spatial analysis of predation on livestock by a large carnivore: the brown bear, Ursus arctos, in the Pyrenees and in the Alps``. In the Pyrenees and in the Alps, predation on domestic herds is one of the main limiting factors for the brown bear-human cohabitation. This work aims at going beyond the primary vulnerability analysis of grazing areas by undertaking a spatially explicit study of biotic and abiotic factors, which can influence predatory behaviour of brown bears.

Her work is conducted under supervision of Pierre-Yves Quenette at ONCFS, with also the Center for Ecology and Conservation Sciences (CESCO) of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and the University Pierre et Marie Curie / Paris VI.

You can talk to Adrienne preferentially in French and English, but also in Spanish.

Thibault GAYET

Thibault’s thesis is on the ``Influence of hunting on wild boar populations structure and reproductive processes: what are the consequences on genetic and demographic parameters?``. He aims to understand the role of wild boar males in population genetic and demographic processes by studying the variability of the mating system, the variance in reproductive success and the reproductive phenology in several populations with contrasting hunting practices and demographic contexts.

His work is conducted under supervision of Eric Baubet at ONCFS, with also Ludovic Say and Sébastien Devillard at the University of Lyon.

You can talk to Thibault in French and English.

Mickaël JACQUIER

Mickaël’s thesis is on the ``Spatial variations in abundance and social organisation of badger populations in France ``. At the national scale he models the variations in abundance between every small agricultural region according to environmental variables (forest cover, soil type, weather…). At a smaller scale he then uses hair traps for genetic analysis and camera traps to evaluate badger density. Finally, he relies on GPS/Proximity logger collars to study the spatio-temporal evolution of 3-4 groups of animals and contacts between them.

His work is conducted under supervision of Sandrine Ruette at ONCFS, with also Ludovic Say and Sébastien Devillard at the University of Lyon.

You can talk to Mickaël in French and English.

Sébastien LAMBERT

Sébastien’s thesis is on the “Transmission of brucellosis in a structured population of Alpine ibex (Capra ibex).” He develops a stochastic individual-based demographic and epidemiological model of Alpine ibex infection by Brucella melitensis in the Bargy population (French Alps). The aim is to better understand the mechanisms of transmission and persistence of the pathogen taking into account spatial structure of this population of wild ungulate, and then to evaluate management strategies of the infection.

His work is conducted under supervision of Sophie Rossi at ONCFS, as well as Emmanuelle Gilot-Fromont from the University of Lyon, VetAgro-Sup and
Anne Thébault at the French Agency for Food Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety.

You can talk to Sébastien in French and English.

Julie LOUVRIER

Julie’s thesis is about “Modelling the distribution of large carnivores.” The main goal of her PhD is to develop a theoretical framework to assess and analyze the determining factors affecting the large carnivores’ distribution. Data from Europe are used and come from different monitoring schemes of wolves and Lynx.

Her work is conducted under supervision of Eric Marboutin and Christophe Duchamp at ONCFS, as well as Olivier Gimenez at the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive, CNRS, Montpellier.

You can talk to Julie in French, English, German and Spanish.

Elodie PORTANIER

Elodie’s thesis is on “Parasitism and spatial genetic structure. Example of the Mediteranean Mouflon (Ovis gmelini musimon x Ovis sp.).” Her research project deals with a population of Mouflon from the Caroux-Espinouse massif (Hérault, France) which grew from 19 individuals introduced during the 50's. She is interested in identifying the drivers of genetic structure and gene flows (e.g. past history and/or landscape features) within this population. Concurrently, studying the gene flows will allow her to have knowledge on individual movements and to study pathogen circulation among the animals. Moreover, she is interested in studying the pathogen resistance of individuals in this population which faces strong selection pressures linked with hunting and global changes (selective trophy hunting on males, habitat loss by afforestation) and originating from a small number of founder individuals.

Her work is conducted under supervision of Daniel Maillard and Mathieu Garel at ONCFS, with also Gilles Bourgoin and Sébastien Devillard from the University of Lyon (Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive and VetAgro Sup).

You can talk to Elodie in French, Italian and English.