Parasitism is a far-reaching way of life in nature. Yet we don’t know much about this
trophic mode in marine ecosystems, either in terms of its global distribution patterns or the
evolutionary processes behind them.
The « effectors » involved in host-parasite interaction have been particularly studied in some eukaryotic taxa of health interest, such as the Apicomplexa and the Kinetoplastida clades. The presence of these taxa in ecological niches such as the planktonic communities remains to be further uncovered …
My thesis involves exploring the eukaryotic component of plankton using « omics » approaches in pursuit of possible « markers of parasite lifestyle » in the marine ecosystem.
The first objective is to compile molecular markers and genetic data (genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes) from model parasites characterized at molecular and genetic level. These data will serve as a starting point for the search for « parasite lifestyle tracers » in the environmental genomic data collected during major scientific expeditions (Malaspina, OSD, etc.) and in particular the TARA expeditions.
The second task will be to characterize these elements in order to pinpoint specific signatures according to the taxa to which they belong, and to describe their functional diversity.
Thesis director : PORCEL Betina