Université LavalPhD student
Feb. 2012 - Mar. 2017Quebec, CanadaI was a Ph.D. student with the joint international laboratory Takuvik, a collaboration between Laval University in Quebec, Canada and le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France (http://www.takuvik.ulaval.ca/). My research focused on the ecology and physiology of a group of plankton known as arrow worms, living in Arctic waters. Arrow worms are gelatinous (like jellyfish), and they make up a big part of the Arctic zooplankton biomass. They are sometimes suggested to be important predators on copepods and other zooplankton. So far I've published two articles on arrow worm ecology in the European Arctic, and am currently writing a paper on the very different life history strategies of species in the Canadian Arctic, based on long term collections. I've also found evidence that at least some arrow worm species may gulp seawater rather than being strict predators! This knowledge is very important for predicting how chaetognath species could respond to environmental change. I have also been working with the ground-breaking Lightframe On-sight Key species Investigation system (LOKI), which takes photographs of living zooplankton in the water. This system could allow us to see exactly where animals like chaetognaths are in the water column, and what they are doing!!