Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet BIRDBARRIER (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding animal migration is one of the most compelling and challenging problems of modern biology. For a long time, we have been hindered by the large geographical scale of migratory movements and the small sizes of most migratory animals. Crossing barriers is a fundamental aspect of animal migration. Long-distance migratory birds face crossings of formidable barriers such as the Sahara Desert, Himalaya Mountains, or the Pacific Ocean twice a year, but even short-distance migrants travel across inhospitable habitats. Successful migration, and specifically successful barrier crossings, depend on the availability of favourable weather conditions aloft and suitable habitat during stopovers. Surprisingly little is known about the behaviours that guide billions of avian migrants to a successful barrier crossing. Advances in tracking technology and remote sensing now offer us new tools to track small migratory animals with extraordinary precision. I will use these new methods to study how nocturnally migrating songbirds manage barriers during their migration. With this action I aim to increase the understanding of (1) the behavioural strategies that birds use to negotiate large geographic features and (2) how barriers limit bird migration. The research will be conducted under PI Prof. Kasper Thorup in the Bird Migration Lab, Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, at the University of Copenhagen. Prof. Thorup’s group has advanced the front of global scale tracking of avian migration for the last decade, and possess the necessary expertise in spatiotemporal patterns. Further, I will spend a secondment at the Institute of Avian Research, Germany, and gain from Dr. Heiko Schmaljohann expertise in stopover behaviour. By combining my existing expertise in radiotelemetry tracking and migratory behaviour, with new skills in additional tracking techniques and analytic tools, this action will advance the research field and enhance my career as independent researcher.

Mots clés : migration, songbirds, ecological barrier, behaviour

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €
Projet ConvergeAnt (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding how complex traits evolve repeatedly across species remains a major challenge in biology. The number of queens in an ant colony is an important trait associated with queen lifespan and fecundity, dispersal strategies, and responses to environmental stimuli. Although colonies of most ant species have either one or multiple queens, more than twelve ant species have evolved social dimorphism: co-existence of single- and multiple-queen colonies in a population. This phenomenon presents a remarkable opportunity to discover mechanisms of convergent genetic evolution. Our proposal takes advantage of the recurrent evolution of social dimorphism in ants to understand the genomic basis of this complex trait. Recent genomic studies have revealed that a “supergene” genomic region including hundreds of linked genes determines colony type in two distantly related ant species. However, it remains unclear to what extent supergenes underlie social dimorphism and which genes are important for the evolution of this trait. Here, we aim to elucidate general principles governing the evolution of social dimorphism at the molecular level. We will select six ant lineages in which the co-existence of the two social forms has independently evolved to accomplish three goals: 1) test whether supergenes are required for dimorphic social organization by performing genome-wide comparisons between single- and multiple-queen colonies; 2) test for similar changes in gene content or sequence across the independent origins of social dimorphism by comparing phylogenetic profiles; 3) determine whether differences in gene expression in workers of single- versus multiple-queen colonies are consistent across species by performing transcriptome-wide comparisons. Our project will provide major insights into the genetic architectures and pathways underpinning the evolution of social dimorphism, and will substantially improve our understanding of the evolution of complex phenotypes.

Mots clés : social insect, genomics, transcriptomics, social polymorphism, polygyny, bioinformatics

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet PATH (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding how languages leak into each other in the bilingual brain is a central testing ground for theories of language in the brain (which will inform all future educational policy), and also for theories of language change under contact. However, the crucial detailed information is strikingly difficult to obtain because of the massive variability in human experience. If one attempts to find generalizations in this area, one is faced with the uncertainty that the effects are not due to principled cognitive factors but to some combination of external factors of the environment and/or specific details of the particular language pairing involved, including the precise dialects in question. In addition, any changes in the development of a HL must be compared directly to the natural changes going on in that language in its native context, so that normal language change can be factored out. The exciting and unique feature of this project is that in this study we control for these factors by closely examining a particular community of residents with a Turkish background in Drunen, a small town in the North Brabant province of the Netherlands. The members of this community migrated from small towns in Rize, a province on the eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey, where a unique dialect of Turkish is spoken. Influenced from Greek and Armenian (Indo-European) as well as Laz (Kartvelian), this regional variety demonstrates substantial differences from other varieties of Turkish in Turkey and is classified a separate dialect group on its own. PATH will examine a sub-dialect of this unique variety as it has been spoken by three generations of ±350 residents in Drunen to investigate how different components of grammar (phonology, lexicon, syntax) show variation and change in a bilingual setting.

Mots clés : bilingualism, heritage languages, language variation, language change

Participants :
- UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 214158.72 €
Projet Spontaneous activity (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding how the brain processes sensory stimuli to guide behavior is still an unresolved mystery in neuroscience. The view that behavior may be passively guided by the senses is challenged by the observation that the brain is always spontaneous active. Even cortical areas that are supposed to represent features of the sensory environment manifest spontaneous activity (SA) in the absence of external inputs. The similarity between SA and sensory-evoked activity (EA) has been interpreted as learning of features of the external world by cortical circuits. However, the mechanism by which SA affects brain computation is largely unknown. In this proposal we aim at elucidating the functional role of SA for processing of sensory information in the auditory modality. We will take advantage of state-of-the-art tools available in mice to modulate and record the activity of large populations of neurons across cortical layers. Mice will be trained to perform frequency (or location) discrimination tasks and expectation will be generated by using trials in blocks in which the sound location (or frequency) probability will vary. We hypothesize that the induced expectation will facilitate sensory discrimination and manifest as specific patterns of SA before stimulus presentation. We will then manipulate optogenetically auditory cortex to causally test the role of SA in the task. Finally, we will record the simultaneous activity of a large number of neurons to understand mechanistically how SA may affects the processing of incoming sensory stimuli. Our study has the potential to uncover new neuronal mechanisms underlying sensory processing.

Mots clés : spontaneous activity, evoked activity, auditory cortex, predictive coding, optogenetics, electrophysiology, behavior, mouse

Participants :
- Champalimaud Foundation (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 148635.6 €
Projet DIAGRASS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding how the intensification of the water cycle, as projected by several climate models, will impact grassland ecosystems will be critical for evaluating their future capacity to provide services and for developing sustainable management policies. This will be especially important in dryland regions, where water availability is the main driver of many ecological processes. To date, several studies have detected responses of vegetation to extreme events from molecular to regional scales, although the heritability of these effects is still unclear. In addition, environmental stresses suffered by a generation can influence the phenotype and performance of its offspring beyond the effects of the transmitted genes (the so-called transgenerational effect). Nevertheless, the description of the mechanisms involved in these responses is also incomplete. The lack of knowledge about the adaptation thresholds of species to new climate scenarios can hamper our ability to predict shifts in ecosystem services. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to evaluate the adaptation capacity of dryland grass species to extreme scenarios of water availability. We will use short- and long-term rainfall manipulative experiments combined with molecular (genomic, genetic and epigenetic), physiological, morphological and ecosystem approaches. The research outlined in this proposal includes a range of state-of-the-art methods to ensure the maximum utility and impact of our results. Altogether, DIAGRASS aims to explore linkages from molecular to ecosystem processes to improve our ability to predict how more extreme rainfall regimes will affect future key ecosystem services (e.g., the stocking-density capacity) of grasslands located in dryland regions. This project will also contribute to improve the knowledge in a key scientific topic for the EU: the Horizon 2020 societal challenge “Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials”.

Mots clés : ecological genomics, grass adaptations, hidroclimatic changes, functional and performance traits, genome sequencing, genetic and epigenetic assays, transgenerational effects, drylands

Participants :
- Arizona's Public Universities (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 239191.2 €
Projet BGAR (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding processes of urbanization, regional networks, and the ability of systems to undergo change while maintaining the same functions, i.e. their resilience, is critical for the continued existence and growth of communities today in urban and rural contexts alike. Archaeology has a rich history of investigating human-environment coupled systems in urban settings and is well-suited to identifying characteristics of resilient systems over the course of centuries. Detailed analysis of urbanism and human-environment interactions have been conducted on the giant low-density complex of Greater Angkor Region; however, this has not been investigated in the context of regional networks of the medieval Khmer Empire (9th – 14th centuries CE). This project, “Beyond the Greater Angkor Region (BGAR),” addresses these issues in regional contexts, including the six medieval urban centers that were recently (2015) identified by the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative and the agro-urban zones stretching among them. This research agenda takes place within the framework of a dynamic and multidisciplinary network of scholars interested in human-environment interactions in mainland Southeast Asia. In this project, we will use various methods, including machine learning and network analyses, to address regional issues of agricultural production in inter-connected urban contexts. This project has five deliverables: 1) An updated database of temple communities (agricultural units of production) in Cambodia; 2) A regional “urban” morphology; 3) Modelling to determine how regional urban centers interact with the temple communities in their peripheral agro-urban systems; 4) A network analysis to identify shifts over time from small-world networks to scale-free networks; and 5) A redefinition of urbanism in the Khmer Empire and beyond.

Mots clés : machine learning, network analysis, lidar, urbanism, water management, resilience

Participants :
- Leiden University (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet IsoBar (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding the appearance of reproductive isolation is essential for understanding mechanisms underlying the origin of species. This project aims at understanding the relative importance of different isolating barriers during adaptive speciation by looking at patterns of genomic divergence. I will use numerical modelling, analysis of RNAseq data from several biotypes (incipient species) of a model organism (pea aphid), and will perform mating experiments to address four research questions: (1) Which patterns of genomic divergence arise when different isolation barriers apply? (2) Which patterns of genomic divergence do pea aphids show? (3) Do pea aphids biotypes have behavioural mate choice? (4) Which reproductive barriers are needed for the completion of speciation in hybridizing biotypes? Successful implementation of this project will improve my career perspectives, because it's training objectives were chosen to guarantee addressing skills gaps, diversifying experience and strengthening existing skills. European Research and Society will also benefit from results of this project, both though academic and economic pathways.


Participants :
- University of Oxford (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet SoftRyd (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding the behaviour of quantum many-body systems out of equilibrium remains one of the central challenges in condensed-matter physics. The complex collective phenomena that are observed in such systems present many similarities to those observed in supercooled liquids and glasses, and their study would therefore greatly benefit from the insights and approaches developed in out-of-equilibrium soft-matter physics. However, the relevant research communities remain for the most part disconnected. We propose to bridge this gap by addressing the collective non-equilibrium dynamics of Rydberg gases (i.e., gases of atoms excited to high-lying energy levels) using ideas and approaches from soft-matter physics. One of the main objectives of the proposal is the study of the quantum regime, which remains as yet unexplored. The other main objective is the study of gases of multilevel Rydberg atoms, i.e. going beyond the two-level paradigm according to which atoms can only be in their ground state or in one excited state. Both objectives aim to break new ground by significantly expanding and generalising previous work on the dynamics of Rydberg gases, and each of them leads to ramifications that lend themselves quite naturally to a study based on the ideas and methods developed in soft-matter physics. The proposal combines the research experience and skills the Experienced Researcher acquired in the study of disordered, glassy and complex systems (which will provide the Host Institution with much needed skills and knowledge) with the internationally recognised expertise of the Supervisor in quantum many-body systems in general, and Rydberg gases in particular (which will help the Researcher to acquire new knowledge and skills through training and research activities). This rather unusual combination of backgrounds is uniquely suited for carrying out this challenging research programme, and ultimately leading the Researcher to pursue an independent scientific career.

Mots clés : quantum many body systems, out of equilibrium dynamics, rydberg gases, soft condensed matter, glassy physics

Participants :
- University of Nottingham (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet PSIPCancer (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding the cancer-specific genetic alterations is fundamental to devising novel treatment modalities. This project aims at understanding the role of PSIP1, posterior homeotic domain-containing transcription factors (HOX TFs) and androgen receptor (AR) in transcriptional regulation of prostate cancer cells. These transcriptional regulators are integral to the normal cell homeostasis and are dysregulated in various cancers. Through the preliminary data and analysis, this proposal recognises an interlink between these three factors and the ability of this trio in mediating a cancer-specific transcriptional alteration through activation of cancer-promoting transcriptional enhancers. Using a powerful combination of genome editing, functional genomics and bioinformatics, this proposal aims to discover altered transcriptional programme and its impact on cancer progression and treatment resistance. This project combines the expertise of the researcher in cancer biology with the competences of the host in epigenetics and functional genomics. This project will impart the talented researcher with comprehensive research training in chromatin biology and functional cancer genomics at an elite research Institute, in order to increase his prospects to become an independent research leader. The researcher will also profit from postdoctoral training opportunities in transferable skills available at the host's institution. Completion of the research and training objectives will significantly shape the development of the researcher into an independent leader, assign him a firm place in the European research network

Mots clés : prostate cancer, psip1, hox tfs, resistance

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet SpeSex (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding the drivers of reproductive isolation between populations lies at the core of evolutionary biology and is central to understanding how speciation occurs. Natural selection has been traditionally considered a major force driving speciation, but other forces can hamper or reinforce the impact of natural selection on adaptation, including sexual selection. So far, theoretical and empirical studies have produced mixed findings about the extent to which natural and sexual selection act jointly or in opposition to drive reproductive isolation, and hence speciation. Experimental evolution is a powerful tool to test the combined effect of natural and sexual selection to drive population divergence. In this action, I will use seed beetle Acanthoscelides obtectus from long-term experimental evolution lines, which have differed in environmental condition and selective pressures, to explore reproductive isolation as driven by the interaction between local adaptation to a novel environment and sexual selection/conflict. In a novel framework combining phenotypic-level measurements with genomic tools, I will quantify (a) the extent of pre-zygotic reproductive isolation between populations under different environmental regimes; (b) the extent of post-zygotic reproductive isolation, by determining the extent to which hybrid eggs and offspring are of lower fitness than non-hybrids; and (c) gene expression and selection pressures associated with the novel environment at loci associated with natural and sexual selection, which are putative sources of reproductive isolation. This project represents a major advance in our understanding of the role of multiple selective forces in driving species diversity.

Mots clés : a  obtectus, natural selection, population genomics, reproductive isolation, sexual selection

Participants :
- Uppsala University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203852.16 €
Projet MYCRONICHE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Understanding the factors that underlie species distributions is a fundamental goal of ecology. With climate change there is increased importance to quantify how species distributions will change in a European context. Orchids are particularly sensitive to environmental conditions. Mycorrhizas are vitally important in determining the population occurrence of orchids, as orchid seeds rely entirely on fungi to provide nutrients in order to germinate and establish. While there have been major advances in the use of molecular tools in identifying mycorrhizal communities, no study has yet investigated how mycorrhizal communities influence the likelihood of population establishment over large geographical ranges. MYCRONICHE will bring together innovative approaches in pyrosequencing, ecological experiments, and species distribution modelling to quantify how environmental factors can lead to population adaptation. We plan to investigate three members of the orchid genus Spiranthes that are in decline in Europe. We will (i) model the distribution of Spiranthes species, (ii) perform reciprocal translocation experiments will be used in conjunction with control greenhouse experiments, and (iii) determine mycorrhizal limitation by experimentally adding seeds to habitats where the orchid species should occur. By training in novel molecular tools, the skill-set of the candidate will be advanced by participation in MYCRONICHE. There will be a dedicated training and transfer of knowledge program that will involve the researcher; (i) taking advanced courses in bioinformatics and (ii) teaching courses in spatial statistics at the host institution. By combining cutting-edge molecular tools, elegant experimental approaches, and innovative methods in spatial statistics and species distribution modelling, MYCRONICHE would go a long way to improve our understanding of how mutualistic interactions co-evolve in space and help understand how populations will respond to climate change.

Mots clés : mycorrhizas, species distribution modeling

Participants :
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160800.0 €