Dr Céline Born

Research

Main research area: Evolutionary Ecology and Population Genetics of plant species.

I’m interested in the role of evolutionary processes in shaping the genetic diversity in plant species. More specifically, I’m investigating the spatial structure of the genetic diversity to infer species colonization history, colonization dynamic and dispersal. Comparing population spatial genetic structure, I also study effects of environmental variation and disturbance on plant dispersal.

I am currently involved in postdoctoral studies at the Evolutionary Genomics group in collaboration with Dr. Bettine van Vuuren and Prof. Melodie McGeoch. Our research takes place on sub-Antarctic islands using a multi-scale approach. For sub-Antarctic oceanic islands, biogeography and evolution of biodiversity are fundamentally a product of dispersal and adaptive radiations. Hence, at sub-Antarctic scale, our aim is to empirically characterize Long Distance Dispersal processes responsible for colonization and post-glacial re-colonization of islands. Our objective is also to provide insight into the role of LDD in the maintenance of gene flow connecting populations of Azorella selago and Acaena magellanica among islands. At Marion Island scale, we are studying how environmental parameters, especially those associated with wind exposure, affect dispersal efficiency for a wind-pollinated and wind-dispersed species, Azorella selago. At fine-scale, we will compare pedigree structures found in populations with distinct growth forms of Azorella selago (discrete cushions or continuous mats) to infer putative impacts of soil on reproduction system (sexual/vegetative).

Questions addressed here are strongly related to my PhD project although the high contrast in studied field latitudes! More specifically, my PhD work was focused on the study of the structure of the genetic diversity of Aucoumea klaineana, a pioneer tree species endemic to the equatorial central African rainforests, using microsatellite markers. Patterns at several spatial scales were taken into account to infer the dynamics (population fragmentation and expansion) and the impacts of the different processes (historical, evolutionary and ecological) acting on genetic diversity at different scales of time..