Frédéric visited the Parc Zoologique de Montpellier to collect blood from their two hosted six-banded armadillos (Euphractus sexcinctus) on the occasion of a routine annual check-up. These samples will be used for genome sequencing using Nanopore long reads. Many thanks as always to Baptiste Chenet and Laurie Virolle for their kind help and collaboration. #Fieldwork #Transcriptomes #Zoo #Genomics #Armadillos

The results of the vertebrate microbiome project in collaboration with Rob Knight's lab at the University of California in San Diego are finally being published in mBio. This paper is based on comparisons of the gut microbiomes of over 900 vertebrate species. We found that not only do birds and bats have more similar gut microbiome compositions, but they seem to be similar in how they change across host evolution compared to nonflying mammals. While most mammal gut microbiome

Frédéric, Rémi, and Amandine attended the annual meeting of the Center for the study of biodiversity in Amazonia (Labex CEBA) in Cayenne (French Guiana) together with Fabien Condamine and Nathan Mazet (ISEM). Frédéric presented the results of our successful efforts to obtain genomes from mammalian roadkill specimen using the Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT). Before the conference, they spent a week between the Pasteur Institute dissecting a freshly found roadkill three-finger

Frédéric, his wife Nathalie, Rémi and Aude Caizergues (CEFE) conducted a third 10 day-long fieldwork session at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve (South Africa). This year they were joined by collaborators Wendy Panaino and Jessica Briner from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) to help collect fresh and dried fecal samples from pangolins and aardvarks. Many thanks again to Duncan MacFadyen, Dylan Smith, and Gus van Dyk for supporting our work in the reserve through the

Frédéric and Rémi conducted a third fieldwork session at Tussen die Riviere Reserve in the Free State province of South Africa with Aude Caizergues (CEFE) and Tshediso Putsane from the Department of Mammalogy of the National Museum of Bloemfontein. This allowed collecting fresh fecal samples from aardwolf for the third year in a row, as well as ants and termites from the reserve to increase our reference database of available preys. #Fieldwork #SouthAfrica #Collaboration #Aar

Frédéric, Lionel, Rémi, Sérgio and Marie-Ka attended the annual meeting of the Center for the study of biodiversity in Amazonia (Labex CEBA) in Cayenne (French Guiana) together with Fabien Condamine and Pierre-Olivier Antoine (ISEM). Frédéric chaired a session on Neotropical Diversification. Before the conference, they spent five days at the Pasteur Institute dissecting roadkill armadillos and anteaters, as well as the giant anteater of the Cayenne Zoo that died earlier that

Frédéric and Rémi visited the Parc Zoologique de Montpellier to collect blood and swabs from a two-toed fingered sloth (Choloepus didactylus) for transcriptomic and microbiome analyses. Many thanks again to Baptiste Chenet (VetMed) and associated staff for their kind help! #Fieldwork #Transcriptomes #Zoo #Genomics #Sloths #Microbiome

Frédéric, his wife Nathalie, and Lionel spent another 10 days of fieldwork in the amazing Tswalu Kalahari Reserve (South Africa). The guidance of Wendy Panaino made it possible to collect fresh fecal samples from pangolins, but also to gather an exhaustive collection of ant and termite species from the reserve. Frédéric also took the opportunity to present the ConvergeAnt project to the guides from the Reserve. Many thanks to Duncan MacFadyen, Dylan Smith, and Gus van Dyk for

Frédéric, Lionel and Rachid conducted a new fieldwork session at Tussen die Riviere Reserve in the Free State province of South Africa with Nico Avenant from the National Museum of Bloemfontein. This allowed collecting numerous fecal samples from aardwolf as well as ants and termites from the reserve to constitute a reference database. #Fieldwork #SouthAfrica #Collaboration #Aardwolf #Tussen #Roadkills #Termites #Ants

Our paper on the effect of captivity on the composition of mammalian gut microbiomes led by Valerie McKenzie has been published in Integrative and Comparative Biology (doi:10.1093/icb/icx090). The amazing picture of a giant anteater kindly provided by Gerardo Ceballos to illustrate our study has been selected as the cover picture of the journal issue. Awesome! #Anteaters #Aardvark #Armadillos #Microbiome #Fieldwork #Publication #Collaboration

Frédéric and Marie-Ka attended the annual meeting of the Center for the study of biodiversity in Amazonia (Labex CEBA) in Cayenne (French Guiana) with Andrea Sanchez Meseguer (ISEM). Before the conference, they conducted a roadkill survey along the west part of RN1 towards Saint-Laurent du Maroni and up to Awala-Yalimapo and also collected some termites along the road. They finally had the opportunity to dissect a well conserved specimen of Tamandua tetradactyla at the Pasteu

Frédéric and Marie-Ka Tilak (ISEM) went to the Parc Zoologique de Montpellier to collect blood and fecal samples from giant anteaters for transcriptomic and microbiome analyses. Many thanks to Baptiste Chenet (VetMed) and his crew for their kind help! #Anteaters #Fieldwork #Microbiome #Transcriptomes #Zoo

Frédéric and Nathalie conducted fieldwork in the Tussen die Riviere Reserve in the Free State province of South Africa. This session made possible thanks to a collaboration with Nico Avenant from the National Museum (Bloemfontein) to collect fecal samples from aardwolf latrines that are common in the reserve. #Fieldwork #SouthAfrica #Collaboration #Aardwolf #Tussen #Roadkills

Frédéric and his wife Nathalie spent 10 days of fieldwork in the amazing Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. This highly productive session allowed collecting fecal samples form both aardvarks and pangolins, but also ants and termites from the reserve. This also marked the start of an exciting collaboration with Nora Weyer, Wendy Panaino, and Andrea Fuller from the Wildlife Conservation Physiology lab at the University of Witwatersrand (Joha

Frédéric and Lionel took occasion of their presence in French Guiana to cross the Maroni river for visiting Monique Pool, the director of the Green Heritage Fund Suriname in Paramaribo. The short visit was very fruitful and the lively discussion set the scene for future scientific collaborations on xenarthrans of Suriname. They even had the chance to participate to a three-toed sloth rescue live! #Fieldwork #Collaboration #Roadkills #Sloths #Suriname

Frédéric and Lionel attended the annual meeting of the Center for the study of biodiversity in Amazonia (Labex CEBA) in Cayenne (French Guiana) with Myriam Boivin and Fabien Condamine (ISEM). After the conference, they conducted a roadkill survey along the west part of RN1 towards Saint-Laurent du Maroni. They also had the opportunity to dissect a pygmy anteater specimen at the Pasteur Institute with collaborator Benoit de Thoisy. #Fieldwork #Collaboration #FrenchGuiana #Ante