Sophie Teullet presented her work on using long read metagenomics to study dietary adaptations in ant-eating mammal at the 2nd annual Animal Microbiome Research Group (AMRG) virtual meeting (https://amrg.mystrikingly.com/). The AMRG is an interdisciplinary and international community of early career scientists interested in using the microbiome as a tool to address fundamental questions in ecology and evolution and provides a research network and platform for early career res

Chris and Frédéric presented talks at the Virtual Evolution 2021 meeting the annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Society of Systematic Biologists held online because of travel restrictions due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Chris presented his work on the molecular erosion of tooth-related genes in the xenarthran radiation (armadillos, anteaters, and sloths) showing that independent and distinct events of d

Frédéric was invited to share his views on mammalian phylogenomics and genome-scale species delineation in the "Current methods and applications of big‐data phylogenetics" symposium at the 2nd Virtual Meeting of Systematics, Biogeography, and Evolution. It was a real pleasure to be part of this inclusive event that brings together researchers with different backgrounds from around the world and which is coordinated by young interdisciplinary Latinx scientists, supporting and

After submitting a poster abstract to present her work on ant-eating mammal microbiomes using long read metagenomics, Sophie Teullet was invited to present a plenary talk at the virtual London Calling 2021 Nanopore conference (https://londoncallingconf.co.uk/lc21). Sophie took up the challenge and her talk entitled "Long-read metagenomic sequencing of faecal samples to study convergent dietary adaptation in ant-eating mammals" can be watch on the video below. Congrats Sophie

Frédéric was invited to present the recent advances made on sequencing xenarthran genomes in the ConvergeAnt project at the 1st Xenarthra International Conservation Congress. This four-days online congress was followed by a virtual meeting of the IUCN/SSC Anteater, Sloth and Armadillo Specialist Group to discuss conservation priority actions on this evolutionary distinct placental group. Delsuc F. (2020). Recent Advances and Future Prospects in Xenarthran Phylogenomics. 1st

Rémi presented our results on genome-wide species delineation in aardwolf and bat-eared fox in the Conservation Genomics session of the Biodiversity Genomics 2020 meeting. This online meeting was organized by the Tree of Life programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute to celebrate success, explore challenges and look to the future of sequencing all life on Earth. Rémi's talk can be watched from the congress' YouTube channel: Allio R.*, Tilak M.-K., Avenant N.L., Corre E., Nab

Frédéric has been invited to present our results on roadkill genomics using the MinION portable device from Oxford Nanopore Technologies at the 8th edition of the Montpellier Omics Days. Frédéric's talk (in French) can be watched from the congress' YouTube channel: Delsuc F. (2020). Rubrique des chiens écrasés : assemblage hybride de génomes de mammifères de qualité à partir de spécimens récoltés le long des routes. 8th Montpellier Omics Days (Montpellier, France). [Invited o

Frédéric presented our results on sequencing high quality genomes from roadkill for genome-wide species delimitation in ant-eating carnivorans at the Plant and Animal Genome conference in San Diego, CA, USA (PAG 2020). This annual conference is the "grand messe" of genomics and it was an honor to be selected for a talk this year. Thanks to Elinor Karlsson and Ellie Armstrong for organizing the "Feline and Canine Genomics Workshop". It was also the occasion for Frédéric to vis

Frédéric was invited to present the latest results from the ConvergeAnt project at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Thanks to Laure Ségurel for the invitation and the great roof-top conversation. #Talk #Collaboration

Sérgio and Lionel participated to ICVM 2019, the International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology in Prague (Czech Republic). Sérgio gave a presentation on patterns of phenotypic covariation in the skull of myrmecophagous placentals based on modularity analyses. Lionel talked about covariation patterns in the olfactory system of myrmecophagous mammals based on 3D CT-scans of olfactory turbinals and cribiform plates respectively obtained by Mark and Kathleen during their Master

Frédéric attended the London Calling 2019 meeting (https://londoncallingconf.co.uk/lc19) in London (UK). Frédéric was kindly invited by Oxford Nanopore Technologies to give a talk in the "Assembly and scaffolding" breakout session. His talk entitled "Genomics from roadkill - high quality mammalian genomes using hybrid assembly with MinION long reads" can be watch on the video below. Allio R., Tilak M.-K., Avenant N.L., Nabholz B. & Delsuc F.* (22-24 May 2019). Genomics from r

Amandine, Marie-Ka, and Frédéric attended the Nanopore Day 2019 meeting (https://colloque.inra.fr/nanoporeday2019/) in Bordeaux (France). Frédéric was invited by Oxford Nanopore Technologies to give a talk on sequencing and assembling mammalian genomes from roadkill by combining Illumina short reads and Nanopore long reads obtained using the MinION device. This study is conducted in collaboration with Nico Avenant of the National Museum of Bloemfontein (South Africa). Allio R

Rémi and Frédéric attended ALPHY 2019, an annual meeting organized in France since 1995, dedicated to the field of Bioinformatics and Comparative Genomics in Paris (France). Rémi gave a talk presenting the results on building bioinformatic pipeline to extract mitogenomic signal from DNA capture sequence data. This tool will be useful for our metabarcoding studies aimed at assessing the the diet of ant-eating mammals in South Africa and French Guiana. Allio R.*, Romiguier J.,

Frédéric and Rémi attended the the 9th Annual Oppenheimer De Beers Research Conference in Johannesburg (South Africa). Frédéric gave a talk presenting the results of building a reference mitogenome database of termites and ants from the Tswalu Kalahari and Tussen die Riviere reserves. Rémi presented a poster on mitochondrial divergence through biogeographical disjunction in three species of African carnivores. These studies are conducted in collaboration with Nico Avenant of

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

Lionel gave a talk presenting a developmental perspective on the evolution of the dentition of “toothless mammals” at ISDM-IAPO-2017: 17th International Symposium on Dental Morphology (ISDM) & 2nd congress of International Association for Paleodontology (IAPO) in Bordeaux (France). #Conference #Talk #development #Sloths #Anteaters #CTscans

Frédéric presented results on the comparaison of the gut microbiome composition between wild and captive mammals at the 1st International Conference on Holobionts in the beautiful auditorium of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris (France). #Conference #Talk #Microbiome #SouthAfrica

Sérgio and Lionel took advantage of their stay at the BMNH in London to present some preliminary results of the ConvergeAnt project to the members of Anjali Goswami's lab at University College London. #Talk #Collaboration #Morphometrics

Frédéric presented some early results on the evolution of the gut microbiome in wild versus captive mammals at the 7th Annual Oppenheimer De Beers Research Conference in Johannesburg (South Africa). Thanks to Duncan MacFadyen for the invitation and the organization. #Conference #Talk #Microbiome #SouthAfrica