Ant adaptation to hot and arid areas

The project is based on a comparative approach to examine how similar desert conditions have led either to the evolution of convergent traits in different lineages or to the adoption of alternative strategies. We are using a variety of molecular methods (including but not limited to RNA-seq) to explore the heat-shock responses (HSRs) in ants and are we are performing computational analysis of sequencing data (e.g. RNA-seq de novo assembly, differential expression analysis, clustering).

 

People

Matthieu Defrance (PI, IB2), Serge Aron (PI, Evolutionary Biology & Ecology lab)

 

Partners

IB2, The Evolutionary Biology & Ecology lab (ULB)