Fabienne AUDEBERT

My specialty is animal parasitology and my research activities are divided into four main themes:

1. Life cycles, morphology and morphogenesis
2. The study of co-evolution of parasites and their hosts; their molecular biology and phylogeny
3. Systematics and descriptions of new species
4. The identification of parasites and the creation of knowledge bases with Xper 2 and 3 

I work on two large groups of parasites: the Cirripedia (barnacles) and Trichostrongylina (Nematodes) intestinal parasites terrestrial vertebrate

Cirripedia Biology

Through a comparative study of various barnacles, my colleague Nicolas Rabet and I are interested in the origin of barnacle parasitism. The cirripede group is therefore a very interesting one in which to understand the relationships between organisms. Indeed, even within this group, there are many sessile animals attached to a mineral or a living organism (such as barnacles on mussel shells) substrate. When a cirripede settles on a living organism, the "degrees of relationship" can range from simple phoresis (mussel/barnacle) or mutualism (sponge and the barnacle Acasta), to the extreme relationship of parasitism (green crab and Sacculina). My new research project is to study these interactions between the biological life cycles and the morphology of various barnacles; the morphogenesis of the larvae; and their coevolution with their host. We would also like to understand how they "choose" their host, which can be highly specific (as in the phoresis between the barnacle and whale).

In this comparative approach, we use the Sacculina (Sacculina carcini), which is a parasite of the green crab (Carcinus maenas) and the sessile barnacles Balanus amphitrite and Elminius modestus. We compare in detail the morphology, anatomy and larval behavior of these different species to better understand the acquisition of substrate selectivity and anatomical changes following metamorphosis.

Nematode Biology

Our objectives are to understand the evolution of the Trichostrongylina nematodes by studying the biology (life cycles, morphogenesis, distribution, histopathology, and host-switching assays) and the systematics of these parasites from morphological and molecular analyses. I am also interested in creating a knowledge base for the identification of Trichostrongylina species.