François Michonneau

While I am not in the field, I’ll write weekly on our lab’s blog (Adventures in Spineless Science) about invertebrates that got featured in the news. I aim to focus mainly on studies published in peer-reviewed journals and make them accessible to non-scientists.

I posted today the 3rd post. It’s about the new arthropod phylogeny published last week in Nature. To be notified about these entries you can subscribe to the RSS feed of our blog, or follow me on twitter or on identi.ca.

Here are the links for the last posts:

• Invertebrates in the News #1: the absence of sex life in bdelloid rotifers and a video of Corynactis viridis
• Invertebrates in the news #2: what can you find in a foot cube of a coral reef, a tropical cloud forest, etc.
• Invertebrates in the news #3: a new arthropod tree of life.

Don’t hesitate to send me your comments and feedback.

I started the year in summer as I was in the southern hemisphere.

First, I participated to the 13^th International Echinoderm Conference in Hobart, Tasmania. I presented there the latest results on the sea cucumber tree and a poster on the genus Euapta.

I then made my way north through the major museums of natural history of the East coast (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane) to look for some treasures in their holothurian collections.

Finally, I joined the CReefs expedition in Lizard Island to collect sea cucumbers and other marine invertebrates. You can learn more by reading the blog of this trip written by Angus Livingston.

This Fall, I organized with Ben Bolker a seminar on community phylogenetics. You can see the paper we read here.

Since I came back from my field trip in the Indian Ocean, I have been busy.

First, I went to the 11^th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Fort Lauderdale (July 7-11) . Here are the abstracts for the talks I contributed to.

• Adjeroud M., Michonneau F., Edmunds P. J., Chancerelle Y., Penin L., Vidal-Dupiol J., Salvat B., Galzin R., 2008. Recurrent large-scale disturbances, recovery trajectories, and resilience of coral assemblages on a coral reef in the South-Central Pacific. Abstract
• Bruggemann H., Paulay G., Michonneau F., Malay M., Hubert N., Guillaume M. M. M., 2008. Diversity and diversification in the Southwest Indian Ocean (Program ANR BIOTAS). Abstract
• Michonneau F., Kim S., McPherson S., Netchy K., Starmer J., Kerr A., Paulay G., 2008. New insights into the biodiversity and evolution of aspidochirotid holothurians. Abstract
• Penin L., Michonneau F., Baird A. H., Connolly S. R., Pratchett M. S., Kayal M., Adjeroud M., 2008. Importance of post-settlement mortality on scleractinian population maintenance around Moorea, French Polynesia. Abstract

Then, I went to the 5^th North American Echinoderm Conference (NAEC), in Melbourne, FL. The sea cucumber PEET group was well represented:

• Campbell C., Honey M., Kenyon L., Kerr A., Kim S., Massin C., McPherson S., Mezali K., Michonneau F., Netchy K., O’Loughlin M., Paulay G., Pawson D., Rowe F., Samyn Y., Smiley S., Solis-Marin F., Starmer J., Thandar A., Van den Spiegel D., Werner T., 2008. The Holothurian PEET project and the Aspidochirotid working group: Integrative taxonomy on a large scale.
• Kerr A. M., 2008. Sea cucumbers in Western literature from antiquity to Linnæus and beyond.
• Michonneau F., Kim S., Kerr A., 2008. Holothurians of Kosrae (Federated States of Micronesia) and Majuro (Marshall Islands). Poster. Abstract
• Michonneau F., Netchy K., Starmer J., McPherson S., Campbell C. A., Kenyon L., Kerr A. M., Paulay G., 2008. Speciation in Aspidochirotid holothurians. Abstract
• Paulay G., Kerr A., Michonneau F., Netchy K., McPherson S., O’Loughlin M., Starmer J., 2008. The cucumber tree: phylogeny and evolution of holothurians, with a focus on Aspidochirotids.
• Starmer J. & Paulay G., 2008. Statistical analysis of tissue-specific ossicles in Holothurians.
• Starmer J. & Paulay G., 2008. Systematics and phylogeny of Stichopodidae (Aspidochirotida, Holothuroidea).
• Werner, T. B., Skillings D., Chick B., 2008. Analysis of genetic population structure in the widely distributed tropical sea cucumber, Holothuria (Halodeima) atra.

After these 2 conferences, I went at NESCent, on Duke campus to take the phyloinformatics summer course (aka comphy). You can also find more details about this course here. I followed the R track and I learned a lot on comparative methods and their applications in R.

Before starting the new school year, I’m going to France for a couple of weeks…

Tim Werner (University of Boston) wrote a blog for our recent expedition in Nosy Bé (Madagascar).

After this trip to Madagascar, Arthur Anker and I spent two weeks in Mayotte. We didn’t collect as heavily as we did in Madagascar but we found some interesting species. For sea cucumbers, all the big species that were very rare or absent in Nosy Bé, were relatively easy to find on Mayotte’s reefs.

Now I am preparing for ICRS…

On May 1^st and 2^nd, I participated to the MorphBank usability workshop. It took place at FSU in Tallahassee. It was the occasion to interact with the developers of this website and learn more about its functionalities. If you don’t know MorphBank, you should have a look at it. It hosts about 100,000 pictures of plants and animals. And now, there are even some sea cucumbers pictures including Holothuria impatiens and Thelenota ananas that I took in Kosrae.

I decided to start a website to talk about my research and about the organisms I study for my PhD: the sea cucumbers. In addition of the things usually found on a research website (CV, publications,etc), you will be able to get the latest news about sea cucumbers. You will also find a description of the open-source projects I am involved in. Some pretty pictures will also be available.