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What is your experience?

Patrícia Beldade: "After my studies in Portugal and an ERASMUS internship in France, I did my thesis research in the Netherlands, with Paul Brakefield, in the field of evolutionary biology. This was made possible by a PhD programme of the Gulbenkian Institute near Lisbon, in Portugal. Then, after a three-year post-doc in Irvine (California) with Tony Long, I returned to the Netherlands to take an Assistant Professor position at the University of Leiden. More recently, I chose to return to Portugal and joined the Gulbenkian Institute as a Group Leader funded by the Portuguese-equivalent of the ANR*. I will not reach the end of this funding as I will join EDB, with the support of the TULIP LabEx."

Why do you want to join the LabEx?

PB: "What attracts me to the TULIP project is the integration of expertise in very diverse disciplines and the complementary approaches dealing with different levels of biological organisation. I look forward to benefitting from this scientific environment to answer questions related to phenotypic plasticity and its role in the evolution of organisms. What are the factors and mechanisms that account for intra-specific variation, i.e. differences between individuals within the same species? How are gene expression and individual development influenced by the external environmental conditions? My first model, butterfly wing patterns, was chosen because they represent a visually compelling example of phenotypic variation that is ecologically relevant, evolutionarily diverse, and developmentally tractable. Whether to escape predators, attract sexual partners, or keep warm, individuals with identical genetic backgrounds may show large differences in wing size and pattern as a result of the modulation of development by the environment, called developmental plasticity. One of the better known example of this phenomenon is that of caste determination in ants or bees. Depending on the quantity and / or quality of the food ingested during development, larvae become queens or workers."

What types of phenotypic variants have you studied before by focusing on the colours on butterfly wings?

PB: "There are two patterns in the morphological organisation of multi-cellular organisms that are very well represented in butterfly wings: repeated structural elements, such as flower petals or vertebrae, and evolutionary novelties, i.e. new traits that appear only in some lineage, such as the placenta in mammals or feathers in birds. Using the colour patterns on butterfly wings, I have studied the genetic basis of the evolution of both of these types of pattern.

The fact that repeated elements share the same genetic basis and logic of development could be seen as a constraint on evolution. Their common bases could limit the potential for them to diverge independently, should that be necessary for adaptation to particular conditions. By testing this hypothesis in butterflies, we found that the divergent evolution of repeated traits is much easier than previously thought. They share the same underlying genes, but the expression of these genes can be regulated independently in association with each of the repeated elements.

Regarding morphological innovations, I studied their origin and diversification. One might think that new traits come from the emergence of new genes, but it is quite the opposite. New traits are often the result of a true recycling of existing genes! In some Coleoptera, for example, genes involved in the development of the horns that are unique to some groups appear to be derived from genes that are not at all unique but rather involved in the development of legs in all insects."

What will be your project specifically in TULIP?

PB: "My project in TULIP, which falls under "EcoEvoDevo" (the integration of approaches and concepts from Ecology, Evolution, and Development), examines the effect of the environment on the expression of the phenotype, and the genetic regulation of this phenomenon. Specifically, I will focus on the effects of temperature and complex environments during development of pigmentation phenotypes in butterflies and flies. This may eventually lead to the question of the consequences of plasticity to how organisms cope with environmental change, such as that resulting from global warming. Will plasticity prove advantageous or disadvantageous?

The interactions between organisms and their environment are a central theme of research within TULIP’s research. The topic of developmental plasticity, in particular, is best understood in the plant kingdom. I hope to benefit from interactions with the TULIP community working on plant biology to better understand these mechanisms and extrapolate them to the animal kingdom."