L’ Équipe PODARCIS (Team PODARCIS)

Science is a collaborative endeavor. It is simply impossible to be a successful biologist these days working alone. Because research projects often involve a broad array of techniques and approaches, not to mention intensive data collection, bringing together the expertise of diverse individuals with different skill sets is often, if not always, necessary to address larger questions about ecology and evolution. While this is a strong logistical argument for collaboration, from my experience collaboration is, more importantly, brings joy and fun to the scientific process. Working side-by-side with someone conducting fieldwork in sweltering heat makes such conditions tolerable and even enjoyable. Rigorously debating concepts over a beer (or two) with good friends challenges old ideas and engenders new ones. I have been fortunate so far to have enjoyed collaborations, partnerships, and friendships with some fantastic scientists and good friends. I’m glad to say that the PODARCIS project is no exception. So, I’ll dedicate this blog post to introducing two current collaborators (with apologies to Fabien, who will receive the same treatment in a future post).

I have my friend Antonio Cordero to thank for telling me about the cool work going on here and encouraging me to become involved. Antonio and I met in 2011 when I started my PhD program at Iowa State University. He was a few years ahead of me in the program, a student in the lab of Dr. Fred Janzen. Antonio considers himself an evolutionary developmental biologist, with the emphasis on development. His PhD work explored how unique bone structures develop in turtles – for example, they are the only vertebrates whose shoulders develop inside a shell (for example, Cordero & Quinteros 2015). Antonio and I collaborated on a number of projects and have co-authored several papers together (for example, Telemeco et al. 2016 and Cordero et al. 2017), with a couple more in progress. After finishing at Iowa State, Antonio started a post-doc position at Lund University in the lab of Tobias Uller. As part of this work, he spent four months here at the Station d’Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale du CNRS in Moulis conducting an experiment to measure the effects of hypoxia on embryonic development (which results will be described in a future post). I’m thrilled to say that Antonio received funding from the Company of Biologists to be here again this summer. Antonio and I have worked side-by-side on this project for the past month – his biological insights, logistical acumen, and comraderie have been indispensable.

The most recent addition to the project is Mahaut Sorlin, who bravely responded to an online add for “Field and Lab Assistant – Mountain Lizards.” I’m thrilled that Mahaut arrived last week and has already stepped up to play an important role on the project. She earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Université Jean Monnet in St. Etienne, France. However, she spent most of her time as a master’s student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where she examined differences in skull structure between two closely-related marmot species. Additionally, Mahaut has worked on field projects studying bats in Switzerland and lemurs in Madagascar. I must say that I was very excited about her skills when I first received her application and I’m very grateful that she’s on board. Already, it is obvious that she is the perfect fit and will contribute much to the project.

The past week, the three of us worked to prepare our experiments at Pic du Midi and spent the night up at the station. We were able to tag along with the tourist groups and get some amazing glimpses through the telescopes at Saturn (and rings!) and Jupiter (and three moons!).

Team PODARCIS enjoying the sunset at Pic du Midi (left-to-right: Antonio, Eric, Mahaut).

Additionally, I’m very happy to say that we’ve got two more willing field assistants for this project: James (my son, 8) and Anna (my daughter, 6). They came along with us this past week to collect lizards from a local site and I must say that I was thoroughly impressed with James’ lizard-noosing skills. He came very close a few times and didn’t quite until he was successful. There will be much more of this in his future, I hope.

  James hunting for lizards and showing off his first catch.