Alexis Y. DOLLION

I'm a young PhD student in Evolutionary Biology/Behavioral Ecology/Sensory Ecology/Herpetology at the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences of Paris (IEES Paris) under the guidance of Pr. Sandrine MEYLAN and Dr. Anthony HERREL.

I'm from a small village in Normandy (Noth-West of France); and as far as I can remember, I've always been surrounded by animals and always been intrigued by their diversity and they behavior; and I always wonder what if I could understand them? Is it possible? That why I followed the path of ecology and evolutionary biology, to understand what has lead them to such diversity and how do they interact between them and their environment.

During my first two internship under the guidance of the Dr. Herrel and Dr. Cornette, I've worked on an unsual and yet passioning biological model... the chameleons; and develop a passion for this family of lizards, but also for reptiles and amphibians in general. I'm particularly interested by this group of vertabrates because they are misunderstood, victims of numerous myth and believes and poorly studied in animal behavior and sexual selection.

All my research experiences were about reptiles, and more precisely lizards. During those intersnships, I've studied lizards from a variety of fields, from functional morphology to demographic modelling, passing by genetics, physiology and animal behavior.

And now I'm performing my own PhD project untitled "COlor Changing, Origin Of New species? The chameleon case" Or the COCOON project. This project is aimed to understand the information convey by the color change during courtship and how this ability might have drive chameleon's diversification.

August 2016