Lilian Cabon

since September 2022, PhD student at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution, FSU, Jena (Germany)

2021, M.Sc in Functional and Behavioural Ecology, University of Rennes 1, Rennes (France)

2019, B.Sc in Biology of Organisms and Populations, University of Lille 1, Lille (France)

I am an ecologist mainly interested in behavioural and functional ecology. I have a strong appeal for arthropods, especially insects. As a first experience in research, I worked on a biocontrol project. The goal was to investigate the impact of flower strips near crops on Carabid beetle diversity and abundance. Then, for my Master's internship, I took part in a study on merolimnic insects (i.e. insects with an aquatic larval life and an aerial adult life such as Mayflies). In that project, I was interested in understanding how the biological and ecological traits of merolimnic insects shaped their body stores.

Currently, I am involved in a PhD project focusing on colour polymorphisms in grasshoppers. Indeed, they can exhibit a green-brown polymorphism and they also differ in terms of melanisation. These polymorphisms seem to be maintained over the long-term, which is quite unusual. Then, the main goal of my thesis is to bring insights about the processes behind their long-term maintenance. To do so, we will use behavioural experiments and collect data in the field using both niche chooser and niche conformer species.

Gerber, R., Cabon, L., Piscart, C., Roussel, J.-M. & Bergerot, B. (2022). Body stores of emergent aquatic insects are associated with body size, sex, swarming behaviour and dispersal strategies. Freshwater Biology 67: 2161-2175. doi: 10.1111/fwb.14003External link