Team members
Permanent members
Flavien Collart
Flavien’s research focuses on species distribution across space and time by characterizing species climatic niches and also by taking their dispersal capacities into account, mainly in the Alpine region and in the Canary Islands. He mainly works on bryophytes but also on the other land plant groups. You can learn more on his website.
Nicolas Magain
Nicolas Magain is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, Ecology and Evolution, and part of the InBioS research center. He is one of the two leaders of the Evolution and Conservation Biology unit. He is also the Curator of the Herbarium. His research interests range from lichens phylogenetics and metagenomics to conservation biology.
Alain Vanderpoorten
Alain Vanderpoorten is a research leader for FNRS and one of the two leaders of the lab. He has been developing a lab and team mainly focusing on the ecological and historical biogeography of bryophytes through a wide range of approaches including ecological modeling, molecular phylogenetics, and population genetics. Using the Macaronesian islands as a model, he addresses in particular the question of whether bryophyte’s high dispersal ability affects the application of major biological, biogeographical and ecological rules and concept in the group.
Postdoctoral researchers
Antonia Salces-Castellano (vanderpoorten lab)
Antonia is a postdoc jointly between the University of Liege (in the team of Alain Vanderpoorten) and the Free University of Brussels (in the team of Patrick Mardulyn). She is associated to the GEN4MIG project, whose main objective is to integrate fine-scale ecological modelling andspatially-explicit coalescence simulations to address questions like “Where did Alpine biota survive the Last Glacial Maximum period?”, “At which rate did effective recolonization occur?” and “What are the chances for biota to successfully track areas of suitable climate underglobal warming?”
PhD Students
Alix Braipson (vanderpoorten lab)
Alix is a FRIA PhD student focusing her studies on bryophytes spores, being interested in their morphology and ornamentation since her master’s thesis. As a part of her project, she is currently developing BryoSEMnet, a tool enabling moss species identification based on their spores SEM pictures, through the development of Convolutional Neural Networks. This relies on a collaboration with Dr. Patrick Mäder (Technische Universität Ilmenau) as well as the Meise Botanic Garden. Thanks to BryoSEMnet, she will then study palynological records from Macaronesia, to assess the historical changes in the bryophytic insular floras in relation to the human colonization events of the Canary Islands as well as the Azores.
Anne-Laure Geboes (magain lab)
Anne-Laure is studying bioacoustics and conservation of the Corn bunting (Bruant proyer, Emberiza calandra) in Belgium and Europe. She is also involved with teaching activities in the specialized master in conservation biology and biodiversity management.
Thibault Kasprzyk (vanderpoorten lab)
Thibault is a PhD student in the team of Alain Vanderpoorten. He obtained a FRIA doctoral grant in 2021 for the duration of 4 years. His project, which is a follow-up on his master’s thesis, focuses on the study of the geographical distribution of land plants along ecological gradients. This is done through the analysis of their phylogenetic relationship which enables him to determine which processes could have produced the observed distribution patterns. He is particularly interested in the phylogenetic turnover aspect of the study, which will first be tested on simulated data, and subsequently applied on a real dataset sampled within the framework of a larger Swiss project titled GEN4MIG.
Elise Lebreton (magain lab)
Elise is a FRIA PhD student. In the context of her thesis project, she studies the systematics and ecology of lichens growing on tree leaves (=foliicolous lichens) in tropical environments. Her work also focuses on the biodiversity of lichens in the French overseas territories. His previous work at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris (ISYEB department), focused on the endemic flora (Spermatophytes, Pteridophytes, Bryophytes) of the French overseas territories: FEnTOM project. As part of her university training (master BioGET, University of Montpellier, France) she studied tropical ecosystems but also carried out several works on the digitalization of herbaria: Montpellier herbarium (MPU) and Paris herbarium (P and PC).
Lucie Lelotte (magain lab)
Lucie is a FRIA PhD student keenly interested in spatial ecology, habitat selection and conservation biology. As part of her thesis, she is studying how anthropogenic development and associated landscape changes are affecting reindeer habitat use, movements and demography, in collaboration with Bram Van Moorter (NINA, Norway).
Sébastien Mirolo (vanderpoorten lab)
Sébastien Mirolo is a F.R.S.-FNRS Aspirant (ASP) PhD student doing a joint doctoral thesis between the University of Liège (Belgium) and the University of La Laguna (Canary Islands, Spain). His thesis focuses on the possible biodiversity loss linked to human colonizations on islands: Have the Guanches, the first human beings to live on the Canary Islands, had an impact on the biodiversity? This question will possibly be answered through population genetic analyses. He is part of the iEcoEvoLab team on Tenerife for two projects: the ASTERALIEN project which aims to study various aspects of the Canarian Asteraceae species, both native and introduced, and the INVASION project which focuses on invasive plant species.
Lea Mouton (magain & vanderpoorten lab)
Lea is half a PhD student with Alain Vanderpoorten as main supervisor and half assistant to Nicolas Magain. In addition to organizing the logistics for the specialized master in conservation biology and biodiversity management, she supports the students in their naturalistic journey and in their meetings with the various actors of the conservation of nature throughout their master’s. The aim of her PhD project is the distribution of epiphytic bryophytes used to assess past and present environmental changes and thus predict future distribution as a function of environmental evolution, in the context of climate change and anthropization of the landscape. She also enjoys participating in side projects that include abroad fieldworks, epiphytic ferns or bryophytes.
Margaux Vanhussel (magain lab)
Margaux is a PhD student working on the impact of the urban environment on jackdaws (Corvus monedula). She works on comparing several traits in three jackdaw populations along an urban-rural gradient in Cornwall, UK. For urban individuals, she will determine if parents' investments are lower, if stress levels are lower, and compare their cognitive abilities. She will also determine whether there is a difference in genetic diversity in urban populations. This is a collaboration between BEC lab (N. Magain), Dr. Fany Brotcorne (Behavioral biology, ULiège), Dr. Alice Mouton, and Prof. Alex Thornton (University of Exeter, UK).
Researchers
Arnaud Vansteenkiste (magain lab)
Arnaud is a researcher working on the mortality of the Red Kite (Milvus milvus) by windmills. This project is funded by SPW (Wallonia public administration). The three main goals of the project are to measure mortality via a search for corpses on the field in two windmill sites in Wallonia, to infer the viability of the population based on various growth scenarios in a statistical framework, and, from an ethics standpoint, study what an acceptable mortality is to justify a good conservation status
Master students
Other
Luca Borgato
Luca is a PhD student working at UGhent with Prof. Mieke Verbeeken and at the Botanical Garden in Meise with Dr. Damien Ertz. Luca is an avid visitor of the ULiège Herbarium. He collaborates with Elise Lebreton for the lichen checklist of Guadeloupe.Laurent Gohy
Laurent is managing the molecular lab. He is a real pro in everything DNA extractions and PCR. He also has some duties with the herbarium, contributing to the management of collections.Emmanuël Sérusiaux
Emmanuël Sérusiaux is a professor emeritus. He is a specialist in lichen taxonomy, especially in foliicolous lichens, Peltigerales, Ramalinaceae and Micarea. He is also an expert in conservation biology. Emmanuël is the former director of the herbarium and the unit. He is still actively involved in many ongoing projects.
Ludovic Sottiaux
Ludovic is actively involved in teaching botany and conservation to the students of the specialized master in conservation biology and biodiversity management.Alumni PhD Students
Shen Ting(2023)
Ting Shen is a PhD student at the Institute of Botany, the University of Liège in 2019-2023. Her doctoral research focuses on the ecological drivers of tropical epiphyte communities (air plants, such as bryophytes, orchids, ferns, etc.) in a 1 ha three-dimensional tropical rainforest, with special emphasis on the role of microclimates and their impact on epiphytic biodiversity in the context of climate change. Her project is funded by the China Scholarship Council and the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS, in China. This study fills a gap in forest microclimates and reveals the tight link between tropical epiphyte community composition and microclimatic variation, and the heritability of the microclimatic niche, raise, however, concerns about the ability of epiphyte communities to adapt to climate change.
Antoine Simon(2020)
Antoine successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled 'The multi-organismal nature of lobarioid lichens: phylogenetic and transcriptomic studies on photomorphs' in October 2020. He then pursued with a BAEF post-doctoral fellow at UConn in Bernard Goffinet's lab (2021-2022), then got awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship to work with Prof. Einar Timdal (Natural History Museum, University of Oslo) on genomic approaches applied to historical herbarium specimens (2022-2024).
Alice Ledent(2020)
After defending her PhD thesis focusing on unravelling the Quaternary biogeographic history of bryophytes in June 2019, under the supervision of Alain Vanderpoorten and Patrick Mardulyn (ULB), Alice Ledent is now assistant for the Pr. Pascal Poncin (ULiège), where she mainly develops new pedagogical tools in biology.
Florian Zanatta(2019)
Florian Zanatta used to be a PhD student at Alain Vanderpoorten’s lab, focusing his research on a new framework for dynamic ecological niche models. He is now working at Meise Botanic Garden and involved in a local citizen ecology lab he cofounded called lacYme.
Alumni Master Students
Timothée Fichant (2022)
Timothée is a master student within the team of Alain Vanderpoorten, and the aim of his work is to assess the importance of dispersal capacity and geographical barriers as main factors that have shaped the genetic structure of present european land plant populations. Like current climate change, past ones were also responsible for species distribution changes, which ultimately drove the present species genetic diversity across the landscape.
Solene Kiebooms (2022)
Solène is a master's student in the team of Alain Vanderpoorten. The aim of her work is to assess the changes in the alpine flora's distribution since the last glacial maximum up to the future. And also, to assess the risk of extinction of those species under different future climate change scenarios.
Margaux Collet (2022)
Margaux was a master’s student in the team of Nicolas Magain. The goal of her work was to assess whether the European beaver (Castor fiber) can impact positively the common frog (Rana temporaria) by creating wetlands thanks to the dams it builds. Those wetlands are suitable for the reproduction of the common frog, whose populations are declining due to climate change, or the fragmentation of their habitat.
Marie Monseur (2022)
Marie did her thesis in Nicolas Magain's team in collaboration with Natagora. The aim of her work was to highlight potential competition between two Walloon amphibian species, Bufo calamita and Bombina variegata, which occupy the same habitat. The site on which this study was conducted was located in the province of Liège.
Marine Coursac (2022)
Marine Coursac was a master student at the University of Liège (Belgium) in 2019-2021. Although she chose a specialization in Ethology, her interests focus on Ecology and Conservation. While she was remotely involved in a conservation project in marine biology for a NGO in Raja Ampat, she completed her master’s thesis in collaboration with iEcoEvoLab (based in Tenerife, Spain) and Ecospat (based in Lausanne, Switzerland). Concerned by the ongoing climatic issues and their effects on ecosystems, her work was to predict the impacts of climate change on threatened spermatophytes, endemics to the Canary Islands. She learnt how to use species distributions models (SDMs) in Lausanne and became more familiar with the unique flora of oceanic islands during her stay in Tenerife. As a follow-up of this project, she is currently (2022) co-writing a paper on the subject, while developing her skills as a professional photographer and early-career biologist.
Emeline Aupy (2022)
Emeline was a master’s student in the team of Nicolas Magain, in collaboration with Natagriwal. She studied the impact of the fertilization of hay meadows on Rhopalocera populations and floral resources in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It was shown that there is a negative effect on the availability of resources in fertilized areas, resulting in a decrease in the species richness of butterflies.
Clément Ganier (2022)
Clément was a Master student in Conservation Biology and Biodiversity Management, doing his thesis under supervision of Nicolas Magain, in collaboration with Rewilding Europe and the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds. His work focuses on the topographic factors and the human influences affecting the nests occupancy and the breeding success of griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) on cliffs around Madzharovo (Bulgaria). This study aimed at better understanding how the proximity between humans and vultures may be a threat for the long-term survival of vultures colonies.
Juliette Scheuer (2021)
Juliette Scheuer is a former student of the Conservation Biology, Biodiversity and Management (BCBG) master's degree (ULiège, 2020-2021). The goal of her master thesis was to assess the strategy for using perches (type of species, height, etc.) and to establish whether environmental conditions have an impact on the behavior of the Great grey shrike (lanius excubitor) on hunting sites with Christophe Dehem and Nicolas Magain. Six months after graduating, she carried out community service as an ambassador for the vultures of the Verdon for three months with the LPO (Birds Protection League) PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) before being hired by the Synergis Environnement research department as a naturalist research fellow. She monitors the activities and mortality of avifauna and chiroptera, mainly on wind farms.Marie Gillis (2021)
Marie Gillis completed a Bachelor's degree in Population Biology and Ecology at the University of Limoges (UNILIM) in western France, followed by a Master's degree in Conservation Biology, Biodiversity and Management (BCBG) at the University of Liège (ULiège). Her studies ended with a thesis on the reproductive success of the Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) in Belgium with Natagora (Gerhard Reuter). Since 2011, the monitoring of the population in an agricultural area (Vallée de la Roer) subject to various MAEC (Agro-Environmental and Climatic Measures), has allowed to determine the number of pairs and youngsters from year to year and to understand the issues that weigh on the species. Five months after her graduation, Marie is in voluntary community service for a period of eight months at the LPO (Birds Protection League) Alsace in France to strengthen her field skills. Her main activity is to monitor the reproduction of all the pairs of Red Kites (Mulvis milvus) in Alsace. Her other activities involve the monitoring of small mountain owls, the implementation of amphibian migration devices, etc.
Léa Escoutay (2021)
Lea studied habitat selection of the bird species Lanius senator on the island of Antikythera in Greece in collaboration with Christos Barboutis from the Hellenic Ornothological society . Her master thesis is entitled 'La sélection d'habitat d'un oiseau migrateur, la pie-grièche à tête rousse (Lanius senator) lors de son escale sur l'ile d'Anticythère (Grèce)'
Héloïse Keller (2021)
After obtaining her baccalaureate, Héloïse Keller studied for one year at a medical school before discovering her keen interest for ecology. Therefore, after a Bachelor’s degree in Biology of Organisms and Ecosystems at the University of Côte d’Azur (UCA), she followed with a Master’s degree in Biology of Organisms and Ecology specialized in Ethology at the University of Liège in 2021. Her master thesis was about the behaviors of herding dogs and their consistencies during their life (“Détermination de la prédictibilité des profils des chiens de protection de troupeaux Français”) with Camille Fraissard (Association de V.I.E.) and Nicolas Magain. After her degree, she is now following classes to develop new skills and doing volunteer work.
Hannah Westenbohm (2021)
After a BSc in Biology, Hannah Westenbohm did a MSc in Biology of Organisms and Ecology with professional focus in Conservation Biology, Biodiversity and Management (BCBG) at the University of Liège (ULiège). Her master thesis, under the supervision of Alain Vanderpoorten, aimed at disentangling the influence of climate change and atmospheric pollution on the bryophyte community in Wallonia. She currently works part-time as project leader and environment advisor in nonprofit organizations in Wallonia, AgraOst in the German-speaking Community and Natagriwal in Wallonia.
Sophie Clesse (2021)
After a Bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of Liège (ULiège), Sophie Clesse continued her journey by getting into the Faculty of Sciences. She started with a Master's degree in Biology of Organisms and Ecology specialized in Ethology allowing her to present a thesis on the behavior of livestock guarding dogs in France: 'Impact of the breed, sex and nature of contacts with humans on the aggressiveness of livestock guarding dogs towards humans' with Camille Fraissard (Association de V.I.E.). The realization of this thesis has been made possible by the supervision and help of professor Nicolas Magain. She then wanted to complete her university course with a second Master's degree in Conservation Biology, Biodiversity and Management (BCBG) also at the University of Liège in which she is currently enrolled.
Laura De Wandeleer (2021)
Master thesis with Yves Laurent (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) 'Influence de paramètres environnementaux et météorologiques sur l'activité des chiroptères dans un parc éolien en Région wallonne par suivi saisonnier - Le cas du parc de Mesnil-Saint-Blaise.'Chloé Beaugendre (2021)
After a Bachelor's degree in Life and Nature sciences in Calais, Chloé Beaugendre came to Liège to complete a Master’s degree in Conservation Biology, Biodiversity and Management (BCBG) followed by a second degree in Biology of Organisms and Ecology specialized in Ecotoxicology. Her master thesis was on the monitoring of Rhopalocera movements in wet meadows of high biological value in the regions of Saint Vith and Bastogne with Claude Dopagne (Natagriwal) and Nicolas Magain. Chloé now works as an independent collaborator specialized in biology, ecology and hydrology for Pluris, a French consulting firm in territorial planning.
Lola Bourrat (2021)
Lola Bourrat studied Biology and Environment in the University of Créteil (UPEC, France) during her bachelor. She then started a master in the University of Liège (Biology of Organisms and Ecology). During this master, she worked in the Biology Evolution Conservation lab for her master thesis. The thesis subject was 'Highlighting biotic interactions between angiosperms and bryophytes by ecological modeling', which was part of Flavien Collart’s PhD. She now works with the association LPO Nord (Birds Protection League) on the mediation of wild fauna.
Elise Dewaele (2020)
After a Master's degree in pharmaceutical sciences, Elise De Waele obtained a Master's degree in Biology of Organisms and Ecology with professional focus in Conservation Biology, Biodiversity and Management (BCBG) at the University of Liège. She has submitted her master thesis 'Evaluation of the floristic diversity of grasslands in MAEC 'MC4-grasslands of high biological value' in Wallonia' under the supervision of Nicolas Magain and Julien Piqueray (Natagriwal). She is currently working at the public service of Wallonia on the subdepartment of soil remediation.
Alexis Balthazar (2020)
Alexis studied the biogeographical history of Peltigera using population genomics tools. In particular, he compared the genetic diversity of temperate and boreal populations in two species of Peltigera.Alyssa Kolkman (2020)
Alyssa Kolkman did a Master in Biology and Ecology with a specialization in nature conservation at Uliege University. In collaboration with Natagriwal she wrote her thesis “Evaluation of wildflower strips efficiency to promote insects, in particular butterflies, trough the study of foraging interactions”, under the supervision of Dopagne C. and Magain N. After working for a few months at Natgriwal in the continuity of her thesis, she now works in a consultant firm specialized in soils and groundwater (May 2022).Affiliations
Evolution and Conservation Biology Unit, ULiège
InBioS Research Center, ULiège
Faculté des Sciences, ULiège