Section: Highlights of the Year

Highlights of the Year

• A graph theoretical tool for analysis of the coupling between two Boolean networks. This tool generalizes the asymptotic graph (previously developed in  [96] and  [78]), by adding a quantitative dimension through the computation of relative probabilities. This tool is used for coupling two biological networks and predicting the possible attractors or asymptotic behaviors of the full system. The outcome of the probabilistic asymptotic graph is the set of attractors the full system, each attractor with an associated probability. This work was published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology [22].

• A study that predicts the evolution of phytoplankton biodiversity with global warming. After calibration of our models with experimental data on growth of various species of the microalgae Micromonas, we have shown that the pattern of temperature response is strongly related to the site where cells were isolated. With this approach, we proved that the oceanwide diversity of Micromonas species is very similar to the oceanwide diversity of the phytoplankton. Using Adaptive Dynamics theory to understand how temperature drives evolution in microalgae, we could then predict the evolution of this biodiversity in a warming ocean and show that phytoplankton must be able to adapt within 1000 generations to avoid a drastic reduction in biodiversity. This work was published in the ISME journal [23].