CHATELAIN Marion Dr.

During my research career, I specialized on urban ecology, more specifically on animal response to environmental constraints in urban environments. I am interested in two main contraints: metal pollution and food availability. Currently, I am investigating how the availability of natural food (insects, spiders and other arthropods) and artificial food (food provided in bird feeders) shapes the diet, the nutritional status and the movements of great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) within the urban mosaic. Learn more about my project here. 

My background

I obtained a Master’s degree in Evolutionary Ecology from the National Museum of Natural History of Paris in 2012. Thereafter, I carried out my PhD research on the role of melanin-based plumage colouration in coping with high levels of metallic trace elements (MTEs) in cities at the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences of Paris (Pierre & Marie Curie University; 2012-2015).

After completion of my PhD, I investigated the effects of MTEs on earthworm communities and habitat choice behaviour (2015-2016) as assistant lecturer at Pierre & Marie Curie University where I taught ecology, evolution and statistical methods in the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum.

In October 2016, I obtained a two-year POLONEZ grant (Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND, Horizon 2020 framework) to work in the Wild Urban Evolution and Ecology Lab (Center of New Technologies, University of Warsaw) on the effects of MTEs on great and blue tit oxidative stress and fitness in a gradient of urbanisation.

In March 2019, I obtained a two-years long Lise Meitner grant from the Austrian Science fund to work in the Applied Animal Ecology group (Institute of Zoology, University of Innsbruck). My project aims at understanding food-driven movements of great tits and blue tits within the urban mosaic.

My latest publications

•  Chatelain M, Silva AD, Celej M, Kurek E, Bulska E, Corsini M, Szulkin M. 2021 Replicated, urban-driven exposure to metal pollutants in two passerines. Scientific Reports. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-99329-2
• Chatelain M, Massemin S, Zahn S, Kurek E, Bulska E, Szulkin M. 2021 Urban metal pollution explains variation in reproductive outputs in great tits and blue tits. Science of The Total Environment. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145966
• Chatelain M, Szulkin M. 2020 Mammals in urban environments. In The Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-138-58135-7
• Corsini M, Schöll EM, Di Lecce I, Chatelain M, Dubiec A, Szulkin M. 2020 Growing in the city: urban evolutionary ecology of avian growth rates. Evolutionary Applications. doi:10.1111/eva.13081
• Chatelain M, Drobniak S, Szulkin M. 2019. The association between stressors and telomeres in non-human vertebrates: a meta-analysis. Ecology Letters. doi: 10.1111/ele.13426