Expression, and characterisation of recombinant proteins.

During my PhD thesis, I focused on the chemical communication in insects, and more praticularly on the impacts of the sexual signals variability on the specific recognition. The biological model I used was Bombus terrestris, a very common bumblebee, also widely used in crop pollination. I first highlighted a variability of the sex pheromones signal with the age of males expresing it. Later I focused on the geographic differences displayed by males of various subspecies. I showed major differences that were also perceived by females, and corresponded to phylogenetical relationship found between the taxa. These results led us to reconsider the taxonomic status of the species studied, raising 4 former subspecies at the species level. - GC/MS analysis- GC/FID anlysis- Electro-antennographic detection - phylogenetics based on mitochondrial DNA- design of behavioural tests