Simon Pouil

***French Researcher in Fish genetics at INRAE*** ------------------------------------------------- ### **Background** Simon Pouil studied aquaculture for three years before studying biology and ecology at the University of Montpellier in 2014. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biology of organisms from the University of La Rochelle in 2017 after three years spent in the Radioecology laboratory of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Monaco. During his Ph.D., Simon used radiotracer techniques to study the trophic transfer of trace elements and radionuclides in fish. During his first post-doctorate at the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in Indonesia, Simon assessed the economic, environmental, and zootechnical performance of an innovative pond aquaculture production system, based on the principles of ecological intensification. This work has demonstrated the relevance of using floating macrophytes as an alternative food source to reduce inputs into commercial pellets. In 2019, Simon joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States and returned to ecotoxicology. He was interested in the bioremediation of mercury in a contaminated river, in particular by studying the filtration and bioaccumulation capacities of mercury in different species of bivalves. ### **Current Research** Simon is a researcher of the Genetic in Aquaculture team (INRAE) and works on the understanding of the functional trade-offs between production traits (growth, quality, etc.) and robustness (survival, response to stress, …) In different aquaculture farming systems, conventional or alternative. Particular attention is paid to feed efficiency, difficult to measure in fish, but key to the improvements of economic and environmental performance through more efficient use of inputs and reduction of waste. Innovative phenotyping methods will be developed for this trait, the genetic architecture of which will be studied. Experimental functional approaches and eventually / or resource allocation modeling approaches will be used to study tradeoffs with functions. The model of choice for these studies will be the collection of isogenic trout lines developed in the team, but other resources (selected for example) The objective will also be, in the long term, to revisit the selection objectives to promote the transition. agroecology of aquatic systems by evaluating not only the economic gains but also the environmental impacts of genetic improvement and in various farming systems.