Xavier Belles
| vCard Xavier Belles | |
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| Affiliation: | Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, UPF |
| Homepage: | molevol.cmima.csic.es/belles/index.html |
| WorkingGroup: | Evo-Devo |
| i5K_WorkingGroup: | Outreach, Phylogenomics, Post-sequencing informatics |
| Species: | |
Historically, my goals and interests have been traditionally diverse, trying to embrace a number subjects around the physiology of the insect. In general, my research has focused on physiological processes regulated by hormones. Therefore, I have studied the biochemical and regulatory aspects of the hormones themselves (juvenile hormone, ecdysteroids and regulatory peptides), and also the processes dependent on them, like metamorphosis and vitellogenesis (especially in connexion with juvenile hormone and ecdysteroids), molting, oogenesis and chorion formation (in connexion with ecdysteroids) and food intake and growth (in connexion with peptides and proteins). At present, I focus my research in the evolution of insect metamorphosis. Endocrinology of metamorphosis has been a long term theme of research and training in my group, which started in the late 1970’s. We are presently interested in the regulation of metamorphosis, especially in the role of juvenile hormone, not only from a developmental point of view but also from an evolutionary perspective. Given that most information has been obtained in highly modified, holometabolan species (mainly in the fly Drosophila melanogaster), we concentrate our research on the cockroach Blattella germanica, a phylogenetically basal, hemimetabolan species. We aim to elucidate the mechanisms regulating metamorphosis in B. germanica and then comparing them with those operating in holometabolans. The idea is to infer the evolutionary history underlying the transition from hemimetaboly to holometaboly.
