Jérôme Burkiewicz is the 2024 winner of the Marie-Victorin scholarship. Jérôme began a master’s degree in 2021 before making an accelerated transition to a doctorate under the supervision of Simon Joly, researcher at the Botanical Garden and the IRBV as well as associate professor at the Université de Montréal. His doctoral project focuses on the evolution of the floral morphology of Cape Impatiens in urban environments.
Urbanization drastically modifies the environment in which organisms live, but it offers a unique chance to study its effects on the evolution of species and their interactions. This project aims to test whether urbanization has repercussions on the evolution of Cape Impatiens flowers by affecting its environment and its pollinator communities, by monitoring natural populations, from common gardens to greenhouses. and using genetic studies. This project also makes it possible to better predict the consequences of various abiotic changes linked to urbanization, such as increased temperatures, changes in precipitation regimes or even the fragmentation of habitats, on flowers and their interaction with pollinators. Studying the consequences of urbanization on the genetic and plastic components of plant morphology is essential to integrate, into decision-making, measures for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services (in particular the interaction of plants and pollinators to ensure the pollination).
In addition to the achievements related to his doctoral project, Jérôme has already made significant scientific contributions during his young career. Among other things, Jérôme contributed to developing a photogrammetry protocol to make 3D models of flowers, a study published in the journal New Phytologist in 2023. Jérôme also participated in a study by the Kierzkowski laboratory during his Master 1 internship which gave him earned co-authorship on a scientific article published in Nature Communications. Finally, he also carried out field work for a study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution on latitudinal gradients of predation pressure in urban and non-urban environments, under the direction of Anna Hargreaves of McGill University.
Jérôme is also committed to transmitting knowledge to a wider audience. For example, he participated in two editions of the Space for Life Researchers’ Night (2021, 2022) and he popularized his work during the Citizen Spring activity organized by Space for Life in 2024. He also published a popular article in the spring issue of Quatre-Temps magazine in 2024.