Guilhem Doulcier

Personal page

My portrait, thanks to Charlotte R. I'm an Evolutionary Biologist. I'm passionate about the interplays between ecological and evolutionary dynamics. I focus on the major evolutionary transitions in individuality (such as the emergence of multicellularity) and I have a sweet spot for adaptive dynamics.

Current affiliation: Institute of ecology and environmental sciences of Paris, Sorbonne Université.

Research

Preprint

  1. Why there are so many definitions of fitness in models. Daniel J. Smith, Guilhem Doulcier, Peter Takacs, Pierrick Bourrat, Joanna Masel. Ecoevorxiv, 2024.

Published

  1. Evolutionary dynamics of nascent multicellular lineages. Guilhem Doulcier, Philippe Remigi, Daniel Rexin, Paul B. Rainey. Proc. R. Soc. B., 2025. Preprint PDF
  2. Stability of Ecologically Scaffolded Traits During Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality. Guilhem Doulcier, Peter Takacs, Katrin Hammerschmidt, Pierrick Bourrat. Nature Communications, 2024. Preprint PDF
  3. Neutral Diversity in Experimental Metapopulations. Guilhem Doulcier, Amaury Lambert. Theoretical Population Biology, 2024. Preprint PDF
  4. Rapid dissemination of host-metabolism-manipulating transposon-like entities via integrative and conjugative elements. Elena Colombi, Frederic Bertels, Guilhem Doulcier, Ellen McConnell, Tatyana Pichugina, Kee Hoon Sohn, Christina Straub, Honour McCann, Paul B. Rainey. PNAS, 2024. Preprint PDF
  5. Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality and Life Cycle Closure. Guilhem Doulcier, Peter Takacs, Pierrick Bourrat. Philosophy of Science, 2023. PDF
  6. From Fitness-Centered to Trait-Centered Explanations: What Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality Teach Us About Fitness. Peter Takacs, Guilhem Doulcier, Pierrick Bourrat. Philosophy of Science, 2023. PDF
  7. Tradeoff breaking model of evolutionary transitions in individuality and the limits of the fitness-decoupling metaphor. Pierrick Bourrat*, Guilhem Doulcier*, Caroline J. Rose, Paul B. Rainey, Katrin Hammerschmidt. eLife, 2022. Blog Preprint Code PDF
  8. Life history tradeoffs, division of labor and evolutionary transitions in individuality. Guilhem Doulcier, Katrin Hammerschmidt, Pierrick Bourrat. in The Evolution of Multicellularity, CRC Press, 2022. Preprint Code PDF
  9. A leader cell triggers end of lag phase in populations of Pseudomonas fluorescens. Maxime Ardré, Guilhem Doulcier, Naama Brenner, Paul B. Rainey. microLife, 2022. PDF
  10. Eco-evolutionary dynamics of nested Darwinian populations and the emergence of community-level heredity. Guilhem Doulcier, Amaury Lambert, Silvia De Monte, Paul B. Rainey. eLife, 2020. Code PDF
  11. Taming fitness: Organism-Environment Interdependencies Preclude Long-Term Fitness Forecasting. Guilhem Doulcier, Peter Takacs, Pierrick Bourrat. BioEssays, 2020. PDF
  12. Experimental manipulation of selfish genetic elements links genes to microbial community function. Steven Quistad, Guilhem Doulcier, Paul B. Rainey. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 2020. Preprint PDF
  13. Evolution of Collective-level Darwinian Properties. Guilhem Doulcier. in PhD Thesis, Université Paris Science et Lettres, 2019. PDF
  14. A framework for estimating species-specific contributions to community indicators. Pierre Gaüzère*, Guilhem Doulcier*, Vincent Devictor, Sonia Kéfi. Ecological Indicators, 2019. PDF
  15. Increases in aridity lead to drastic shifts in the assembly of dryland complex microbial networks. Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Guilhem Doulcier, David J. Eldridge, Daniel B. Stouffer, Fernando T. Maestre, Juntao Wang, Jeff R. Powell, Thomas C. Jeffries, Brajesh K. Singh. Land Degradation & Development, 2019. PDF
  16. VConTACT: An IVirus Tool to Classify Double-Stranded DNA Viruses That Infect Archaea and Bacteria. Benjamin Bolduc, Ho Bin Jang, Guilhem Doulcier, Zhi-Qiang You, Simon Roux, Matthew B. Sullivan. PeerJ, 2017. PDF
  17. The evolution of adhesiveness as a social adaptation. Thomas Garcia*, Guilhem Doulcier*, Silvia De Monte. eLife, 2015. Code PDF
  18. Patterns and ecological drivers of ocean viral communities. Jennifer R. Brum, J. Cesar Ignacio-Espinoza, Simon Roux, Guilhem Doulcier, et al.. Science, 2015. PDF

Teaching

I had the pleasure to act as a teaching assistant in the Biology Department of the École normale supérieure (Paris). I collected several lecture notes in the domain of computer science, mathematics, and evolutionary theory.

Software

I am or was involved in the development of several free and open source software.

  • Matpopmod (2021-ongoing, gitlab) : Analysis of Matrix Population Models in Python (beta)
  • Diapo (2019) : Assemble a presentation from a set of Inkscape SVGs.
  • Colgen (2019-ongoing) : Collective level genealogies analysis.
  • Dropsignal (2016-2020, gitlab): Signal processing for millifluidic experiments.
  • ZEN (2016-ongoing, gitlab): Evolutionary dynamics simulations.
  • ULM (2015-2017, gitlab): Population dynamics simulations.
  • rnetcarto (2014-2015, github): R-package for modularity optimisation of graph partition.
  • ipdt (2015): A tool to run iterated prisoner's dilemma tournaments.
  • ShapeCompare (2013): A tool to visualize and compare multiple hShape experiments results treated with the Shape Finder software.

I firmly believe that all knowledge should be free (as in free speech) and accessible to all. I would go as far as to say that it is a hard requirement for good science. I have no interest in working or collaborating using non-free software in a professional setting.

[2026 edit:] I am opposed to the use of any kind of LLM and other AI chatbots or agents in a professional setting. AI companies are pillaging human production at large to generate profit through speculation with complete disregard for social and environmental consequences. Additionally, I tend to find the tasks that are allegedly automated (reading, writing, editing, thinking) to be quite fun and it ruins my enjoyment of the work.

Contact

guilhem (dot) doulcier (at) normalesup (dot) org (PGP)