Contact Information

Professor assistant at Sorbonne University Paris (France)
Laboratoire d'écogéochimie des environnements benthiques (LECOB/CNRS-Sorbonne Université UMR 8222) Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls.

My expertise goes from marine biology to sediment biogeochemistry including ecogenotoxicology.
My academic background and my scientific interests led me to study organism-environment interactions in benthic ecosystems by combining the experimental approach and the use of biomarkers. Biochemical markers are molecules initially present in living organisms. Their synthesis is sufficiently specific of a group of organisms or a metabolic pathways, so that their occurrence may be used as a indication of a biochemical pathway, the exposure of stress, the incorporation of a trophic resource, or the origins of organic matter (OM) in the sediments etc….

I use fatty acids and amino acids to investigate the reactivity of terrestrial OM in marine environments under the influence of major rivers (prodeltas, submarine canyons). Furthermore, I study energetic and trophic transfers in benthic organisms (corals, deep-sea fauna) using fatty acid biomarkers in combination with stable isotopes.

In addition, I have taken a particular interest in the research of new markers (Pruski et al. 2000) and in method optimization and validation, which is essential when using tools that have not been developed for marine invertebrates (Pruski & Dixon, 2003 ; 2007 ; 2009 ; Nahon et al. 2008).

I have been involved in the research program CONGOLOBE (2012-2016) where I have developed research at the frontier between organic geochemistry and ecology in the Congo deep-sea fan (Stetten et al. 2015, Pruski et al. 2022) with a focus on the chemosynthetic fauna (Pruski et al. 2017).

I am also invested in the study of trophic ecology of cold water corals (AO CARESE SU 2015, Foundation of scientific cooperation ROVALTAIN program PLAISCOOL 2016-2018). In particular, I study the feeding strategies of the corals using fatty acid biomarkers and the energetic status using lipid classes. This work combines field survey and laboratory experiments.

I am teaching marine biology, benthic ecology, marine sediment geochemistry, and land-ocean transfers at Sorbonne University (France). I am also involved in the International MASTER of Science in Marine Biological Resources IMBRsea.

I coordinate the EU course “Ecology and functioning of coastal ecosystems” UE MU5MRM12 FLUMECO.