Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Des souris aux baleines en passant par les humains, la diversité écologique des mammifères placentaires est des plus fascinantes. Bien qu'il s'agisse là d'un des groupes les plus étudiés, leur origine fait pourtant l'objet de bien des mystères. Leurs relations de parenté les plus basales restent en effet incertaines, et l'on ignore encore beaucoup du mode de vie qu'avaient nos ancêtres du Crétacé, ces mammifères placentaires qui auraient côtoyé les dinosaures pendant plus de 30 millions d'années.Afin d'aborder ces questions, cette thèse a utilisé l'outil de la génomique comparative. L'une de ses principales originalités est la prise en compte d'un distorteur majeur de notre évolution moléculaire: la conversion génique biaisée. Truquant la loterie génétique, ce mécanisme associé à la recombinaison méiotique avantage les nucléotides G et C au détriment des nucléotides A et T. Façonnés par son influence, nos paysages nucléotidiques présentent ainsi ponctuellement des taux de GC anormalement élevés.Jusque là, ce phénomène n'avait été étudié que chez une poignée d'organismes modèles. Son analyse chez plus d'une trentaine de génomes mammaliens a mis en évidence une série de résultats clés. En particulier, l'évolution du contenu en GC des gènes s'est avéré dépendre de la masse corporelle et la longévité des espèces. E nreliant ainsi évolution moléculaire et traits d'histoire de vie, des reconstructions de séquences ancestrales ont permis d'estimer la durée de vie des premiers mammifères placentaires à plus de 25 ans. Cette longévité va bien au delà de ce que peuvent espérer atteindre les souris ou musaraignes actuelles, des animaux au mode de vie pourtant jusqu'ici supposé comme étant proche de celui de nos ancêtres.Parallèlement à ces résultats, une tendance à produire des phylogénies inexactes a été détectée chez les gènes les plus GC-riches. Moins soumis à la conversion génique biaisée, les gènes AT-riches se sont montrés plus fiables, tout en soutenant que les espèces originaires d'Afrique sont situés à la base de l'arbre des placentaires. Ce résultat suggère ainsi la possible résolution d'un des noeuds les plus controversés de notre histoire évolutive.Du simple nucléotide à la naissance d'une infraclasse de plus de 4000espèces, ce travail révèle comment l'évolution moléculaire peut porter un nouveau regard sur nos origines les plus profondes. / From mice to whales through humans, placental mammals present astunning diversity. Despite being one of the most studied group ever,mysteries persist about their origin. Indeed, their most basalrelationships still remain uncertain, and nothing is really knownabout the lifestyle of our cretaceous ancestors, these placentalmammals which lived side by side with non-avian dinosaurs during 30My.To answer these evolutionnary questions, comparative genomic studiesof placental mammals have been conducted. One of its originalities isto take into account biased gene conversion. Rigging the geneticlottery, this recombination-associated mechanism involves a reparationbias favouring the G and C nucleotides over the A and T ones, whichmark the mammalian genomic landscapes by inducing localized peaks ofGC-content.This phenomenon has been so far studied in few model species. Theexploration of biased gene conversion in more than 30 mammal genomesled to several key results. In particular, GC content evolution hasproved to be correlated to the longevity and the body mass of species.By linking together molecular evolution and life history traits, thereconstruction of ancestral sequences allowed us to estimate alife-span above 25 years for early placental mammals. This value ismarkedly different from that of mice or shrews, although our mammalianancestors have often been represented as such. In addition to these results, GC-rich genes were found to be prone toproduce false phylogenies. Less affected by recombination associatedartifacts, AT-rich genes are shown to be more reliable, and to supportspecies of African origin as the sister group of all other placentalmammals - perhaps resolving one of the most controversial nodes of themammalian tree.From nucleotide to the birth of a 4,000 species infraclass, this workreveals how molecular evolution can shed new light onour deepest origins.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-13T17:08:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FilipeSL_DISSERT.pdf: 18861623 bytes, checksum: dec06565f69ab3657111750b25f78441 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-27 / The Camorim Oilfield, discovered in 1970 in the shallow water domain of the Sergipe Sub-basin, produces hydrocarbons from the Carm?polis Member of the Muribeca Formation, the main reservoir interval, interpreted as siliciclastics deposited in an alluvial-fluvial-deltaic context during a late rifting phase of Neoaptian age, in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin. The structural setting of the field defines different production blocks, being associated to the evolution of the Atalaia High during the rift stage and subsequent reactivations, encompassing NE-SW trending major normal faults and NWEW trending secondary faults. The complexity of this field is related to the strong facies variation due to the interaction between continental and coastal depositional environments, coupled with strata juxtaposition along fault blocks. This study aims to geologically characterize its reservoirs, to provide new insights to well drilling locations in order to increase the recovery factor of the field. Facies analysis based on drill cores and geophysical logs and the 3D interpretation of a seismic volume, provide a high resolution stratigraphic analysis approach to be applied in this geodynamic transitional context between the rift and drift evolutionary stages of the basin. The objective was to define spatial and time relations between production zones and the preferential directions of fluid flow, using isochore maps that represent the external geometry of the deposits and facies distribution maps to characterize the internal heterogeneities of these intervals, identified in a 4th order stratigraphic zoning. This work methodology, integrated in a 3D geological modelling process, will help to optimize well drilling and hydrocarbons production. This methodology may be applied in other reservoirs in tectonic and depositional contexts similar to the one observed at Camorim, for example, the oil fields in the Aracaju High, Sergipe Sub-basin, which together represent the largest volume of oil in place in onshore Brazilian basins / O Campo de Camorim, descoberto em 1970 na por??o de ?guas rasas da Subbacia de Sergipe, produz hidrocarbonetos do Membro Carm?polis/Forma??o Muribeca, principal intervalo reservat?rio, interpretado como silicicl?sticos depositados em um contexto al?vio-fl?vio-deltaico na fase tardia do rifteamento da Bacia Sergipe-Alagoas, Neoaptiano. O arcabou?o estrutural, que subdivide o campo em blocos produtores, est? associado ? evolu??o do Alto de Atalaia durante a fase rifte e reativa??es posteriores, apresentando falhas normais principais de dire??o NE-SW e falhas secund?rias de dire??es NW-SE e E-W. A complexidade do campo est? ligada ? intensa varia??o faciol?gica, resultante da intera??o entre os ambientes deposicionais continentais e costeiros, e a justaposi??o dos estratos associada ? evolu??o estrutural. Este trabalho tem como objetivo a caracteriza??o geol?gica dos reservat?rios para dar subs?dios ?s novas perfura??es de po?os destinados a aumentar o fator de recupera??o do campo. Deste modo, a partir da an?lise faciol?gica realizada em testemunhos e perfis geof?sicos, em conjunto com a interpreta??o do volume s?smico 3D, prop?e-se uma metodologia que se baseia na an?lise estratigr?fica de alta resolu??o, aplicada em um contexto geodin?mico transicional entre os est?gios rifte e drifte de evolu??o da bacia, capaz de determinar as rela??es espaciais e temporais das zonas produtoras e as dire??es preferenciais do fluxo de fluidos, empregando para este fim, mapas de is?coras que representam a geometria externa, e mapas de distribui??o de f?cies para as heterogeneidades internas destes intervalos identificados em um zoneamento estratigr?fico de 4? ordem. Esta metodologia de trabalho, integrada em um processo de modelagem geol?gica 3D, vai ser utilizada para estabelecer a geometria da malha de po?os injetores/produtores do intervalo de interesse e pode ser aplicada em outros reservat?rios cujo contexto tect?nico-deposicional seja semelhante ao observado em Camorim, caso dos campos localizados no Alto de Aracaju, Sub-bacia de Sergipe, que juntos comp?em o maior volume de ?leo in place na por??o terrestre das bacias brasileiras

Genome composition and architecture is shaped by two types of processes: those that introduce heritable changes (mutagenesis) and those that determine the fate of such changes in the populations (genetic drift and selection). Chemical and biological properties of mutagenesis determines the frequencies at which different type of mutations occur, which, in turn, determines their rates of fixation by drift and affects the spectrum of mutations available for selection to operate on. As the result, genomes of living organisms carry many signatures mutagenesis.