Rouages: “Maintaining a healthy environment to produce organic produce”
Lauriane Bisch is a fish biologist at the Ifremer facility in Palavas-les-Flots. Every day, she feeds, cares for, and tends to six to seven thousand zebrafish and medaka—model organisms whose eggs will be used for research. She explains this work in detail in the video series *Rouages*, produced by the University of Montpellier. Action!
Since January 2024, Lauriane Bisch has traded the lagoon of Tahiti for the lagoon of Palavas. Snuggled up in the cafeteria at the Ifremer station, with a view of the Prévost Pond swept by the February winds, the animal experimentation technician tells us about her return home after eight years at Ifremer in the Pacific. “I started by earning a DUT in biological engineering in Montpellier, then a BTS in aquaculture in Brittany. I dreamed of training in pearl farming, so I went straight to Tahiti, where I was lucky enough to be hired by Ifremer.”
“Wear T-shirts all year round!”
It was then life itself that led the young woman to move closer to her home region. “We can’t complain—here, too, we work in a magnificent setting, and in the model fish room, we wear T-shirts all year round!”About 40 square meters, a room temperature of 25 or 26 degrees, and shelves everywhere filled with aquariums where thousands of tiny fish swim about. “On the right are the medaka, which are found in Asia and are estuarine fish. They live in brackish water that’s a little less salty than seawater, but is still saltwater. On the left are the zebrafish, which live in tropical environments but in freshwater.”
Every morning, Lauriane Bisch cleans and checks the condition of dozens of tanks using connected multiparameter probes that provide her with real-time data on water temperature, nitrite levels, salinity, pH, and more…“It’s a tool we use extensively to check water quality at any given moment. The goal is to keep the fish in a healthy environment so we have biological material for experiments.”And the biological material in question is the eggs she collects every day from the bottom of the tanks. This is because the fish she raises are broodstock not intended for animal experimentation. “It’s their offspring that will be used by researchers at different stages of their lives, ranging from the embryonic stage to the juvenile and even adult stages.”
“Like a dog happy to see you”
Looking at the dates marked on the aquariums, we see that in the model fish room, the oldest fish can be up to 5 years old. This gives them plenty of time to form special bonds with their caretaker, who—in addition to keeping them in a healthy environment—feeds and cares for them every day.“It’s important to me to work with animals. Since they’re fish, you might think there’s no interaction, but when it’s time to feed or clean the tanks, they all swim to the front of the aquarium. It’s kind of like coming home and having a dog that’s happy to see you.”
While she may be the sole expert on medaka and zebrafish populations, there are five people working as fish breeders at the Ifremer station in Palavas-les-Flots. Alongside Lauriane Bisch’s small fish are larger, more iconic species of the Mediterranean ecosystem, such as sea bream and, above all, sea bass. Thus, in the heart of Palavas, there are more than 500 live broodstock, preserved and raised to produce wild and selected strains.“We zootechnicians don’t conduct research, but thanks to the work we do every day, we also help advance science.”