Biosystematics, informatics and genomics of the big 4 insect groups: training tomorrow's researchers and entrepreneurs

Projects

Martin Fikacek

The Life on the island: leaf-litter insect fauna as a bioindicator of long and short term evolutionary change
Objectives: Adaptive radiations, including those on isolated islands, are widely recognized as generators of immense diversity of species, lifestyles and morphologies. Taxon-island systems studied in detail so far were mostly focused on vertebrates o... show more
Aleocharinae rove beetles of New Zealand: development of the accelerated workflow to study "dark taxa" in poorly known biodiversity hotspots
Objectives: To develop an efficient workflow combining morphospecies, DNA-barcoding, revisionary systematics, genomics and statistical phylogenetic approaches that would allow to overcome a hitherto non-passable "taxonomic impediment" hampe... show more
Understanding the biodiversity boom in terrestrial hydrophilid beetles
Objectives: The vast majority of hydrophilid beetles are members of Megasternini, the youngest and most speciose tribe. Reasons for their immense species and morphological diversity are still unclear. The group moreover includes a number of invasive ... show more