Objectives: With ca. 60,000 recent species, rove beetles (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) are among the best examples of mega-diverse taxa that always were, and still are, super-challenging for systematic studies. All previous attempts to retrieve a reliable phylogeny of this family have failed because they neglected ancient fossils. The main objective is to integrate fossils in the exiting phylogenetic datasets targeting staphylinoid beetles by performing their morphological examination using innovative methods of extracting character information.
Expected Results: Robust and stable basal phylogeny of the family as a backbone for applications of this mega-diverse group in various interdisciplinary studies. Publicly available well illustrated dataset for staphylinoid beetles for subsequent data addition and analysis.
Researching student: Janina Lisa Kypke