Research Projects

The Caucasus region is one of the 25 most species-rich regions of the world, which is seriously threatened by environmental changes. There are more than 300 land snail species known from this region, 66% of which are endemic. In a project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, we are investigating the distribution of this diversity and its origins.  ... [ more ]

The Albertine Rift Region is one of the most species-rich regions in Africa. The high species diversity is due to Pleistocene forest refugia along the rift, where the fauna and flora of Afromontane rainforests survived the ice ages and from which eastern Africa has been colonized postglacially.  ... [ more ]

Java is the most densely populated island in the world and it is also part of one of the most important hotspots of the biodiversity. As a result of massive infrastructure development, land use change for agriculture and mining activities many species are under threat of extinction. Against this background, we are investigating the processes that have historically contributed to the origin ... [ more ]

Molecular genetic studies have shown that hybridization occurs much more frequently also in animals than was previously assumed. Genes are often exchanged between closely related species. Often the species remain separated despite the gene exchange. However, hybridization can also result in the fusion of species or the origin of new species.  ... [ more ]

New Caledonia is a group of islands in the southern Pacific belonging to France. Due to the geographical isolation of the island group, the fauna and flora of New Caledonia has a very high proportion of endemisms. In collaboration with Philippe Bouchet of the Paris Museum we investigate a hitherto barely known radiation of carnivorous snails belonging to ... [ more ]

While the diversity of the snail communities in rainforests in Africa and Asia has been investigated at least at several sites over the past two decades, there is hardly any quantitative study of the diversity and composition of the snail fauna of rainforests in South America. This lack of data from South America hampers global comparisons between the different continents  ... [ more ]

We want to evaluate and optimize laboratory methods for generating genome-wide data and analytical methods for delimiting species with such data. A special focus in our project will be the evaluation and further development of methods for delimiting closely related species ... [ more ]