Let me introduce you to the Group of the Month for March: A fungus! At this point you are probably thinking to yourself: “Wait a minute, that’s not a fungus. That’s clearly just a beetle…” And for the most part, you’d be right! Let’s zoom in a bit […]

Last week, we published an paper on meiofauna and why it is important to study them and which scientific questions should be addressed next. The paper “Fundamental questions in meiofauna research highlight how small but ubiquitous animals can improve our understanding of Nature” was published in Communications Biology. […]

The Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) Project is a community-driven effort funded by the EU to establish a framework for coordinating DNA barcoding and genome sequencing across Europe. As part of the genome stream of BGE, reference genomes from species from critical European biodiversity are sequenced. An important task […]

This month I will present to you a very small phylum of animals – both in size and in number of species. The phylum Cycliophora, which means the ring-bearer, comprises exactly one genus and two described species. These species are about 350 µm in body length, which is […]

A visit to the Adelaide Botanic Garden is certainly high up on the to-do list of a biologist visiting the capital of South Australia. In December 2024, a couple of days before the Australian midsummer, I had the pleasure to visit the Adelaide Botanic Garden and explored the […]

Following the example of Pia’s post about the gift of collaboration, I will introduce you to a side project I did with two colleagues from a different research group at today’s door. It started with a strange sighting from a friend: a bird that looked like a species […]

As mentioned in the first calendar door of our advents calendar this year, genomics of small animals is challenging. Yesterday, Nhu Dinh successfully finished her Master thesis but she also experienced some of the challenges related to the small animals and genomics. The problem is that some of […]

It is always a pleasure if international scientific cooperations deliver exciting results. This was the case with my cooperation with colleagues at the University Hasselt, Belgium. The study was a key component of the PhD thesis of Armando J. Cruz‑Laufer who also coordinated the drafting of the scientific […]

This week was the last full week before the Christmas break where everybody goes on their well deserved holidays. However, despite all the slowing down at the museum this week, today was a big day for Nhu Dinh. She successfully defended her Master thesis today. Congratulations Nhu Dinh. […]

Cover picture by Sue Flood Last time, I wrote about how glacial-isolation caused the divergence of a small population of ringed seals in the Ilulissat Icefjord, West Greenland. The text ended with a final consideration on the importance of developing research plan to retrieve molecular data for Arctic […]