Study biodiversity, including in aquatic systems

CMK is considered to be one of the world-leading institutes as it comes to (flatworm) taxonomy

One of the main topics of the biodiversity research of CMK is the biology of invertebrates, meiofauna, and aquatic parasites in particular, with a main emphasis on taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography. Interests involve "classical" taxonomical studies, and in-depth molecular phylogenetic, phylogenomic, population genomic and phylogeographical analyses, in order to elucidate important evolutionary events (e.g. habitat shifts, origin of parasitic/symbiotic life styles) and to disentangle cryptic diversity. Moreover, we conduct applied philosophical research focussing on the role of values in species descriptions, which can have major impact on policy making regarding nature conservation issues. CMK participates in worldwide projects such as the Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment (FADA), and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), which offer up-to-date information on biodiversity to all types of end users.

Projects