People

Dagmara Żyła, PhD

She is a beetle curator and the head of the Coleoptera Section at the Zoological Museum Hamburg (Germany), the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change. Dagmara's research focuses on taxonomy, systematics, and the natural history of the largest family of animals, rove beetles (Staphylinidae). She combines traditional taxonomy and systematics with modern analytical approaches to understand the evolutionary processes underlying their past and present biodiversity and distribution. 

Dagmara is the Principal Investigator in our group.

Katarzyna Koszela, PhD

She is a technician at Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change at the Museum of Nature Hamburg. Her main interest is the genus Paederus and its endosymbionts. She is also experimenting with modern sequencing techniques and exploring the usefulness of various bioinformatics tools.

Carlos Moreno, MSc

Carlos is a Brazilian entomologist and PhD student at Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP) with Dagmara as co-advisor. His research focuses on the systematics and biology of termitophilous rove beetles, with a special focus on the subfamily Aleocharinae. For his PhD project, he aims to explore the co-evolutionary dynamics between the subtribe Termitogastrina and their termite hosts using genomic data and phylogeographic analysis. His main expertises are taxonomy and morphology, and he loves field trips.

Alexandra Tokareva, MSc

She is a PhD student in our lab, working on the part of the PaETM project based in the Museum and Institute of Zoology, Warsaw (Poland). The main goal of Alexandra's PhD research is building the first genus-level phylogeny of Paederinae using genomic and morphological data. Her previous research project was focused on the rove beetle genus Oxyporus in Russia. Mainly, her expertise is taxonomy and morphology, while currently, she gets experience in phylogenomics.

Karen Vanessa Bonilla Farinango, BSc

She is a MSc student at INPA, Manaus, Brazil and doing her MSc project in collaboration with Dagmara. Karen's main interest is studying systematics and biodiversity of Paederinae. Karen was a visiting scientist in LIB in Oct-Dec 2022 where she received training in Staphylinidae identification. She has graduated from the Ecosystem Engineer program at IKIAM, and she has worked mainly with insect composition in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Laurele Gerke, BSc

She studies geoscience at the University of Hamburg as a MSc student. Additionally, Laurele is working on the digitalization of the entomology collection. Being interested in palaeontology, her Bachelor thesis was about Baltic amber Paederinae. The future MSc project will use fossil rove beetles to answer questions for historical biogeography of Paederinae.

Elisabeth Körs, BSc

She is a Biology student at the University of Hamburg in the MSc program. For her Master’s thesis, she is currently working on forensic entomology with a focus on beetles, particularly Staphylinidae. She is interested in comparing which beetles and when are coming to the carcasses in different habitats.

Jasmin Schreiber, BSc

She is in the Master's program in Biology at the University of Hamburg and is conducting research on Staphylinidae for her Master's thesis. She works on comparison of rove beetle species composition in protected and semi-protected peat areas in Hamburg. She also publishes books and teaches at the National Institute for Science Communication (NaWik).

Guilherme Eduardo Ciamponi

He is a Biological Sciences student at the São Carlos Federal University in Brazil. For his Bachelor's thesis, he is studying the genetic diversity of rove beetles found in tropical forest protected areas in Rio de Janeiro with Dagmara as a co-advisor. His main interests in Biology are protected areas, genetic diversity and population genetics.

Lisa Hattesen

She is a Biology student at the University of Hamburg. Lisa is working on different samples collected by our research group. Her Bachelor thesis is going to be about Staphylinidae diversity in the nature reserve ‘Boberger Niederung’ in Hamburg. She will focus on biodiversity comparison between different habitats in the reserve and potential range shifts of Staphylinidae.

Amelie Meyer

Amelie is a Bachelor's student at the University of Hamburg. She has started her Bachelor's project recently and will focus on rove beetle biodiversity at the Boberger Moor. Amelie will compare microhabitats within the peat part of the Boberger Niederung.

Priscila Saraiva, BSc

She is a MSc student in Biology at the University of Hamburg. In her Bachelor's thesis, she was comparing the biodiversity of rove beetles in protected and unprotected areas of the Jenischpark in Hamburg. After the defence, Priscila continues working on beetles and provide technical support for molecular lab work.

Sandiso Mnguni, PhD

He is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) of the University of the Witwatersrand. His PhD was on the taxonomy and systematics of fossil rove beetles from Orapa Diamond Mine in Botswana. He has since decided to work on other insect groups such as plant lice, aphids and thrips. He is interested in acquiring phylogenetic skills using morphology to better understand the evolution of several insect orders.

He is a visiting scientist at the LIB from July to September 2024, supported by a scholarship from DAAD.

Juliette Cristina Gualdron Diaz, MSc

She is a PhD student conducting her research at the Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de Zonas Áridas, CONICET-Mendoza, Argentina. Her investigations focus on the evolution of mutualistic associations between ants and termites within the Aleocharinae subfamily (Staphylinidae). Specifically, She studies the Neotropical Lomechusini tribe, aiming to elucidate their evolutionary history and identify the factors driving their diversification.

She is a visiting scientist at the LIB from June to November 2024, supported by a scholarship from DAAD. During this period, she will investigate the convergent evolution of the Lomechusini tribe (Staphylinidae) beetles within a phylogenetic context, leveraging advanced technologies such as micro-computed tomography (μCT) and genomics.

Yoan Camilo Guzman Sarmiento, PhD

Camilo worked with us from 2022 to 2024 in the PaETM project. Currently, he is a postdoc at the Department of Developmental Biology and Morphology of Invertebrates, Jagiellonian University. Camilo is a Colombian entomologist interested in the ecology and evolution of insect symbiosis. He worked with predators, parasitoids, entomopathogenic nematodes, and Wolbachia bacterial symbionts. We continue to collaborate on different projects concerning Neotropical rove beetles.