Research interests

Within the fields of zoology, I´m especially interested in the morphology and phylogenetics of invertebrates with special focus to the Mollusca and the lower worms of the meiofauna.

New species? - Unlike in the scientific world of vertebrates, the description of new species is (almost) routine work when dealing with lower invertebrates or representatives of the less known taxa of the Mollusca. This is as well true for the Solenogastres (neomeniomorph aplacophoran molluscs) where the number of known species rises constantly with ongoing effords in collecting and in the working off of earlier collected material. I described five species within the Simrothiellidae, more descriptions are in process.

Looking for characters - Detailed studies of soft body features by means of light- and electron-microscopical techniques may reveal valuable characters for systematics and for phylogenetic analyses. Under this aspect, I investigated the foregut glands and recently also the radula formation in some Solenogastres species.

From structure to function - Feeding, including food absorption (endocytosis) and intracellular digestion within the digestive tract, belongs to the major processes in biology. I studied the morphology, ultrastructure and histochemistry of digestive tract glands and digestive tract epithelia of some species of Solenogastres and analyzed the intracellular digestive cycle of midgut cells.

A personal move: from molluscs to acoels and from Austria to the US Acoels (Acoela, Acoelomorpha, Platyhelminthes) are small, aquatic (predominantly marine), soft-bodied worms. Due to their apparent simplicity, particularly their lack of body and digestive cavities, they have repeatedly been in the center of interest in discussions about the starting point of a phylogenetic tree of triploblastic bilaterian animals.
In a postdoctoral project starting in September 2004, I investigated the ultrastructure and muscular equipment of pharynges of acoels in the laboratory of Seth Tyler (Univ. Maine, Orono). The goal of this study was to evaluate the importance of pharynx features for the phylogeny of the Acoela (link to project description).

Back to Europe and back to aplacophoran molluscs: starting in September 2006, four years of postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bergen, Norway, are dedicated to the phylogenetic relationships within and between Solenogastres and Caudofoveata.