Research Projects

2024-2025: Biodiversity Fund - Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology: ABOL-RefDat – generating DNA barcode reference data for 1.500 Austrian animal, plant and fungi species  (in collaboration with NHM Vienna).

2024-2025: Biodiversity Fund - Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology: Alpine salamander and common wall lizard in the eastern alpine region: intraspecific diversity and population structure (PI).

2024: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) - TALENTE internship: ADIV-DOKU; Documenting Austria's zoological diversity (PI).

2023-2026: Federal Ministry of Education, Science and  Research: Establishing a trans-university infrastructure for linking national and international biodiversity databases (ATIV-Biodat) (Co-PI)

2023-2024: Biodiversity Fund - Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology: Emeralds in the river: distribution, population size and population connectivity of an endemic fish species (PI)

2023-2024: Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD): Gudgeons of the genus Romanogobio in the Danube system – efficient molecular identification, geographic structure and monogenean parasites (PI; in collaboration with Péter Takács, Balaton Limnological Research Institute, Hungary).

2022-2023: Office of the Styrial Provincial Government: Pool frog: inventory and conservation of an FFH species (Co-PI).

2022: Office of the Styrial Provincial Government: Population size and connectivity of alpine salmanders in the Koralm region (Co-PI).

2021-2022: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG): SARS-CoV-2 mutations under increased selection pressure and targeted surveillance (in collaboration with Sissy Lamprecht, Dr. Gernot Walder GmbH)

2021-2024: Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD): Inventorying biodiversity in the tropics: Establishing a DNA-barcoding pipeline for characterizing and monitoring Zambia’s biodiversity (PI).

2021-2022: Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies (KIÖS) / Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW): Austria's Pauropoda - an updated checklist and DNA barcoding of a poorly known taxon (PI).

2021: Environmental Advocacy Styria: Genotyping alpine salmanders from the Koralm region (Co-PI).

2021: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) - TALENTE internship: ADIV-DOKU; Documenting Austria's zoological diversity (PI).

2020: Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies (KIÖS) / Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW): DNA barcoding and checklist of Austrian hoverflies (PI).

2019-2023: Austrian Science Fund (FWF): Resolving the deep evolutionary history of vertebrate parasitism in flatworms - genomic insights from the Monogenea (in collaboration with Christoph Hahn (PI) and Maarten Vanhove (Hasselt University, Belgium)).

2019: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) - TALENTE internship: ADIV-DOKU; Documenting Austria's zoological diversity (PI).

2018-2021: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) - BRIDGE 1: BIO-PLANBAR; Assessing biodiversity in construction project planning  by means of DNA-barcoding (PI; in collaboration with Werner Holzinger, Ökoteam & Wolfgang Paill, Universalmuseum Joanneum).

2018-2019: Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD): Monogenean gill parasites from economically important Lake Tanganyika fish species: genetic diversity and evolutionary history in thus far unexplored host-parasite systems (PI; in collaboration with Maarten P. M. Vanhove & Nikol Kmentova, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic).

2017-2020: Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy: Establishment of DNA-barcoding pipelines at Austrian universities for ABOL, the Austrian biodiversity initiative "Austrian Barcode of Life" (Co-PI).

2017-2018: Systematics Research Fund (SRF): Phylogeny and biogeography of the African lates perches and their monogenean gill parasites (PI).

2015-2018: Austrian Science Fund (FWF): Comparative phylogeography of co-distributed arboreal mite species (in collaboration with Sylvia Schäffer (PI)).

2014-2017: Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy: Austrian Barcode Of Life (ABOL) - pilot project "vertebrates" (PI; together with Frank Zachos, NHM Viennna).

2014-2015: University of Graz: Resubmission (to Austrian Science Fund) Incentive grant (PI).

2014-2015: Institute of Zoology, University of Graz: Phylogeographic structure in pelagic and benthopelagic deepwater cichlids from Lake Tanganyika? - a pilot study (PI).

2013-2016: Austrian Science Fund (FWF): Collective defence in non-myrmecophilous aphids and its evolutionary origin (in collaboration with Manfred Hartbauer (PI)).

2004-2005: Austrian Academy of Sciences: Evolution of mouthbrooding within the Lake Tanganyika cichlid radiation and phylogenetic placement of the haplochromine cichlids - DOC stipend.