Enrique Lara (2019)
Real Jardín Botánico-CSIC
Madrid
Spain

CONTACT: enrique.lara@rjb.csic.es

TITLE OF TALK: Protist Diversity Patterns at the Species Level: The Case of Testate Amoebae

BACKGROUND:

Enrique Lara did his PhD thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and worked at the University of Neuchâtel as a researcher assistant, after postdoctoral stays at the University of Copenhagen and at the University of Paris Sud. He is now a Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid. 

His research is focussed on protist systematics, diversity, ecology and evolution. While he has been studying many groups of the Eukaryotic tree, he has been concentrating during the last years on testate amoebae in continental ecosystems. His interests range from establishing a solid taxonomy for these groups to diversity patterns through space (biogeography) and time (phylogeny), and to identify the physiological adaptations of the organisms to environmental stress. His work includes also applied aspects, such as bioindication based on testate amoebae metabarcoding data.

Enrique is currently Associate Editor for the European Journal of Protistology.

INTRODUCTION: Edward Mitchell.

Vladimír Hampl (2020)
Department of Parasitology
Faculty of Science
Charles University
Prague
Czech Republic

CONTACT: vladimir.hampl@natur.cuni.cz

TITLE OF TALK: Preaxostyla: A Group That Has Succeeded in Eliminating Mitochondria

BACKGROUND:

Vladimír Hampl studied parasitology at Charles University in Prague and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He works as an associate professor at Charles University and leads a team studying the evolution of mitochondria and plastids. His research focuses on the evolution of protists living in low-oxygen environments, particularly the adaptation of their mitochondria and symbioses with prokaryotes. In the field of plastid evolution, his research focuses on the origin and biogenesis of the secondary plastids of euglenids. The methodological portfolio comprises various shades of genomics and transcriptomics, phylogenetics and cell biology. Vladimir Hampl currently holds an ERC consolidator grant to investigate the unique case of the loss of mitochondrion in the protist lineage of Preaxostyla.

INTRODUCTION: 

Not yet identified.

Fabien Burki (2021)
Systematic Biology Program
Department of Organismal Biology
Uppsala University
Uppsala
Sweden

TITLE OF TALK: Eukaryotic Tree of Life

BACKGROUND:

Fabien Burki is an Associate Professor in the program of Systematic Biology at Uppsala University. He moved to Sweden to start his lab, after undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Geneva and a postdoc at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is also a platform scientific director at the microbial single-cell genomic facility of SciLifeLab, and an Associate Editor at Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Fabien’s work in phylogenomics has contributed to obtaining a modern understanding of the tree of eukaryotes, which he uses to frame essential diversification processes during eukaryote evolution such as endosymbiosis. Currently, his lab’s main interest is the study of plastid origin, for which he is supported by an ERC Consolidator grant.

INTRODUCTION: Patrick Keeling