Myriapoda

In this project, two unknown species of giant pill-millipedes will be described from southern Thailand. Giant pill-millipedes are large, charismatic millipedes which can roll into a perfect ball up to the size of a golfball when touched or threatened. These descriptions will be conducted as part of a taxonomic class conducted by a guest researcher from the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. We will work integratively, combining and teaching the student in many different modern taxonomic methods, not only theoretically, but practically producing publication-ready results.

The bristle millipedes (Penicillata: Polyxenida) differ from all other millipedes (Diplopoda) by possessing a non-calcified cuticle, trichobothria and bristles arranged in tufts. In all present phylogenetic analyses the Polyxenida are retrieved as sistertaxa to all remaining millipedes. Therefore, understanding the morphology of bristle millipedesis essential for our understanding of the millipede evolution.

The interdisciplinary joint project INPEDIV is funded for 3 years by the Leibniz Competition (March 2019 – February 2022). The aim of this study is to investigate consequences of organic and conventional farming for biodiversity in protected areas. By use of traditional methods and new technologies, we will examine agricultural land use effects on a broad range of plant and animal taxa across trophic levels at study sites in the Rhineland and in Brandenburg.

As soil organisms, millipedes have limited dispersal abilities. Probably for this reason are many tropical species restricted to small areas of distribution, with a high-level of species turnover. In the course of this project the Pilbara area in Western Australia will be investigated for its millipede species of the genus Austrostrophus (Spirobolida).

In the course of this project, a Master OEP student of the University of Bonn will learn how to do an integrative taxonomic description of an animal species. The student will do dissections and prepare samples for an integrative taxonomic description of two species of giant pill-millipedes from Madagascar, including DNA extraction, scanning electron microscopy, and micro-CT scans. The student will be required to thoroughly research the methods and suggest alternatives or modifications of the procedure to improve the results. This study will not only educate the student in doing scietific taxonomic descriptions using a variety a methods. The study is of additional relevance in the age of the international "biodiversity crisis", as rainforests in many countries are removed before their unique fauna can be scientifically named and described.

Southern Chinca is especially rich in caves. These caves are inhabited by a unique, still little-known fauna, especially diverse are different groups of millipedes. These cave millipedes, all show similar adaptation to the life inside a cave and look vastly different from their close relatives which live in the forests on the surface. Currently, a joint team of researchers from Russia, China and Germany studies general adaptations of millipedes to the life inside caves using comparative morphology.

The millipede fauna of India, one of the largest countries of the world, is diverse but still little known. After the Indian independence in 1947, only few species were described from the country. One of the things hampering any progress in the inventory of the Indian millipede fauna is the absence of any species list from the country. If it is unknown which species were already described and recorded from India, it will be difficult to record and describe new species from the country.

Pill millipedes of the order Glomerida are especially species-rich in Europe. The collection of a conspicuous black pill millipede led after a long literature search to the discovery of the name Glomeris apuana Verhoeff, 1911. This name is apparently forgotten, not mentioned after 1927, and it does not appear in Fauna Europeae, recent Italien species lists, or recent European millipede atlases. Apparently, the species occurs in the Apuan Alps, and area renown for its Carrara Marble. A molecular genetic analysis, as well as a comparison with type material, will now help us to elucidate the status, distribution, and the relationships of this unusual pill millipede species.

The pill millipede Glomeris marginata is 'the' model organism inside the Myriapoda. Most embryonic studies, as well as important studies focussing on the development of segmentation (Evo-Devo) use Glomeris marginata as their study object. In this study,using DNA barcode fragments, the phylogeography of G. marginata is studied to get insights into the distribution of different genetic lineagues of the species accross Europe. G. marginata is the only species of Glomeris reaching the North of Europe, such as Great Britain, southern Skandinavia and northern Germany.

The origin of the giant pill-millipedes was disputed for a long time. Surprisingly, thier closest relatives were found in India (5.000 km apaprt) and not in closeby Africa.

Madagascar has a famous, worldwide unique fauna and flora, including the famous Baobab trees and lemurs. How such a unique fauna could evolve on the long-isolated island has been a hot topic of debate. Millipedes, as soil animals limited in their ability of dispersal, are ideal model species to study thwe speciation mechanisms that shaped the unique diversity of the island.