Roland Anton

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Dipl. biol. Roland Anton

Bavarian State Collection of Zoology
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich
Münchhausenstraße 21
81247 Munich
Germany

Systematics, evolution and biology of the parasitic copepod family Splanchnotrophidae (Crustacea, Poecilostomatoida)

Copepods of the family Splanchnotrophidae live endoparasitic in opistobranch gastropods but most of the species do no detectable harm to their hosts. Until now very little is known about the cladistics and the life history of these parasites. I currently work on an internal cladistic analysis based on the already existing morphological data. As a first result, a tree shall be generated, which displays the relationship within the Splanchnotrophidae. In a second study, the results from the morphological analysis shall be reconsidered by using molecular markers and population genetics. Herefor mitochondrial loci (COI; 16S) and nuclear 18S rRNA shall be utilized. The combined datasets on the parasites shall be compared with available phylogenies on their hosts. With these datasets there shall be the opportunity to search for a correlation between the evolution of the parasites and that of their host species.The application of relaxed molecular clocks will show the timing of cladogenesis. To cover the complete present diversity, all available, thus far undescribed parasite species shall be described and examined using a SEM. In behavioural experiments with living parasites and hosts the detection of new hosts and the way of infection shall be determined.