SPINELESS: MARINE ANIMALS, BIODIVERSITY AND EVOLUTION
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Phylogeography and conservation genetics of seadragons

​Phylogenetic relationships of Syngnathidae


Josefin Stiller

I am now a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. 
Please email me with any questions.
Personal website: josefinstiller.com
Email: josefin.stiller@bio.ku.dk


Ph.D. in Marine Biology
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California San Diego


M.S. in Organismic Biology and Evolution
Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

B.S. in Biology
Free University Berlin, Germany
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I am interested in the natural history and evolution of the staggering diversity of animals. I use molecular tools, increasingly high-throughput sequencing technologies, to explore patterns of diversity and infer underlying processes. 

My current research focuses on a spectacular group of fishes, the Syngnathidae, and here mostly on the seadragons. I use genetic markers to study how seadragon populations are structured across their range in Australia and how historical processes have shaped contemporary genetic diversity. This work has implications for the management and conservation of these fishes in Australia. In the course of this work, we unexpectedly discovered a new species of seadragon, the Ruby Seadragon.

With collaborators I work on disentangling the evolutionary relationships of Syngnathidae, so seahorses, pipefishes, pipehorses and seadragons. A well-resolved phylogenetic tree will help us better understand the evolution of fascinating traits like male brooding, body armor and elongate snouts. We are using targeted capture of ~1000 genetic regions and samples of several hundred individuals to reconstruct the phylogeny of this group.

Seadragon research

• Learn more about the discovery and first live observations of the Ruby Seadragon
• Field blog 2016: The Hunt for the Red Dragon and SCUBA sampling of Leafy and Common Seadragons 
• Public lecture on our seadragon research given at Birch Aquarium
​• The Leafy Seadragon Aquarium Genotyping Project

Other projects

• Phylogeny of Terebelliformia (Annelida) based on transcriptomic data
• Phylogeography of deep-sea Amphisamytha

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