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Welcome to the Web
site of the Prpic lab! We are a group of people
with a common love for arthropods. We are
fascinated by their diversity and their amazing
biology.
How did this
diversity of form, physiology, and behavior
emerge during evolution? What are the mechanisms
of evolutionary diversification? And what is the
basis at the molecular level of morphological,
physiological and behavioral change? We study
these questions in several projects:
1) We are
interested in the taxonomy, systematics and
inventory of arthropod diversity and their
phylogenetic relationships, with a focus on
spiders.
2) We are
interested in the mechanisms leading to standing
variation, new mutations and speciation, with a
focus on the population genetics of subspecies
or closely related species of insects and
spiders.
3) We are
interested in the developmental and molecular
genetic basis of the evolution of morphology,
physiology and behavior, with a focus on
appendage diversity, body coloration and
camouflage behavior.
Our main
models are spiders and we have so far worked on
several species from the Theridiidae, Ctenidae,
Agelenidae, Pholcidae and Theraphosidae. We are
also constantly seeking to expand our expertise
to appreciate the full diversity of spiders.
Besides
spiders we complement our work with comparative
data from other arthropod species. We mainly use
the insects Drosophila
melanogaster (fruit fly) and Tribolium
castaneum (flour beetle), and we also
study Oncopeltus
fasciatus (milkweed bug), Thermobia
domestica (firebrat), and Folsomia candida
(springtail) as additional models for the
diversity of insect morphology. In collaborative
efforts we also expand our comparative studies
to Myriapods, Crustaceans and Onychophorans.
Right:
sample arthropod species (from top to
bottom): Artemia franciscana,
Carterocephalus
palaemon, Volucella
zonaria, Glomeris
hexasticha.
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The fauna of
Germany:
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