M.Sc. Vangelis Mizerakis
PhD student
Coleoptera
Contact
Projects
Evolution and Underground colonisation in beetles: the Bythinini tribe (Coleoptera: Pselaphinae) in the Balkan Peninsula.
Pselaphines are tiny beetles belonging to the Staphylinidae family, which is the largest coleopteran family in terms of species numbers. Over 250 species of Pselaphinae are quoted as cavernicolous and about one-quarter are found in the Balkan Peninsula. Most of these species belong to the tribe Bythinini and are endemic to the Dinarides, a well-known World biodiversity hotspot. The Bythinini tribe is predominantly represented by subterranean endemic genera and includes species adapted to various horizons, from litter to deep soil and caves.
The subterranean environment is expected to have driven these beetles into strong selective and evolutionary processes (eg. convergent evolution), which - under the light of molecular phylogenetic approaches- will be investigated and revealed though this project.
Publications
2021
- Avtzis, D. N., Markoudi, V., Mizerakis, V., Devalez, J., Nakas, G., Poulakakis, N., & Petanidou, T. (2021). The Aegean Archipelago as cradle: Divergence of the glaphyrid genus Pygopleurus and phylogeography of P. foina. Systematics and Biodiversity, 1-19.
2019
- Tuni, C., Mizerakis, V. L., & Dingemanse, N. J. (2019). Experimental evidence that winning or losing a fight does not affect sperm quality in a field cricket. Ethology, 125(12), 885-889
- Lazarina, M., Devalez, J., Neokosmidis, L., Sgardelis, S.P., Kallimanis, A.S., Tscheulin, T., Tsalkatis, P., Kourtidou, M., Mizerakis, V., Nakas, G., Palaiologou, P., Kalabokidis, K., Vujic, A., & Petanidou, T. (2019). Moderate fire severity is best for the diversity of most of the pollinator guilds in Mediterranean pine forests. Ecology, 100(3), e02615
2017
- Mizerakis, V., & Strachinis, I. (2017). new record of Tarentola mauritanica (squamata: Phyllodactylidae) from Lesvos island, Greece. Herpetology Notes, 10, 157-159
2016
- Eidinger, S., Mizerakis, V., Moreira, G. L., Savic, D., Solagaistua, L., Lampou, A., Paunovic M., & Skoulikidis, N. (2016). Insights from stream ecological assessment on the Aegean island of Samothraki: aquatic chemistry and macroinvertebrate community. Sustainable Mediterranean, 39.
- Lazarina M., Sgardelis S.P., Tscheulin T., Devalez J., Mizerakis V., Kallimanis A.S., Papakonstantinou S., Kyriazis T., & Petanidou, T. (2017). The effect of fire history in shaping diversity patterns of flower-visiting insects in post-fire Mediterranean pine forests. Biodiversity and Conservation, 26(1), 115-131.
CV
Sep 2020- now
- PhD candidate in Entomology - Research associate, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History
Feb 2018- Sep 2020
Research Assistant at Chair of Aquatic Systems Biology, Technical University of Munich (Germany)
March 2017- Dec 2017
- Research Assistant, Indobiosys (Indonesian Biodiversity Discovery and Information System) National research project, Bavarian State Collection of Zoology (ZSM), Munich (Germany)
Oct 2016-Sep 2019
Master of Science in Biology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany) Master Thesis: External morphological characters for separating genera of the subfamily Clerinae (Coleoptera, Cleridae)
Apr 2014–Sep 2015
Research Assistant, POL-AEGIS (The pollinators of the Aegean archipelago: Diversity and threats) National research project (Thales program, co-financed by the ESF), Biogeography and Ecology Laboratory, University of the Aegean, Lesvos (Greece)
Sep 2012–Apr 2013
Erasmus exchange program in Natural Resource Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland)
Oct 2010–Mar 2016
- Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, University of the Aegean (Greece). Bachelor Thesis: Pygopleurus (Coleoptera: Glaphyridae) of the Aegean: From Morphology to Phylogeny
Awards & Honors
- Lehre@LMU Research award funding for Student Research Project, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany)