Varpu Vahtera
PhD, Adjunct professor
varpu.vahtera@utu.fi +358 29 450 4176 +358 50 411 0355 Vesilinnantie 5 Turku Office: 164 ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6710-6358 |
Molecular systematics; Chilopoda
I work as a curator of myriapodology and arachnology at the Zoological Museum. I obtained my Master's degree from the University of Turku (2003) and PhD degree from the University of Helsinki (2008). I have conducted two postdoctoral periods, one at Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard University) and one at the Finnish Museum of Natural History (LUOMUS). Despite of my strong laboratory background, fieldwork
is very close to my heart.
I am a molecular systematist studying the diversity and evolutionary relationships of both invertebrates and vertebrates. My main research focus is on scolopendromorph centipedes but I am also involved in many other projects studying the diversity of e.g. millipedes, arachnids, amphibians and reptiles from all over the world.
- Unveiling of a cryptic Dicranomyia (Idiopyga) from northern Finland using integrative approach (Diptera, Limoniidae) (2014)
- Biodiversity data journal
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Phylogenetics of scolopendromorph centipedes: can denser taxon sampling improve an artificial classification? (2013)
- Invertebrate Systematics
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - A scolopocryptopid centipede (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha) from Mexican amber: synchrotron microtomography and phylogenetic placement using a combined morphological and molecular data set (2012)
- Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Comparative description of ten transcriptomes of newly sequenced invertebrates and efficiency estimation of genomic sampling in non-model taxa (2012)
- Frontiers in Zoology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Evolution of blindness in scolopendromorph centipedes (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha): insight from an expanded sampling of molecular data (2012)
- Cladistics
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Spiracle structure in scolopendromorph centipedes (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha) and its contribution to phylogenetics (2012)
- Zoomorphology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Running WILD: the case for exploring mixed parameter sets in sensitivity analysis (2011)
- Cladistics
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Phylogeny of the Thylacosterninae (Coleoptera, Elateridae) (2009)
- Cladistics
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Anischia, Perothops and the phylogeny of Elateroidea (Coleoptera : Elateriformia) (2007)
- Insect Systematics and Evolution
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Lamnatibia, a new genus of the Polysphincta group of genera from Colombia (Hymenoptera : Ichneumonidae; Pimplinae) (2007)
- Zootaxa
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal)



