EDUCATION

2015 – 2016
Habilitation at the University of Bern in Biological Systematics

2005 – 2010
PhD at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the University of Bern: 'Taxonomy, phylogeny, and the evolution of courtship behaviour in Diplazontinae parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae)'

2004 – 2005
Master in Biology (Zoology) at the University of Bern: 'The fate of mutations surfing on the wave of a range expansion'

CAREER

Since 2018
Curator of Entomology at the Natural History Museum Basel

2015 – 2018
Group leader under a grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation ('Ambizione') at the Natural History Museum in Bern and the University of Bern

2013 – 2015
Postdoc at the University of Adelaide in Australia

2010 – 2013
Postdoc at the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet in Stockholm Sweden

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS

Diversity, phylogeny and evolution of darwin wasps (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae). Calibrating trees using fossils. Co-evolution and its impact on diversification.

In collaboration with the universities of Basel and Bern, we offer master projects on these topics.

PUBLICATIONS

Spasojevic S., Broad G.R., Sääksjärvi I.E., Schwarz M., Ito M., Korenko S., Klopfstein S. (2021): Mind the Outgroup and Bare Branches in Total-Evidence Dating: a Case Study of Pimpliform Darwin Wasps (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae). Systematic Biology 70 (2), 322-339

Klopfstein S. (2021): The age of insects and the revival of the minimum age tree. Austral Entomology, DOI: 10.1111/aen.12478

Johansson N., Klopfstein S. (2020): Revision of the Swedish species of Neoxorides Clément, 1938 (Ichneumonidae: Poemeniinae) with the description of a new species and an illustrated key to species. European Journal of Taxonomy 680, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2020.680

Ronquist F., Forshage M., Häggqvist S., Karlsson D., (…) Klopfstein S., et al. (2020): Completing Linnaeus’s inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left? PloS one 15(3), e0228561

Klopfstein S., Santos B.F., Shaw M.R., et al. (2019) : Darwin wasps: a new name heralds renewed efforts to unravel the evolutionary history of Ichneumonidae. Entomological Communications 1, ec01006

Klopfstein S., Riedel M., Schwarz M. (2019): Checklist of ichneumonid parasitoid wasps in Switzerland (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae): 470 species new for the country and an appraisal of the alpine diversity. Alpine Entomology 3, 51

Klopfstein, S., Spasojevic, T. (2019): Illustrating phylogenetic placement of fossils using RoguePlots: An example from ichneumonid parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae) and an extensive morphological matrix. PloS one 14(4), e0212942

Klopfstein, S., Langille, B., Spasojevic, T., Broad, G.R., Cooper, S.J.B., Austin, A.D., Niehuis, O. (2019): Hybrid capture data unravels a rapid radiation of pimpliform parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Pimpliformes). Systematic Entomology 44(2), 361-383

Further publications on Google Scholar

PROJECTS AND MUSEUM ACTIVITIES

Diversity of Ichneumonidae in Switzerland

Phylogeny and evolution of ichneumonid parasitoid wasps

Fossil ichneumonids and their placement in the tree of extant taxa

Calibrating molecular trees with fossils