Melanie Stiassny

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Melanie Lisa Jane Stiassny (born January 7, 1953 in Bielefeld ) is a German-born American ichthyologist . She works at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City .

Life

1970 Stiassny began a zoology studies at the University of London , where she in 1976 the Bachelor became of Science and in 1980 with a thesis on The Anatomy and phylogeny of two genera of African cichlid fishes for Ph.D. received his doctorate. From 1980 to 1983 she received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Royal Society for a research stay at the University of Leiden and the Rijksmuseum in Leiden , Netherlands. From 1983 to 1987 she was an assistant professor in the Department of Organismic Biology and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University . From 1987 to 1992 she was assistant curator in the Herpetology and Ichthyology Department of the American Museum of Natural History. Since 1992 she has been an associate professor at the City University of New York . From 1992 to 1997, Stiassny was an assistant curator in the Herpetology and Ichthyology Department of the American Museum of Natural History. From 1997 to 2003 she was an Associate Professor at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC) at Columbia University . From 1997 to 2001 she was Chair of the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 1997 she has been the Herbert R. and Evelyn Axelrod Research Curator in the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History. In 1998, Stiassny was one of the founding members of the Committee on Recently Extinct Organisms (CREO) alongside Ross DE MacPhee , Clare Flemming and Ian J. Harrison. This body developed a research program with which the data on extinct species can be collected and evaluated more accurately. Since 2003 she has been an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. Since 2008 she has been a professor in the Comparative Biology program at the Gilder Graduate School of the American Museum of Natural History.

Stiassny's research focuses on the systematics and evolutionary morphology of tropical freshwater fish faunas, particularly in Africa and Madagascar. She uses classic descriptive anatomy , geometric morphometry , CT and MRT scanners to visualize hard and soft tissue as well as 3D reconstruction for spatial and volumetric analyzes . Her taxonomic expertise includes the phylogenetic tree of the real bony fish (Teleostei) and includes phylogenetic studies of different lineages of the bony fish.

Stiassny's current projects focus on Central Africa , particularly the Congo area . Its aim is to document the diversity of species and to examine the mechanisms that underlie this diversity.

Stiassny is a member of the National Council of WWF , the Advisory Board of the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science of Conservation International , the Advisory Board of the Conservation Trust of the National Geographic Society , the IUCN / SSC Freshwater Specialists Group and the German Cichlid Society (DCG).

Dedication names

In 2009 the order Stiassnyiformes was named after Melanie Stiassny, who is now considered a synonym for the Ovalentaria group .

Publications (selection)

  • 1996: Interrelationships of Fishes (with Lynne R. Parenti and G. David Johnson)
  • 2002: Opulent Oceans: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library
  • 2005: Freshwater Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar: A Conservation Assessment (with Michele L. Thieme, Robin Abell, Paul Skelton, Neil Burgess, Bernhard Lehner, Eric Dinerstein , David Olson, Guy Teugels and Andre Kamdem-Toham)
  • 2007: Poissons D'eaux Douces et Saumatres De Basse Guinee Ouest De l'Afrique Centrale / The Fresh and Brackish Water Fishes of Lower Guinea, West-Central Africa, Volumes 1 and 2 (with Guy Teugels and Carl D. Hopkins)

literature

  • Short biography Melanie Stiassny In: DCG-Info 17 (11) 1986, p. 201
  • Curriculum Vitae (DOC file).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Blaise Li, Agnès Dettaï, Corinne Cruaud, Arnaud Couloux, Martine Desoutter-Meniger, Guillaume Lecointre: RNF213, a new nuclear marker for acanthomorph phylogeny. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 50, Issue 2, February 2009, pp. 345-363 doi : 10.1016 / j.ympev.2008.11.013
  2. ↑ Peter C. Wainwright, W. Leo Smith, Samantha A. Price, Kevin L. Tang, John S. Sparks , Lara A. Ferry, Kristen L. Kuhn, Ron I. Eytan, Thomas J. Near: The Evolution of Pharyngognathy : A Phylogenetic and Functional Appraisal of the Pharyngeal Jaw Key Innovation in Labroid fishes and Beyond. In: Syst Biol. 2012. doi: 10.1093 / sysbio / sys060
personal data
SURNAME Stiassny, Melanie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stiassny, Melanie Lisa Jane (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ichthyologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Bielefeld , Germany