About Dr Sven Bradler

Dr Sven Bradler was born in Holzminden in 1971, studied chemistry at the Technical University of Hanover after graduating from high school in 1991 and moved to the Georg-August University of Göttingen in the winter semester of 1993, where he has been learning, researching and teaching ever since. The change of location also brought about a reorientation in terms of content, and from then on Mr Bradler devoted himself to biology, with a focus on zoology and entomology. In 1999 he wrote his diploma thesis on the comparative morphology of stick insects and ghost insects in the Department of Morphology, Systematics and Evolutionary Biology of the Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach-Institute of Zoology and Anthropology under the direction of Prof. Dr Rainer Willmann. Since then, the stick insects or Phasmatodea have served Mr Bradler as a model system for a broad spectrum of evolutionary biological research fields. In addition to phylogeny, systematics and taxonomy, these include biogeography, adaptive radiation on islands - for example Madagascar, the Mascarine Islands, New Caledonia and New Zealand -the associated evolution of convergent forms, the diversity of reproductive strategies, the re-evolution of lost traits - for example flight ability and certain sensory bristles. Last but not least, his research interests also include palaeontology.

In all these areas, Mr Bradler has published in a number of internationally visible and highly regarded journals. He is also the author of book chapters and some popular science books. From 2003 to 2009, Mr Bradler worked in the Department of Neurobiology with Prof. Dr Norbert Elsner. In his doctorate in 2006 he reconstructed the phylogeny of Phasmatodea using anatomical characters. In the following years, he increasingly expanded his research activities, which were originally purely morphologically orientated, by using molecular biological methods. Nowadays he always pursues a targeted combination of both methods.

Currently, Dr Bradler is coordinating an extensive stick insect transcriptome analysis within the 1kite project ("1k insect transcriptome evolution", Bonn-Peking). In 2010 he returned to the Department of Morphology, Systematics and Evolutionary Biology. After successful habilitation in 2015, Mr Bradler received the venia legendi in zoology from the University of Göttingen. Mr Bradler is co-editor of numerous journals, such as Subject Editor for Insecta at "Zoologischer Anzeiger", at "ZooKeys" and Editor for Ecology and Evolution at "Scientific Reports" and "Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution" (as Guest Editor). Since 2012 he has been section spokesman in the Zoological Systematics section of the DZG (German Zoological Society) and since 2015 he has been a member of the senate of the University of Göttingen. Recently, Mr Bradler received one of the renowned Heisenberg scholarships from the DFG (German Research Foundation), which will allow him to intensify his research activities in the coming years.