Jan W. (Pim) Arntzen

I started my career as a herpetologist at young age when joining the "Amsterdam Zoological Museum", where I obtained a PhD.-degree in 1991. Projects till that time include a survey of amphibians in France, the autecology of the Golden-striped salamander in Portugal, the historical biogeography of European Fire-bellied toads and the evolutionary history of Triturus newts. I then had post-doc positions in England and Wales where I picked up some population genetics, and a visiting professorship in Portugal. Thirteen years ago I returned to my home country to become researcher / curator at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (= National Museum of Natural History) at Leiden, The Netherlands. I am also contributing to the MSc.-curriculum at the Free University in Brussels. My main interests are at the interface of systematics and evolutionary biology, for example hybrid zones. I am particularly pleased to be witnessing during my lifetime the transformation of biogeography from a descriptive discipline to full-blown science and the promise of a fully resolved Tree of Life, all thanks to advances in molecular genetics.

More information here.

"From historical biogeography and shifting range borders to phylogeography and dispersal" (abstract)