ProfessorRudolf Meier

Lead Department

Rudolf.Meier@mfn.berlin+49 0 30 889 140 - 8378
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Department:
Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery

Rudolf Meier is Professor of Integrative Biodiversity Discovery at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Head of the Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. His work addresses one of the central challenges in biodiversity science: much of life on Earth, especially small and hyperdiverse invertebrates, remains poorly documented, even as ecosystems are changing rapidly. He leads a research centre that combines taxonomy, robotic imaging, machine learning, and nanopore sequencing to accelerate species discovery and make biodiversity monitoring more scalable, reproducible, and evidence-based. By generating robust, specimen-linked data at much larger scales, the Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery aims to close major gaps in our knowledge of biodiversity and provide the information needed for research, conservation, and environmental decision-making.

Publications

Pei, W., Feng, V., Hansen, A.K., Yan, L., Srivathsan, A., Xu, W., Sun, H., Yang, J., Zhang, X., Yang, N., Yuan, Q., Zhang, D., Meier, R. (2024). Megabarcoding reveals a tale of two very different dark taxa along the same elevational gradient [Preprint]. bioRxiv. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.29.591578

Shirali, H., Wührl, L., Lee, L., Klug, N., Meier, R., Pylatiuk, C., Hartop, E. (2025). Automated Specimen Triage for Dark Taxa: Deep Learning Enables Orientation, Sex Identification, and Anatomical Segmentation from Robotic Imaging [Preprint]. bioRxiv. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.02.680063

Lehmitz, R., Hohberg, K., Husemann, M., Peters, R.S., Scheunemann, N., Bálint, M., Balke, M., Bieberich, J., Bista, I., Borsch, T., Bourlat, S.J., Bussmann, R.W., Damm, U., Dey, L.S., Flocco, C.G., Grossart, H.P., Haase, P., Höfer, H., Krashevska, V., Krogmann, L., Lücking, R., Arbizu, P.M., Meier, R., Mengual, X., Mercado-Salas, N.F., Moore, J.M., Orr, M.C., Otte, V., Overmann, J., Pauls, S.U., Pereira, R.J., Peters, J., Potapov, A., Printzen, C., Raub, F., Raupach, M.J., Rduch, V., Retter, A., Von Reumont, B.M., Rossel, S., Schmelz, R.M., Schmitt, T., Scholler, M., Stolle, E., Thines, M., Vasilita, C., Wesener, T., Zahiri, R., Zaitsev, A., Zimmermann, J., Żyła, D., Misof, B., Tockner, K. (2025). Unknown Germany - An integrative biodiversity discovery program. npj Biodiversity, 4(1), 41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-025-00108-3Open Access

Hartop, E., Lee, L., Srivathsan, A., Jones, M., Peña-Aguilera, P., Ovaskainen, O., Roslin, T., Meier, R. (2024). Resolving Biology’s Dark Matter: Species richness, spatiotemporal distribution, and community composition of a dark taxon [Preprint]. Ecology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.07.592951

Vasilita, C., Feng, V., Hansen, A.K., Hartop, E., Srivathsan, A., Struijk, R., Meier, R. (2024). Express barcoding with NextGenPCR and MinION for species-level sorting of ecological samples. Molecular Ecology Resources, 24(3), e13922. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13922Open Access

Klug, N., Kramer, M., Mazrek, F., Wührl, L., Shirali, H., Meier, R., Pylatiuk, C. (2024). Automated Photogrammetric Close-Range Imaging System for Small Invertebrates Using Acoustic Levitation [Preprint]. TechRxiv. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36227/techrxiv.172651022.21831566/v1

Huang, S.Y., Inayoshi, Y., Léger, T., Espeland, M. (2024). The riodinid taxa described by Rudolf Emil Mell (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea, Riodinidae), with notes on related ones. Zootaxa, 5481(5), 591-599. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5481.5.8Open Access

Chisholm, R.A., Kristensen, N.P., Rheindt, F.E., Chong, K.Y., Ascher, J.S., Lim, K.K.P., Ng, P.K.L., Yeo, D.C.J., Meier, R., Tan, H.H., Giam, X., Yeoh, Y.S., Seah, W.W., Berman, L.M., Tan, H.Z., Sadanandan, K.R., Theng, M., Jusoh, W.F.A., Jain, A., Huertas, B., Tan, D.J.X., Ng, A.C.R., Teo, A., Yiwen, Z., Cho, T.J.Y., Sin, Y.C.K. (2023). Two centuries of biodiversity discovery and loss in Singapore. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(51), e2309034120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2309034120Open Access

Meier, R., Lawniczak, M.K., Srivathsan, A. (2024). Illuminating Entomological Dark Matter with DNA Barcodes in an Era of Insect Decline, Deep Learning, and Genomics. Annual Review of Entomology, 70(2025), 185-204. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-040124-014001Open Access

Emerson, B.C., Borges, P.A.V., Cardoso, P., Convey, P., deWaard, J.R., Economo, E.P., Gillespie, R.G., Kennedy, S., Krehenwinkel, H., Meier, R., Roderick, G.K., Strasberg, D., Thébaud, C., Traveset, A., Creedy, T.J., Meramveliotakis, E., Noguerales, V., Overcast, I., Morlon, H., Papadopoulou, A., Vogler, A.P., Arribas, P., Andújar, C. (2023). Collective and harmonized high throughput barcoding of insular arthropod biodiversity: Toward a Genomic Observatories Network for islands. Molecular Ecology, 32(23), 6161-6176. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16683Open Access

Ascenzi, A., Wührl, L., Feng, V., Klug, N., Pylatiuk, C., Cerretti, P., Meier, R. (2025). EntoSieve: Automated Size‐Sorting of Insect Bulk Samples to Aid Accurate Megabarcoding and Metabarcoding. Molecular Ecology Resources, 25(6), e14097. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.14097Open Access

Wührl, L., Keller, L., Klug, N., Shirali, H., Meier, R., Pylatiuk, C. (2024). Automated handling of biological objects with a flexible gripper for biodiversity research. at - Automatisierungstechnik, 72(7), 672-678. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/auto-2023-0238Open Access

Brydegaard, M., Pedales, R.D., Feng, V., Yamoa, A.S.D., Kouakou, B., Månefjord, H., Wührl, L., Pylatiuk, C., Amorim, D.D.S., Meier, R. (2024). Towards global insect biomonitoring with frugal methods. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 379(1904), 20230103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0103Open Access

Rajaratnam, G., Lui, G., Su, K.F.Y., Chew, M.S.J., Ang, Y., Puniamoorthy, N., Rohner, P.T., Blanckenhorn, W.U., Meier, R. (2023). Size rather than complexity of sexual ornaments prolongs male metamorphosis and explains sexual size dimorphism in sepsid flies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290(1998), 20222531. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2531Open Access

Amorim, D.D.S., Oliveira, S.S., Balbi, M.I.P.D.A., Ang, Y., Torres, A., Yeo, D., Srivathsan, A., Meier, R. (2025). An integrative taxonomic treatment of the Mycetophilidae of Singapore reveals 115 new species from just 730 km2 (Diptera: Bibionomorpha). Integrative Systematics: Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History, 8(3), 1 – 318. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18476/2025.979589Open Access

Torres, A., Lee, L., Srivathsan, A., Meier, R. (2025). UITOTO: a software for generating molecular diagnoses for species descriptions. Cladistics, n/a(n/a), cla.70023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.70023Open Access

Meier, R., Hartop, E., Pylatiuk, C., Srivathsan, A. (2024). Towards holistic insect monitoring: species discovery, description, identification and traits for all insects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 379(1904), 20230120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0120Open Access

Suárez, D., Arribas, P., Srivathsan, A., Meier, R., Emerson, B.C. (2024). Environmental heterogeneity, rather than stability, explains spider assemblage differences between ecosystems. Ecography, 2025(1), e07454. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07454Open Access

Höpel, C.G., Yeo, D., Ahyong, S.T., Meier, R., Richter, S. (2023). First mitochondrial genomes of Anaspidacea (Malacostraca, Crustacea) and the phylogenetic relationships of mountain shrimps ( Anaspides Thomson, 1894) and their relatives within Anaspidesidae. Journal of Crustacean Biology, 43(2), ruad028. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jcbiol/ruad028Open Access

Wührl, L., Rotmann, K., Meier, R., Hartop, E., Klug, N., Pylatiuk, C. (2023). DiversityScanner-360°: An Automated System for Digitizing Invertebrate Bulk Samples. 2023 3rd International Conference on Robotics, Automation and Artificial Intelligence (RAAI), 226-230. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/RAAI59955.2023.10601274

Wührl, L., Rettenberger, L., Meier, R., Hartop, E., Graf, J., Pylatiuk, C. (2024). Entomoscope: An Open-Source Photomicroscope for Biodiversity Discovery. IEEE Access, 12, 11785-11794. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3355272Open Access

Gustafsson, D.R., Lee, L., Grossi, A.A., Zou, F., Tan, D.J.X., Song, H.W., Meier, R. (2025). From host to host, and continent to continent: Two phoresy-enabled Guimaraesiella hitchhiker louse species revealed by integrative taxonomy (Phthiraptera: Ischnocera).. Medical and veterinary entomology, mve.70045. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mve.70045

Lee, L., Oboňa, J., Lee, Y.X., Lee, K.T., Puniamoorthy, J., Tan, L.Y.K., Choo, R., Tan, D.J.X., Kwak, M., Ang, Y., Meier, R. (2025). Avian Afterlives: Integrative Taxonomy of Hippoboscid Flies (Diptera) From Citizen‐Reported Bird Carcasses Reveals a New Species and Host–Parasite Diversity in Singapore. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research, 2025(1), 8819646. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1155/jzs/8819646Open Access

French, C.M., Bertola, L.D., Carnaval, A.C., Economo, E.P., Kass, J.M., Lohman, D.J., Marske, K.A., Meier, R., Overcast, I., Rominger, A.J., Staniczenko, P.P.A., Hickerson, M.J. (2023). Global determinants of insect mitochondrial genetic diversity. Nature Communications, 14(1), 5276. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40936-0Open Access

Srivathsan, A., Lee, L., Feng, V., Meier, R. (2025). Integrative Taxonomy: From FASTA Pain to Species Gain with the interactive “IntegraTax” [Preprint]. Zoology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.64898/2025.12.22.695429

Leibniz Research Network Biodiversity, Thonicke, K., Rahner, E., Arneth, A., Bonn, A., Borchard, N., Chaudhary, A., Darbi, M., Dutta, T., Eberle, U., Eisenhauer, N., Farwig, N., Flocco, C.G., Freitag, J., Grobe, P., Grosch, R., Grossart, H.P., Grosse, A., Grützmacher, K., Hagemann, N., Hansjürgens, B., Hartman Scholz, A., Hassenrück, C., Häuser, C., Hickler, T., Hölker, F., Jacob, U., Jähnig, S., Jürgens, K., Kramer-Schadt, S., Kretsch, C., Krug, C., Lindner, J.P., Loft, L., Mann, C., Matzdorf, B., Mehring, M., Meier, R., Meusemann, K., Müller, D., Nieberg, M., Overmann, J., Peters, R.S., Pörtner, L.M., Pradhan, P., Prochnow, A., Rduch, V., Reyer, C.P.O., Roos, C., Scherber, C., Scheunemann, N., Schroer, S., Schuck, A., Sioen, G.B., Sommer, S., Sommerwerk, N., Tanneberger, F., Tockner, K., van der Voort, H., Veenstra, T., Verburg, P.H., Voss, M., Warner, B., Wende, W., Wesche, K. (2024). 10 Must Knows from Biodiversity Science 2024.. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.10837769Open Access

Meier, R., Srivathsan, A., Oliveira, S., Balbi, M., Y, A., Yeo, D., Kjærandsen, J., de Souza Amorim, D. (2025). “Dark taxonomy”: A new protocol for overcoming the taxonomic impediments for dark taxa and broadening the taxon base for biodiversity assessment. Cladistics, 223–238. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12609Open Access

Srivathsan, A., Loh, R.K., Ong, E.J., Lee, L., Ang, Y., Kutty, S.N., Meier, R. (2023). Network analysis with either Illumina or MinION reveals that detecting vertebrate species requires metabarcoding of iDNA from a diverse fly community. Molecular Ecology, 32(23), 6418-6435. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16767Open Access

Srivathsan, A., Feng, V., Suárez, D., Emerson, B., Meier, R. (2023). ONTbarcoder 2.0: rapid species discovery and identification with real-time barcoding facilitated by Oxford Nanopore R10.4. Cladistics, 40(2), 192-203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12566Open Access

Ip, Y.C.A., Chang, J.J.M., Tun, K.P.P., Meier, R., Huang, D. (2023). Multispecies environmental DNA metabarcoding sheds light on annual coral spawning events. Molecular Ecology, 32(23), 6474-6488. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16621Open Access

Andriienko, V., Buczek, M., Meier, R., Srivathsan, A., Łukasik, P., Kolasa, M.R. (2024). Implementing high-throughput insect barcoding in microbiome studies: impact of non-destructive DNA extraction on microbiome reconstruction [Preprint]. Microbiology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.30.591865

Eltz, T., Kimm, H.L., Böddicker, R., Sigl, M., Meier, R., Virgo, J. (2025). Look up! Stratification and vertical approach to auditory prey cues in frog-biting midges (Corethrellidae). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 13, 1705905. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2025.1705905

Chua, P.Y., Bourlat, S.J., Ferguson, C., Korlevic, P., Zhao, L., Ekrem, T., Meier, R., Lawniczak, M.K. (2023). Future of DNA-based insect monitoring. Trends in Genetics, 39(7), 531-544. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2023.02.012

Ascenzi, A., Wührl, L., Feng, V., Klug, N., Pylatiuk, C., Cerretti, P., Meier, R. (2024). EntoSieve: automated size-sorting of insect bulk samples to aid accurate megabarcoding and metabarcoding [Preprint]. Authorea. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.172769814.48739807/v1Open Access

Srivathsan, A., Ang, Y., Heraty, J.M., Hwang, W.S., Jusoh, W.F.A., Kutty, S.N., Puniamoorthy, J., Yeo, D., Roslin, T., Meier, R. (2023). Convergence of dominance and neglect in flying insect diversity. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 7(7), 1012-1021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02066-0Open Access

Loh, R.K., Kutty, S.N., Yeo, D.C.J., Meier, R. (2023). Toward eDNA‐based bioassessment of freshwater reservoirs with small volumes of water: Robust molecular protocols. Environmental DNA, 5(2), 264–281. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.373Open Access

Hartop, E., Lee, L., Srivathsan, A., Jones, M., Peña-Aguilera, P., Ovaskainen, O., Roslin, T., Meier, R. (2024). Resolving biology’s dark matter: species richness, spatiotemporal distribution, and community composition of a dark taxon. BMC Biology, 22(1), 215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-024-02010-zOpen Access

Cerretti, P., Nania, D., Di Marco, M., Meier, R., Ascenzi, A., Evenhuis, N., Pape, T. (2025). Declining rates of species description call for improved taxonomic strategies: Insights from a megadiverse insect order. Systematic Entomology, e70019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.70019

Srivathsan, A., Meier, R. (2024). Scalable, Cost-Effective, and Decentralized DNA Barcoding with Oxford Nanopore Sequencing. In DeSalle, R. (Hrsg.), DNA Barcoding (223-238). New York, NY: Springer Nature. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3581-0_14

Amorim, D.D.S., Oliveira, S.S., Balbi, M.I.P.A., Ang, Y., Torres, A., Yeo, D., Srivathsan, A., Meier, R. (2023). An integrative taxonomic treatment of the Mycetophilidae (Diptera: Bibionomorpha) from Singapore reveals 115 new species on 730km2 [Preprint]. bioRxiv. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.02.555672