Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig
Adenauerallee 127
53113 Bonn
Germany

b.huber@leibniz-zfmk.de

Personal data

1967 Born in Austria
1970-1976 Residence in Bogotá, Colombia
1978-1986 Secondary school in Austria
1986-1991 Studies of biology, University of Vienna
1991-1994 PhD thesis, University of Vienna
1995-1997 Postdoctoral studies in Costa Rica
1997-2000 Postdoctoral studies in New York
2001 Research assistant at the University of Vienna
2002- Research scientist at the Museum Koenig, Bonn

Scientific background, awards and grants (selection)

1992 - 1994: PhD thesis at the University of Vienna, on the function and evolution of genitalia in spiders
1995 - 1997: Postdoctoral research with W. G. Eberhard at the University of Costa Rica, funded by two Erwin Schrödinger stipends from the FWF (Sexual selection and spider genitalia)
1997-2000: Postdoctoral research with N. I. Platnick at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, funded by a Theodore Roosevelt Fellowship (1997), a P. J. Solomon Fellowship (1998), and a Kalbfleisch Research Fellowship (1999) (Revisions and phylogenetic analyses of New World and Australian pholcid spiders)
1997: Award of a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowship (Washington D.C.) (not accepted for reasons of overlap)
2001: FWF Research Project "Phylogeny of pholcid spiders" at the University of Vienna
2001: Promotion Prizes of the Austrian Entomological Society and of the Upper Austrian Government
since 2002: Eight DFG grants, Invited talks at the BEE Seminar in Basel, at the Meeting of Latin American Arachnologists in São Pedro, Brazil, at the International Congress of Arachnology, Ghent, at the International Congress of Zoology, Paris
2019: Brignoli Award from the International Society of Arachnology

Peer reviews for

Research interests

1. The function and evolution of genitalia, with an emphasis on spider genitalia. The combination of freeze fixation and histological serial sectioning of spiders imbedded in epoxy resin provides a wealth of new data on the functional morphology of genitalic structures. Character mapping on cladograms and morphometric analyses offer additional insights into the selective pressures that shape genitalia.

2. The phylogeny and taxonomy of pholcid spiders. The ultimate goal of this line of research is a complete revision of the entire family at the level of genera. Major recent projects were Pholcus and close relatives, Southeast Asian and Brazilian taxa, and Smeringopinae. My current emphasis is on Ninetinae.

3. The effects of biases and constraints in taxonomic work on our understanding of species and biodiversity, variation in species-specific characters, sexual selection in spiders, and in particular, selection acting on spider genitalia.

Teaching

The Musuem Koenig is intimately tied to the University of Bonn. For a few years, I gave a course on spiders; each year the students continued to build a key to Central European spiders. This course has been temporarily discontinued. Currently I give a course on Arthropods, together with colleagues at ZFMK.