PhD defense of Philipp Ginal
Philipp Ginal has just very successfully defended his PhD thesis!
“Invasion biology of amphibians and reptiles: From observations to predictive spatial models”
His thesis entitled “Invasion biology of amphibians and reptiles: From observations to predictive spatial models” comprises six publications. Overall, his thesis is broadly folded, and comprises several target species across different taxonomic groups (i.e., anurans, urodeles, squamates), scales (i.e., local, regional, macro-ecological landscapes), and methodological approaches (i.e., population size estimation, connectivity modeling, correlative and mechanistic species distribution modeling, mechanistic quantification of activity time budgets). The focus of my thesis relies on the methodological approaches and therefore, the red line here starts with relatively simple models and ends with a novel, complex mechanistic approach.
Furthermore, three publications consider the African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis (Daudin, 1802), which is among the most invasive amphibian species in the world.
Two further publications focus on the Oriental Garden Lizard, Calotes versicolor (Daudin, 1802) complex, a wide-spread but neglected invader with potential negative impacts, and the Italian Cave Salamander, Speleomantes italicus (Dunn, 1923), which is non-native but locally very restricted with no known negative impacts yet. Another publication considers the invasive fungal disease Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans Martel et al. 2013 (Bsal), which has substantial negative impacts on macro-ecological scales, and one of its host species, the European Fire Salamander, Salamandra salamandra (Linnaeus, 1758).
These papers are already published and included in the thesis:
Ginal, P., N. Kruger, C. Wagener, L. Araspin, M. Mokhatla, J. Secondi, A. Herrel, J. Measey, and D. Rödder. 2023. More time for aliens? Performance shifts lead to increased activity time budgets propelling invasion success. Biological Invasions 25: 267–283. (PDF)
Ginal, P., W. C. Tan, and D. Rödder. 2022. Invasive risk assessment and expansion of the realized niche of the Calotes versicolor species complex (Daudin, 1802). Frontiers of Biogeography 14.3, e54299. (PDF)
Ginal, P., M. Mokhatla, N. Kruger, J. Secondi, A. Herrel, J. Measey, and D. Rödder. 2021. Ecophysiological models for global invaders: Is Europe a big playground for the African clawed frog? Journal of Experimental Zoology – Part A: Ecological and Integrative Physiology 2020: 158-172. (PDF)
Ginal, P. C.-H. Loske, T. Hörren and D. Rödder. 2021. Cave salamanders (Speleomantes spp.) in Germany: tentative species identification, estimation of population size and first insights into an introduced salamander. Herpetology Notes 14: 815-822. (PDF)
Ginal, P., F. D. Moreira, R. Marques, R. Rebelo, and D. Rödder. 2021. Predicting terrestrial dispersal corridors of the invasive African clawed frog Xenopus laevis in Portugal. NeoBiota 64: 103–118. (PDF)