The OD T&Ph has taxonomic expertise on many animal groups worldwide, and from all ecosystems.
Yet, there is a particularly strong expertise with respect to vertebrates, holothurians (sea cucumbers), gastropods, crustaceans, dipterans, hymenopterans, carabid beetles, spiders, oligochaetes, nematodes, and poriferans (sponges).
Geographical areas of taxonomical expertise are the fauna of Belgium and of other regions of the world such as Africa (great lakes, fauna of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), S and SE Asia (Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal),
South America (Galapagos Islands Brazil), Russia (Lake Baïkal) and Antarctica (Southern Ocean).
Researchers of the OD T&Ph are active as legal experts with respect to the implementation of the CITES rules and contribute to several European biodiversity-related initiatives such as SYNTHESYS, CETAF, Fauna Europea and SciColl.
The OD T&Ph is also coordinating the “Distributed European School of Taxonomy (DEST: http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/)”.
Together with the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA, Tervuren, Belgium), the OD T&Ph runs the “Joint Experimental Molecular Unit” (JEMU: http://jemu.myspecies.info/), a research team financed by the Belgian Science Policy Department (BELSPO)
dedicated to DNA barcoding, molecular systematics and the analysis of DNA from museum samples.
As such, JEMU is shared by both institutions and effectively integrates their DNA facilities. In this capacity, JEMU also manages the activities of the FWO research community “Belgian Network for DNA Barcoding” (http://bebol.myspecies.info/).
In the same spirit, the OD T&Ph works closely together with RMCA in the context of the “Congo Biodiversity Initiative” (CBI), a research platform financed by BELSPO and the Belgian Development Cooperation,
CBI focuses on the conservation, protection, sustainable use, and study of the unique biodiversity of the Congo basin.
In this context, the OD T&Ph is strongly involved in the establishment of the “Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversité” in Kisangani (DRC) and in the organisation of field expeditions in the DR Congo.
Many of the research topics of the OD T&Ph are strongly linked to the zoological collections of the RBINS, and as such the OD T&Ph is strongly involved in the enrichment, the management and the exploitation of the collections
(in collaboration with the scientific service “Patrimony”).
Consequently, the OD T&Ph has a sound expertise in the area of natural history collections
