Research mission

Biodiversity and evolutionary research at the Museum für Naturkunde is using two different approaches. Research projects with a taxonomic-systematic focus are the domain of the biosystematists, who serve as a kind of „surveyors of nature“ and who describe new species (taxonomy), their relationships (systematics), their geographic distribution and their ecology. Biosystematic and evolutionary biology centred projects on the other hand are primarily concerned with the evolutionary history of the different groups of animals and plants and aim to unravel the responsible mechanisms, thus studying directly the phenomenon of evolution.

Our research uses innovative methods within the fields of genetics, cladistics and bioinformatics as well as classic biosystematic approaches which stood the test of time. The times when taxonomists and systematics were denounced as “dryballs” just counting legs and wings of animals are long gone. The methodological repertoire of those scientists working in biodiversity research and evolutionary biology today includes molecular genetics in the lab and elaborate data analyses with specialized software capable of dealing with large amounts of data.

One thing remains unchanged, though, despite all the developments and revolutions in this field of science: the description and inventory of biodiversity is still a central and important research topic in natural history museums. Only those animal or plant species which we know properly, i.e. which are already described scientifically, can be effectively protected (or combated). Consequently, it comes as no surprise that the description of and research on new species remains one of the most important tasks of the Berlin Museum für Naturkunde .