Leonie Schardt

My name is Leonie and I am currently doing my Master’s in the AG of Professor Scheu. For my Master thesis, I am investigating the reproductive strategy of the termite Drepanotermes tamminensis via Next Generation Sequencing, advised by Bastian and Tamara. Other than that, I help around in the lab with different projects, and have done a few Hiwi-Jobs here and there to get to know as much about lab work as I can.

Structure of the oribatid mite genus Nanhermannia

This was the first Hiwi-Job I had in the group, working out and optimizing the amplification and sequencing of difficult markers for the asexual Oribatida genus Nanhermannia. Because of the close morphological resemblance some of the species have, it is really difficult to tell them apart, and we needed to look deeper, into the molecular background of the genus. We have collected a lot of data on them and I hope to be publishing something about them soon.

Something I have not done yet but really want to: learn how to extract and handle environmental DNA!

Something personal: I love animals and video games.

If I was not on this career path, what would I be: Pro-Gamer 😉