Daniel Marquina, PhD

I am a molecular ecologist interested in studying the diversity, functioning, and structure of ecosystems through the analysis of DNA. Although I look at ecosystems as a whole, invertebrates in particular have always attracted my attention the most.

I am specialised in metabarcoding, a technique that allows fast and reliable identification of the species present in any sample composed of a mix of species (eDNA or bulk samples). This is done via the amplification of species-specific genetic sequences that are then compared with well-curated databases. I am mostly interested in using metabarcoding to investigate species interactions like, for instance, food web configuration, parasitism, or inter-species responses to environmental change.

Nowadays I am a postdoc at the Clare lab at York University in Toronto (Canada), where I continue doing method development for appliying metabarcoding to understand species interaction networks. I graduated from my PhD on 2020, which I did in the Ronquist lab at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. My project consisted in optimising metabarcoding protocols to accelerate and facilitate insect biodiversity studies. Prior to that, I got a MSc in Evolutionary Biology, and for three years I studied the diversity and systematics of polyclad flatworms with Carolina Noreña at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. Also, during the last year of my bachelor I did an internship at the Depatment of Zoology with Prof. Fernando Pardos at the Complutense University of Madrid, in collaboration with the University of Seville, studying spatial ecology of meiofauna.