A long and winding but exciting road: Biodiversity, phylogenetic, and biogeographic relationships of ascidians in the Southwest Atlantic

Abstract

Ascidians have been a constant presence throughout my scientific journey. From my undergraduate thesis in Biological Sciences to the early years of my research career, I have heard the weirdest species names and been engaged in taxonomic discussions countless times. I think it comes naturally when you are part of a research group that studies ascidians from both polar regions and southern South America. My specific expertise, however, revolved around population genetics and phylogeny of limpets and other mollusks and it was only a few years ago that I stumbled into the study of tunicates and the reason was quite by chance. I obtained my PhD in Biological Science in 2011 in the University of Córdoba (Argentina) and continued my postdoc distanced from tunicates. Nowadays, I hold a full-time researcher position at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET, Argentina). Over my academic life, I have had the opportunity to work as visiting scientist several times at the Alfred Wegner Institute (Germany) and the University of Ghent (Belgium)...