Dr Vladimir Blagoderov
Specific responsibility: Head of Invertebrate collections. Curation and development of the collection of marine and terrestrial invertebrates, including insects.
Research interests/expertise: Taxonomy of fungus gnats (Diptera: Sciaroidea); systematics, phylogeny and palaeontology of true flies (Insecta: Diptera); biodiversity informatics.
Dr Blagoderov studied zoology at the St-Petersburg State University and got his PhD from the Palaeontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences where he focused on the taxonomy, geological history, and phylogeny of Mesozoic fungus gnats (Insecta: Diptera, Mycetophilidae). After completing several postdoctoral projects at the American Museum of Natural History, the Virginia Museum of Natural History, and Iowa State University he joined the Natural History Museum, London in 2006. He currently oversees the largest collection at National Museums Scotland, compromising around 6,000,000 specimens of marine and terrestrial invertebrates and insects.
Dr Blagoderov is fascinated by the immense diversity of flies, their natural history and evolution. His primary research interests centre on fungus gnats (Diptera: Sciaroidea). They have remarkable biology (although larvae of most species are associated with fungi, some can be predacious, herbivorous, or even parasitic) and a very long geological history, which make them a perfect subject for the study of evolution. His projects include studying the diversity of fungus gnats in tropical Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and the UK; describing new species of flies found in Mesozoic ambers; and investigating the phylogeny of Sciaroidea.
Dr Blagoderov is also active in a new field of biodiversity informatics. The way taxonomists work describing and classifying new taxa has not changed much in 250 years, since the time of Linnaeus and Dr Blagoderov works with colleagues all around the world to consolidate taxonomic data and develop tools that facilitate more efficient description and classification of both recent and fossil biodiversity. By doing so, he seeks to enhance our understanding of biodiversity dynamics.
He is an associate editor of Zootaxa, ZooKeys and Biodiversity Data Journal, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Microscopical Society.
Selected publications
Zhang, Q., Krzemiński, W., Ševčík, J., Blagoderov, V., Soszyńska, A. and Skibińska, K. 2024. Flat-footed Females and Missing Males: A New Genus and Species of Pleciofungivoridae (Diptera: Bibionomorpha) Represents the First Record of the Family from Mid-Cretaceous Kachin Amber. Acta Geologica Sinica (English Edition) 98 (3): 541–547. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-6724.15173
Blagoderov, V. 2023. Two new species of Lygistorrhina (Probolaeus) Williston (Diptera: Keroplatidae: Lygistorrhininae) from the Dominican Republic. Studia Dipterologica, Supplement 23: 175-187.
Arce, A.N., Cantwell-Jones, A., Tansley, M., Barnes, I., Brace, S., Mullin, V.E., Notton, D., Ollerton, J., Eatough, E., Rhodes, M.W., Bian, X., Hogan, J., Hunter, T., Jackson, S., Whiffin, A., Blagoderov, V., Broad, G., Judd, S., Kokkini, P., Livermore, L., Dixit, M.K., Pearse, W.D., Gill, R.J. 2022. Signatures of increasing environmental stress in bumblebee wings over the past century: Insights from museum specimens. Journal of Animal Ecology: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13788
Mantič, M., Sikora, T., Burdíková, N., Blagoderov, V., Kjærandsen, J., Kurina, O. & Ševčík, J. 2020. Hidden in Plain Sight: Comprehensive Molecular Phylogeny of Keroplatidae and Lygistorrhinidae (Diptera) Reveals Parallel Evolution and Leads to a Revised Family Classification. Insects 11, 348. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11060348
Lambkin C.L., Sinclair B.J., Pape T., Courtney G.W., Skevington J.H., Meier R., Yeates D.K., Blagoderov V.A., Wiegmann B.M. 2013. The phylogenetic relationships among infraorders and superfamilies of Diptera based on morphological evidence. Systematic Entomology 38: 164–179. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3113.2012.00652.x
Pape T., Blagoderov V.A., Mostovski M.B. 2011. Order Diptera Linnaeus, 1758. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. Zootaxa 3148: 222–229.
Wiegmann B.M., Trautwein M.D., Winkler I.S., Barr N.B., Kim J.-W., Lambkin C., Bertone M.A., Cassel B.K., Bayless K.M., Heimberg A.M., Wheeler B.M., Peterson K.J., Pape T., Sinclair B.J., Skevington J.H., Blagoderov V., Caravas J., Kutty S.N., Schmidt-Ott U., Kampmeier G.E., Thompson F.C., Grimaldi D.A., Beckenbach A.T., Courtney G.W., Friedrich M., Meier R., Yeates D.K. 2011. Episodic radiations in the fly tree of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108: 5690–5695. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1012675108
Blagoderov V.A., Grimaldi D.A., Fraser N.C. 2007. How Time Flies for Flies: Diverse Diptera from the Triassic of Virginia and Early Radiation of the Order. American Museum Novitates 3572: 1–40.
Blagoderov V.A., Lukashevich E.D., Mostovski M.B. 2002. 2.2.1.3.4.4. Order Diptera Linné. The true flies. In: Rasnitsyn AP, Quicke DLJ (Eds) History of Insects. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London: 227–240.
Shcherbakov D.E., Lukashevich E.D., Blagoderov V.A. 1995. Triassic Diptera and initial radiation of the order. Dipterolodical Research 6: 75–115.
For further publications see the National Museums Scotland Research Repository.