Larry Antonio Jiménez Ferbans (he/him)
Professor Larry Antonio Jiménez Ferbans is a biologist who works on the systematics, biogeography, and biodiversity of Coleoptera in tropical environments. His interests focus on the phylogeny, patterns of geographic distribution, and endemism of the beetle family Passalidae, as well as the documentation of evolutionary processes that support the diversification of beetles in rainforests and mountainous environments. Passalidae is a beetle family that is ecologically important for facilitating the conversion of deadwood into soil and nutrients. They are also biologically interesting in that they live in association with a complex microflora/fauna that inhabits both their digestive tract (fungi, microbes, etc) as well as their galleries (mites, nematodes, etc). These beetles are perhaps best known however for their complex social biology that includes parental care and auditory communication.
Dr. Jiménez had postdoctoral training at Oregon State University (OSU), where he worked with Drs. Christopher Marshall, Felipe Barreto, and Molly Burke, employing RADSeq genomic methods to determine the genetic diversity and relatedness in a tropical species, within and between colonies in a single population, and between separate populations. These analyses established the number of parental lines within a colony, and estimated the level of gene flow within and between populations. These studied provided useful information, which can now be used to model the connection between populations and to evaluate the impact of transformation/degradation processes in tropical forests.
Currently, Dr. Jiménez is an Associate Professor at the Universidad del Magdalena, Colombia.