Philippe Kok

Background

About Philippe Kok

Herpetologist, evolutionary biologist and hardcore field biologist. I am currently associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Vertebrate Zoology at the University of Łódź (Poland). My doctoral thesis, on the systematics and evolutionary biology of amphibians and reptiles in the Pantepui biogeographical region (the Guiana Shield highlands), was defended at Leiden University (the Netherlands) in 2013. My research projects and teaching made me travel from the Neotropical jungles to the highest and remotest tepui (sandstone table mountains) summits, the famous "Lost World" of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although my current research activities mainly focus on population genomics, population dynamics, and spatial ecology of amphibians and reptiles (mainly across table mountains in Pantepui), a large part of my research is still dedicated to the systematics and taxonomy of amphibians and reptiles of the Guiana Shield. I chair the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group for the Guiana Shield. I published 80+ refereed papers in primary journals and books (including high ranked international journals such as Current Biology, Scientific Reports, Journal of Biogeography, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, PlosOne, PlosGenetics, etc.) and described 50 new taxa of amphibians and reptiles so far