Ljiljana Šašić Zorić

Position:Research associate

Academic Rank: Research associate in the field of natural/mathematical sciences - biology

Dr Ljiljana Šašič Zorić is a senior researcher at the BioSense Institute with expertise in genetics. Ljiljana received PhD degree in biology in 2018 from Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad. She is particularly oriented on application of mitochondrial and nuclear sequence based molecular markers in genetic analyses, identification and delimitation of European insect species. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with DNA laboratory of Finnish museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki where she gained additional experience in molecular taxonomy of hoverflies. In 2017, her research concerning influence of endosymbiotic bacteria on evolutionary dynamic of mitochondrial genes was granted by the Entomological Society of Helsinki and the Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica. Her project “Genomic approach in hoverfly biodiversity assessment – next-generation DNA barcoding” was awarded the 100-year anniversary grant of the Entomological Society of Helsinki in 2019. Ljiljana is informal member of the genetic research team at Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad, as well as coordinator of research activities at the Valentis Center for Behavioral Research, Bačka Palanka.

Center:

CBS

Themes:

1. Population genetics

2. DNA barcoding

3. Government

Projects:

1. DRAGON -Data Driven Precision Agriculture Services and Skill Acquisition

2. Conservation strategy for protected and strictly protected hoverfly (Insecta: Diptera: Syrphidae) species in Serbia – Case study

3. Soil Health Guards – Cultivating Soil Connectivity: Empowering Farmers and Youth Community as Citizen Scientists to Monitor Soil Health and Biodiversity

Publications:

1. Ljiljana Šašić, Jelena Ačanski, Ante Vujić, Gunilla Ståhls, Snežana Radenković, Dubravka Milić, Dragana Obreht Vidaković, Mihajla Đan (2016) Molecular and morphological inference of three cryptic species within the Merodon aureus species group (Diptera: Syrphidae). PLoS ONE 11(8): e0160001. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0160001
2. Jelena Preradović, Andrijana Andrić, Snežana Radenković, Ljiljana Šašić Zorić, Celeste Pérez-Bañón, Andrés Campoy, Ante Vujić (2018) Pupal stages of three species of the phytophagous genus Merodon Meigen (Diptera: Syrphidae). Zootaxa, 4420(2): 229–242. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4420.2.5
3. Ljiljana Šašić Zorić, Gunilla Ståhls, Mihajla Đan (2019) First record of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia for phytophagous hoverflies from genus Merodon (Diptera, Syrphidae). Entomological Science, 22: 283–296. doi:10.1111/ens.12361
4. Antonia Chroni, Milomir Stefanović, Mihajla Djan, Ante Vujić, Ljiljana Šašić Zorić, Nataša Kočiš Tubić, Theodora Petanidou (2019) Connecting the dots: Bridging genetic and spatial differentiation of the genus Eumerus (Diptera: Syrphidae) in the Mediterranean Basin and Balkans. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research, 57(4): 822–839. doi:10.1111/jzs.12300
5. Gunilla Ståhls, Rudolf Meier, Christoph Sandrock, Martin Hauser, Ljiljana Šašić Zorić, Elina Laiho, Andrea Aracil, Jovana Doderović, Rozane Badenhorst, Phira Unadirekkul, Nur Arina Binte Mohd Adom, Leo Wein, Cameron Richards, Jeffery K. Tomberlin, Santos Rojo, Sanja Veselić, Tuure Parviainen (2020) The puzzling mitochondrial phylogeography of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens), the commercially most important insect protein species. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 20(60). doi:10.1186/s12862-020-01627-2