Bachelor degree in Biology at the University of Siena. PhD in Animal Biology at the University of Siena. Visiting fellow at the Cornell Medical College and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Connecticut.

Teaching assignments: Zoology, Evolutionary Biology, Population Genetics, Molecular Evolution and Phylogenetics.

Main research interests: Population genetics of Collembola: detection of taxonomic differences, species boundaries and the interpretation of historical and biogeographic processes. Molecular evolution and phylogeny of arthropods: reconstructing the phylogenetic position of basal hexapods. Molecular evolution of the mitochondrial genome: mechanisms of genomic evolution (base composition, gene order, heteroplasmy) and phylogenetic significance. Origin, biology and evolution of Antarctic Collembola: effects of the environmental conditions on the genetic structure of populations, their genetic differentiation, and the potential contribution to speciation. Population genetics of the olive fly: identification of the geographic origin of the species, genetic characterization of the populations from the Mediterranean area, and the historical processes leading to the invasion of the Mediterranean area. Effects of the presence of the endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis: molecular identification in Collembola, study of the effects on their reproductive processes and potential means of transmission. Comparative spermatology of insects: reconstruction of phylogenetic trees on the basis of sperm ultrastructural characters, mapping of major ultrastructural models on the phylogenetic trees.

Convey P., Chown S.L., Clarke A., Barnes D.K.A., Bokhorst S., Cummings V., Ducklow H.W., Frati F., Green T.G., Gordon S., Griffiths H.J., Howard-Williams C., Huiskes A.H.L., Laybourn-Parry J., Berry Lyons W., McMinn A., Morley S.A., Pek L.S., Quesada A., Robinson S.A., Schiapparelli S., Wall D.H. (2014) The spatial structure of Antarctic biodiversity. Ecological Monographs, 84: 203-244.

Nardi F., Carapelli A., Boore J., Roderick G.K., Dallai R., Frati F. (2010) Domestication of olive fly through a multi-regional host shift to cultivated olives: comparative dating using complete mitochondrial genomes. Mol. Phylog. Evol., 57: 678-686.

Simon C., Buckley T.R., Frati F., Stewart J.B., Beckenbach A.T. (2006) Incorporating molecular evolution into phylogenetic analysis, and a new compilation of conserved Polymerase Chain Reaction primers for animal mitochondrial DNA. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 37: 545-579.

Nardi F., Spinsanti G., Boore J.L., Carapelli A., Dallai R., Frati F. (2003) Hexapod origins: monophyletic or polyphyletic? Science, 299: 1887-1889.

Frati F., Simon C., Sullivan J., Swofford D.L. (1997) Evolution of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase II gene in Collembola. J. Mol. Evol., 44: 143-158.