Nikol Kmentova

Nikol Kmentová is a parasitologist and a freshwater biologist fascinated by the tremendous diversity of invertebrate life since the beginning of her scientific journey. She has been involved in a number of projects studying morphological and genetic diversity, community composition, population structure and demographic history of various aquatic taxa.

 

Function

Currently, Nikol works as a FED-tWIN researcher jointly at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and Hasselt University (UHasselt). In this role, she is dedicated to develop a reproducible pipeline to monitor health status and ecosystem changes African wetlands including different components. The long-term tradition in both fundamental and applied biodiversity research and experience with capacity building and policy implementation at both institutions provide an ideal environment for such platform.

Research team: Freshwater Biology
Research theme: Evolution and the Web of Life  &  Biodiversity in a changing world

 

Current Project(s)

PhD fellowship of the Special Research Fund of Hasselt University (68.000 EUR), Mr. Lucas Van Passel, topic: The pathogenic landscape of mangrove forests: impacts of overfishing on disease vectors, duration: November 2024 – September 2025 (*co-supervisor)

Research project (Belgian Defence, 444.000 EUR), topic: Food-borne detection of high risk consumption pathways of Cholera outbreaks: present and future (“RiskCho”), duration: September 2024 – August 2028 (*co-supervisor)

International Coordination Action (FWO, G0ADU24N, 200.000 EUR), topic: IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Parasite Specialist Group – IUCN SSC PSG, duration: January 2024 – December 2026 (*co-author)

PhD fellowship of the Special Research Fund of Hasselt University (252.000 EUR), Msc. Martina Topić, topic: With a pinch of salt: habitat variability promoting plasticity and hampering diversification in a host-parasite system?, duration: September 2023 – August 2027 (*co-supervisor)

PhD fellowship of the Special Research Fund of Hasselt University (194.000 EUR), Msc. Kelly Thys, topic: The more it changes, the more it stays the same: can phenotypic plasticity of the host counter parasite diversification?, duration: November 2021 – October 2025 (*co-supervisor)

 

Area of Expertise

During her academic journey, Nikol gained respect for the often-neglected taxa being parasitic flatworms and applied integrative approaches to correctly evaluate their interspecific boundaries, evolutionary history and dynamics. In this context, she has become particularly interested in diversity, population dynamics and both the macro and microevolutionary of the parasite fauna worldwide studying their phenotypic plasticity as a prerequisite for diversification and speciation linked to population structure and connectivity, community composition and demographic history. In today’s rapidly changing environment, museum collections provide a unique insight into communities living under no longer existing ecosystem conditions.

 

External activities

Nikol is one of the founding members of IUCN SSC Parasite Specialist Group (established in January 2023) with a mission to assess 50 metazoan parasite species by 2025. Recently, we have been granted International Coordination Action project (FWO) to hire coordinate IUCN SSC Parasite Specialist Group.

 

Dissemination activities

Nikol is part of the Flatworm watch team (https://www.iasregulation.be/817/).
Nikol is active in science communication to public including a recent article on invasive planarian species found across different tropical islands (https://groenkennisnet.nl/zoeken/resultaat/eerste-vondsten-van-de-nieuw-guinese-landplatworm-platydemus-manokwari-op-bonaire,-cura%C3%A7ao-en-het-nederlandse-deel-van-sint-maarten-(platyhelminthes:-geoplanidae)?id=1452139) and a Science Figured Out video on parasites as important for of life (Parasites, the most successful life form on Earth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzA_XdKg0yY)).
Nikol recognises the pivotal role of wetlands in worldwide ecosystem dynamics and stability as a co-author of a book chapter providing a summary of host-parasite interactions in (sub)tropical wetland areas: Vanhove, M.P.M., Kmentová, N., Luus-Powell, W.J., Netherlands, E.C., de Buron, I., Barger, M.A. 2022 A snapshot of parasites in tropical and subtropical freshwater wetlands: modest attention for major players. In: Dalu, T., & Wasserman, R.J., (eds). Fundamentals of Tropical Freshwater Wetlands: From Ecology to Conservation Management. Pp. 417-486. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822362-8.00020-7.
In April 2023, Nikol has participated on the first ever parasite BioBlitz organised in Stono Preserve (South Carolina) in collaboration with Isaure de Buron (College of Charleston), Steven Atkinson (Oregon State University) and Dakeishla Diaz-Morales (University of Duisburg-Essen).

 

Professional Experience

Nikol’s professional journey includes research positions and internships at various scientific institutions. She obtained her PhD in Parasitology at Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic) including internships at KU Leuven, the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) and University of Graz (Austria). She further worked on her portfolio as a postdoctoral researcher focusing flatworm parasites as tags for reconstructing the current or historical distribution of their hosts combining information from historical collections and NGS data generation on recent samples. She has also managed a project on eDNA-based detection of invasive planarians in potted plants.

 

Publication highlights

Vanhove M.P.M, Koblmüller S., Fernandes J.M.O., Hahn2 C., Plusquin M. & Kmentová N. Cichlid fishes are promising underutilised models to investigate helminth-host-microbiome interactions. Frontiers in Immunology 16, 2025
Vanhove, M. P., Kmentová, N., Faes, C., Fernandes, J. M., Hahn, C., Hens, N., Pariselle, A. & Koblmüller, S. (2025). Understanding the influence of host radiation on symbiont speciation through parasites of species flocks. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 17(1), a041450
Cruz-Laufer, A. J., Vanhove, M. P., Bachmann, L., Barson, M., Bassirou, H., Bitja Nyom, A. R., Geraerts M., Hahn C., Huyse T., Kapepula Kasembele G., Njom S., Resl P., Smeets K. & Kmentová, N. (2025). Adaptive evolution of stress response genes in parasites aligns with host niche diversity. BMC Biology, 23(1), 10
Kmentová N., Cruz-Laufer A. J., Milec L., Moons T., Heeren S., van den Hoorn E., Thys K. J. M., Makasa L., Chocha Manda A., Masilya Mulungula P., Van Steenberge M., Jorissen M. W. P., Vanhove M. P. M. Host lifestyle and parasite interspecific facilitation mediate co-infection in a species-poor host–parasite system. Oikos (2024): e10360 
Kmentová N., Cruz-Laufer A., Pariselle A., Smeets K., Artois T., Vanhove M.P.M. Dactylogyridae 2022: a meta-analysis of phylogenetic studies and generic diagnoses of parasitic flatworms using published genetic and morphological data. International Journal for Parasitology 52(7): 427-457