Distribution of Melanopsidae (Mollusca, Gastropoda) in Ukraine

Vol. 20(1): 43–71 doi: 10.2478/v10125-012-0002-6 THE 27TH POLISH MALACOLOGICAL SEMINAR SEMINAR REPORT This year the Polish Malacological Seminar, the annual meeting of Polish malacologists (often plus some neighbours) was held in Tleñ, not far from the city of Toruñ, from the 6th till the 8th of April. It was the 27th Seminar, so we shall be thirty soon. Tleñ is a tiny little village, surrounded by forests and lakes with a few good holiday centres and a very decent hotel where we all stayed and performed all the essential activities, such as having sessions, eating, drinking, discussing etc. Though the weather was not ideal, some of us skipped some sessions (because anyway they could read the abstracts in the Abstract Book) to walk around the lakes and see the first forest flowers of the spring. The organising institutions were: the Miko³aj Kopernik University in Toruñ and the Association of Polish Malacologists; the organising committee included EL¯BIETA ¯BIKOWSKA, ANNA NOWAKOWSKA, ANNA CICHY and JAROS£AW KOBAK, all from Toruñ. Good job! And thanks! Our sponsors included President of Toruñ and two companies, one producing chemicals for nucleic acid and protein analyses (Macherey-Nagel), another – equipment and chemicals for water quality analyses (Hamilton). The com- Fig. 1. Just before we left for the excursion. Note the malaco-bag with the red snail on it. Photo: A. SULIKOWSKA-DROZD 44 Seminar Report No. Discipline Number of papers/posters 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 1 Ecology 20 25 18 14 19 2 Life histories 7 7 8 10 8 3 Conservation 2 4 7 4 3 4 Fossil molluscs 6 4 4 3 6 5 Applied malacology 2 5 4 8 8 6 Parasitology 3 6 4 2 3 7 Faunistics 2 4 5 9 11 8 Methodology 3 0 2 0 4 9 Physiology 1 0 1 3 7 10 Structure (histology, cytology, shell) 0 0 5 1 2 11 Variation 2 3 1 1 1 12 Systematics 2 4 3 2 1 13 Molecular genetics 3 1 3 1 1 14 Collections 0 3 1 2 2 15 Others (general, behaviour, archaeology) 3 3 5 2 2 16 History of malacology 0 0 2 1 1 panies had stalls where you could get all kinds of information about their products and even order things for your institution. Thank you, sponsors! Our thanks go also to the chair-persons: EWA STWORZEWICZ, A NDRZEJ L ESICKI, J AN K OZ£OWSKI, K RZYSZTOF LEWANDOWSKI and ANDRZEJ PIECHOCKI (and I, but I find it embarassing to thank myself, even on behalf of the participants). The list of participants included 63 people, but a few (precisely 10) failed to arrive. These ten included OF COURSE our eastern neighbours from Zhytomyr University in Ukraine; they play the same trick every year. Needless to say, the remaining participants, that is those who actually participated, arrived and left at different hours and on different days. All these comings and goings (and not-comings in some instances) Fig. 2. Preparing to hang a poster. Photo: author resulted in the maximum population abundance of 53 people. This year there were no foreign guests. Every participant was given the following items: a very nice conference bag with a funny snail and a proper inscription on it, a Toruñ University mug, a pen, the programme and the Abstract Book. The Abstract Book was edited by TOMASZ KA£USKI, JAROS£AW KOBAK and PATRYCJA CIELUCH and had a Bielzia coerulans on the cover. Thank you, Editors! The opening ceremony (Wednesday, 6th) was, fortunately, very brief (20 minutes only!), with a few words from the Organisers. It was directly followed by the first and second sessions and then – after lunch – by the third. Quite a lot of sessions and discussion for the first day, I can tell you! As if it were not enough, the first poster session followed all this. Nevertheless we managed to have quite a successful grill party in the evening, though we were a bit rained upon. The next day (Thursday, 7th) included sessions 4, 5 and 6, as well as poster session 2, the Association’s general assembly and the banquet. All Friday was the excursion but some people had left already so we were not many. The excursion went to a nearby hydro power station where we could see how it worked (we usually only read about such things, mainly while reading about alien species of freshwater molluscs) and also admire some very ancient hydrotechnical equipment on a small exhibition. Then we went to Toruñ; the old town in Toruñ is very, very beautiful. The only bad thing was that it was cold and it rained from time to time. Now to the actual contents of the Seminar – and statistics again. The programme contained 36 oral presentations and 30 posters. Not all the lectures were delivered and not all the poster presenters arrived but Seminar Report 45 Fig. 4. Grill party on a rather cold night. Photo: author Fig. 3. Poster-presenting makes one thirsty. Photo: author the programme was full and, compared to the previous seminar, the oral presentation:poster ratio shifted slightly in favour of the posters. This seems to be the general tendency. The snail:bivalve ratio was 3.47:1 (thus much higher than 2.33:1 in 2010 and 2.35:1 in 2009, for more ratios from earlier years see Seminar Reports in Folia Malacologica 2006–2010), the land:water ratio was 1.54:1 (1.5:1 in 2010 and 0.94:1 in 2009), and thus almost the same as last year. The ratio of one-author presentation to presentations with two or more authors was 0.37:1 (more than twice smaller than the last year 0.85:1; it is fashionable now to form cooperatives), and the ratio of papers/posters presented by girls versus boys was 1.24:1 (1.88:1 in 2010). The recent:fossil ratio was exactly 10:1. The table contains more statistics, with the presentations divided – for the sake of comparison – into the same categories as last year. It is always necessary to assign some presentations to more than one category. The numbers do not show any obvious trend within the last five years. A few topics and presentations are worth mentioning. First of all, last year we were joined by two pharmacologists who are, nevertheless, interested in molluscs; they deal with the mechanics and chemistry of snail movement. All the presentations were good or very good, but there were some (both papers and posters) we found especially delightful: the one about sexual behaviour of Deroceras by MICHA£ CZY¯ with co-authors, the one about differences in reproductive strategies between populations of Alinda biplicata by ANNA SULIKOWSKA-DROZD with co-author, the one about behavioural defence of Dreissena against the roach by JAROS£AW KOBAK with co-author, the comparative study of reproduction of three closely related species of Pisidium by STANIS£AW MYZYK and the one about experimental introduction of Cepaea nemoralis by MA£GORZATA O¯GO with co-author and the one about the Baltic fauna by ANDRZEJ PIECHOCKI with co-author. During the General Assembly it was decided that the next seminar would be organised by the Poznañ malacologists who are many; it will pro (...truncated)