Vol. 18(3): 123–145 FOLIA MALACOLOGICAISSN 1506-7629 The Association of Polish Malacologists & Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznañ 2010 doi:10.2478/v10125-010-0013-0 THE 26TH POLISH MALACOLOGICAL SEMINAR SEMINAR REPORT I have been writing our Seminar reports for 12 ences, Wroc³aw University (dean Wies³aw Fa³tyno- years now. Always everything, I mean the Seminar and wicz) and the Institute of Biology, Wroc³aw University the writing, goes very well. Now the situation is a bit of Environmental and Life Sciences (director Joanna different – I always praise the Seminar organisers, this M¹kol). The National Park of the Sto³owe Mts spon- Seminar was the work of our team from Wroc³aw, and sored us in a different way: they provided National it is difficult to praise yourself. Diplomatically, I will Park folders, pens, poster boards and a very interest- try to avoid doing so, and praise my co-organisers in- ing lecture (see below). They also organised a stall stead. where we could buy various National Park publica- The Polish Malacological Seminar, our annual tions. Thank you, sponsors! Two people contributed event always attracting many malacologists from Po- to the organisation unofficially: Andrzej Witkowski, land, and – since recently – some foreign guests, this and Lech Witkowski, both born in the Sto³owe Mts; year took place in Kudowa-Zdrój, on April 20th–23rd. they put us in touch with the hotel and the glass shop. It was the 26th Seminar (more than a quarter of a cen- A group of people who deserve thanks includes also tury of annual meetings!). Kudowa is located in the this year’s chair persons (alphabetically again): Anna Sto³owe Mts, a very beautiful part of the Sudetes. Sur- Abraszewska, Jerzy B³oszyk, Andrzej Falniowski, prisingly few malacologists had been there before (or Andrzej Lesicki, Krzysztof Lewandowski, Andrzej so they confessed). We all stayed in a big and nice ho- Samek and El¿bieta ¯bikowska. tel called Villa Sanssouci [French for “without a care” The organising process was difficult, or maybe we or “without worries”], which for the occasion became had managed to forget how difficult such things entirely malacological, with no other guests. We also could be… Many participants kept changing their de- had our meals and held our sessions there. cisions till the very last moment: whether to arrive on The organising institution was the Association of Monday or on Tuesday, have a lecture or a poster, etc. Polish Malacologists; the organising committee in- We also had to send some special letters threatening cluded (alphabetically) Tomasz Ka³uski (Poznañ Insti- people not to include their abstracts in the Abstract tute of Plant Protection; the only non-Wroc³aw organ- Book if they did not submit them before (or not very iser), El¿bieta Kowalska, Tomasz K. Maltz, Beata M. long after) the deadline. Please, please, every future Pokryszko and Ma³gorzata Proæków (all from participant, each time you have difficulties to choose Wroc³aw). TK, being the Association treasurer, dealt among Monday, Tuesday, lecture, poster, double with registration fees and some bills, and found a room, single room, vegetarian or pork diet, remem- cheap printing shop to print the Abstract Book. EK ber the last time YOU organised a meeting and do not was the Seminar secretary and dealt with correspon- do to the Organisers what your participants did to dence. TKM did most of the editing of the Abstracts you! Anyway, the final list of participants (morning of and produced the badges, and MP was responsible for April 19th) included 53 people. Some of them could the excursions; all the Wroc³aw team participated in not come, though – to be fair – with very few excep- putting together the programme. Thank you all! You tins they either let us know in advance, or could not were great! I (BMP) only manipulated everybody else come for reasons entirely beyond their control. We re- into organising the Seminar, and negotiated with the gretted it because most of them were old friends. hotel and the glass shop that produced the snail tan- Those who usually attend, and who let us know in ad- kards. The Seminar was financially sponsored by the vance and could not come for health or work reasons Natural History Museum, Wroc³aw University (direc- were (alphabetically) Stefan W. Alexandrowicz, An- tor Tadeusz Stawarczyk), the Faculty of Biological Sci- drzej Piechocki, Gra¿yna Pyka, Adolf Riedel, Anna 124 Seminar Report Photos – guess which is which: Where we stayed. Banqueting. Snail on the Seminar tankard. Dripstones in the cave. On top of Mt. Szczeliniec. Krzyœ telling us about the cave. Cave bear. Cribbing from a poster? President & Secretary during prize- giving ceremony. The tallest participant. The smallest participant. Photos A. SULIKOWSKA-DROZD &B.M.POKRYSZKO Seminar Report 125 Stañczykowska, Tomasz Umiñski and Andrzej Wiktor. poster session. This time we had 17 posters on the A snail card with Seminar greetings was sent to each poster list, but actually there were 20, some simply such person. One person who could not come for brought unexpectedly by unexpected participants. very unusual reasons was Robert Cameron whose This year people were very good about their posters: plain refused to fly because of the volcanic cloud gen- even our Warsaw colleague Dominika Mierzwa, who erated by one of the Iceland’s volcanoes. Instead, could not appear in person, managed to send her two some people came unannounced or as a ”last minute posters to us in Kudowa. As a result, not only were the offer”. Some, as usual, arrived late or left early. In all, poster boards full, but also some posters were hang- at the maximum population abundance there were 56 ing on the doors to people’s rooms. people (including one non-malacological husband The committee elected especially for the purpose and one possibly malacological child, too early to of fishing out the best lectures and posters by young tell), with eight foreign guests from (alphabetically authors worked all the time. again) the Czech Republic, Germany and Latvia. On Thursday evening during the banquet we were The conference gadgets the participants were given a real grilled pig with various salads and various given were not as many as during the previous Semi- kinds of booze. Prizes for the best young malacolo- nar (see Folia Malacologica 17 (2009): 73–99). They gists’ presentations were given. Their presentations, included a Seminar folder with the Abstract Book, both lectures and posters, were all good and the prize Programme, snail post card and local map, and a snail committee decided not to distinguish between the tankard (see Figure). Everybody got also another first, second etc. prize. The prizes went to Magda folder, from the National Park of the Sto³owe Mts, Marzec (two lectures on life history of Bulgarica cana), containing national park information, post cards and Roksana Socha & Ola Skawina (one oral presentation a national park pen. by the two of them, one poster by Ola, both about Though officially the Seminar started on the 20th unionids) and to the two youngest participants, Anna of April at noon, a few participants sensibly arrived on Grochowska & Katarzyna Janas. They are students the 19th, afternoon or evening. The opening cere- from Warsaw University of Life Sciences, and their mony, with few people attending (apparently those poster was about new localities of Vertigo angustior who had counted on arriving on time, had miscalcu- (they also disclosed their very recent discoveries – lated), included a few words from the organisers, and new sites of Vertigo moulinsiana). Good girls! The a very interesting lecture on the nature, animated and prizes were tiles, like the ones you put on your kitchen inanimate, of the Sto³owe Mts., by Zbigniew Go³¹b. or bathroom walls, each with a snail painted on it. The The first session (Tuesday, 20th, afternoon) started Assciation is still unable to afford valuable prizes, but just after lunch. All of Wednesday was devoted to ses- after all it is the glory that counts. We also liked some sions, then the Association’s general assembly, and presentations by ”old” malacologists, but the poor everybody was looking forward to the first social oldies never get prizes. The good ones were the two by event: grill party. The grilled things were fine, alas, the team Magdalena Szarowska & Andrzej Falniowski, the weather was both freezing cold and threatening about phylogenies of freshwater snails, two Dreissena with rain, so we had to grab our sausages, beers etc. presentations by Jaros³aw Kobak (one with co- and escape to the dining room. The cold weather, but authors), and two clausiliid presentations by Anna with no rain, continued on Thursday, with two special Sulikowska-Drozd & Tomasz K. Maltz, together or sep- events. On Thursday morning the Seminar excursion arately. went to Jakinia NiedŸwiedzia [Bear Cave] in Kletno, Now to the scientific contents of the Seminar – the to see the dripstones, fossil mammal bones and the in- problems presented and discussed. First, some simple teresting geology of the valley where the cave is situ- statistics. There were 30 oral presentations and 20 ated. Here again our thanks go to our guides: posters; it is a very good proportion, allowing enough Krzysztof Stefaniak (palaeontologist), Pawe³ Socha time for discussions, excursions and banqueting. The (palaeontologist) and Jerzy Bieroñski (geologist), all snail:bivalve ratio was 2.33:1 (2.35:1 in 2009, for more from Wroc³aw University. They offerred us a very spe- ratios from earlier years see Folia Malacologica 2006 cial trip, really science-oriented, not a standard to 2009), the land:water ratio 1.5:1 (0.94:1 in 2009), guided tour around the cave.