WCM Day 1
16-07-2007 14:38
The WCM brought more
than 430 malacologists from all over the world
together in Antwerp. A remarkable event and one not
to be missed once it is so close by...
The first day I started off by renewing some contacts and making some new ones, although there are some people still on my 'hit list' who I couldn't discover within the crowd filling the narrow corridors.
Regarding content, it was interesting to hear the lectures of several people in the Taxonomy stream. Dai Herbert had a nice presentation about Rhytididae from Madagascar, where he used a BEAST analysis to show that the taxon supposed to be a Rhytididid in fact was not. Interestingly he used a relaxed molecular clock with two nodes calibrated using geological data. Later I chatted with him about his Prestonella paper, which appear still to be worked upon after comments from one of the reviewers. He takes the opportunity to include comparison with sequences from Bothriembryon. We'll see the results in due time...
Francisco Borrero showed how there is still a lot of work to do on Neotropical land snails, using the Camaenidae as an example. We had emailed before so it really nice to meet him and I had a long chat over lunch sine we share the same interests and have some common acquaintances.
Another Latin American was Samira Guevara Muños with a poster on Helicinidae and Drymaeus from three different locations in eastern Peru. I met her incidentally when I was reading the poster text. She is currently in Germany, did her M.Sc. in Hamburg with Klaus Bandel and Bernhard Hausdorf.
Samira Guevara in front of her poster
Ira Richling had a nice presentation about Helicinidae from the Lesser Antilles, which shed a new light on the classification of Helicina and Alcadia. I have to speak with her about the geological data she showed about the area.
There were several examples of phylogenetics and phylogeography, amongst others from Meaghan Parker on Hawaiian Achatinellids. According to her CO1 should be appropriate to resolve the relations above the species level (genera and subfamilies). Have to check that.
The first day I started off by renewing some contacts and making some new ones, although there are some people still on my 'hit list' who I couldn't discover within the crowd filling the narrow corridors.
Regarding content, it was interesting to hear the lectures of several people in the Taxonomy stream. Dai Herbert had a nice presentation about Rhytididae from Madagascar, where he used a BEAST analysis to show that the taxon supposed to be a Rhytididid in fact was not. Interestingly he used a relaxed molecular clock with two nodes calibrated using geological data. Later I chatted with him about his Prestonella paper, which appear still to be worked upon after comments from one of the reviewers. He takes the opportunity to include comparison with sequences from Bothriembryon. We'll see the results in due time...
Francisco Borrero showed how there is still a lot of work to do on Neotropical land snails, using the Camaenidae as an example. We had emailed before so it really nice to meet him and I had a long chat over lunch sine we share the same interests and have some common acquaintances.
Another Latin American was Samira Guevara Muños with a poster on Helicinidae and Drymaeus from three different locations in eastern Peru. I met her incidentally when I was reading the poster text. She is currently in Germany, did her M.Sc. in Hamburg with Klaus Bandel and Bernhard Hausdorf.
Samira Guevara in front of her poster
Ira Richling had a nice presentation about Helicinidae from the Lesser Antilles, which shed a new light on the classification of Helicina and Alcadia. I have to speak with her about the geological data she showed about the area.
There were several examples of phylogenetics and phylogeography, amongst others from Meaghan Parker on Hawaiian Achatinellids. According to her CO1 should be appropriate to resolve the relations above the species level (genera and subfamilies). Have to check that.