EOM8

EOM8 took place in Tartu, Estonia, from July 22nd to 30th, 2015, invited by Tõnu Meidla and his team.

Report on the 8th European Ostracodologists’ Meeting

The 8th European Ostracodologists’ Meeting has been hosted in Estonia, between July 22-30, 2015. The meeting itself was preceded by a 2-days excursion focussing on different ostracod habitats in Estonia. During the first day, the eight participants visited the Lahemaa National Park along the brackish-water Finnish Gulf to take samples, but also to get an impression of the traditional Estonian villages and some of the historic manor houses of the region. A visit of the highly informative visitor centre of the Lahemaa National Park was followed by a walk in the garden of Palmse manor – once owned by the family of Alexis van der Pahlen, a renowned Estonian palaeontologist. The second day was dedicated to the shallow lake Võrtsjärv and the Peipsi Lake, which is the 5th largest lake in Europe and which is shared by the Estonian and the Russian territory. The first gallery below gives insight to this impressive excursion.

The conference opened with a well-attended icebreaker party in the University of Tartu Old Observatory. The atmosphere was very relaxed and the organizers, Tonu Meidla and Oive Tinn, did the honors. The wines, the beers and the excellent food complemented the beautiful location. We could visit the Estonia’s first astronomy observatory and learn about the largest achromatic telescope in the world at the beginning of the XIX cent. What most impressed me, was that the observatory is one of  the station points of the Struve Geodetic Arc, the first accurate measurement of a meridian, and as such included in the UNESCO world heritage list. The participants to the party had also the opportunity to register and to receive all the material that the conference organizers had prepared for us. In the following days we could appreciate how carefully this material was prepared and how useful it turned to be. On Friday morning the scientific sessions started in the main lecture hall of the Estonian Biocentre. The four sessions (“Generalia”, “Biostratigraphy and palaeoecology of Ostracoda”, “Paleozoic Ostracoda” and “Marine Ostracoda”) hosted 16 talks and for each of them there were some questions or comments. We had the opportunity to further discuss our most beloved topic during the coffee breaks and the lunch break at the old University Cafeteria. The next morning at 9 o’clock we took two buses for the Mid-Conference Excursion. The plan was to visit the Endla Nature Reserve and the Saadjärv Lake with its Ice Age Museum. One bus started at Endla, the other at Saadjärv and the groups did not meet until the end of the day. The walk in Endla on the hiking trail and the boardwalk in Männikjärve bog enabled us to see pine forests, wooded meadows and bogs. For most of us, it was not only the first visit to a bog, but also the first blue berried picked directly from the plant and eaten in the wild, the first smell of the marsh Labrador tea (Rhododendron tomentosum) and the first sight of carnivourous plants in the wild (Drosera spp.). As a matter of fact, we did not catch any ostracod in Endla but we did in the Saadjärv Lake. Beside valves of Cypria ophtalmica and Limnocythere sanctipatricii, a high number of living Darwinula stevensoni made our day. We enjoyed watching those many females carrying juveniles in their brood pouches. Our enthusiasm was infectious to strollers passing by, stopping for a look into the microscopes installed on a tree stump. This ‘exercise’ was followed by the visit to the very informative 3 floors of the Ice Age Museum. Never say that ostracod researchers are not hard workers, since we all started our second day of scientific sessions on Sunday the 26th of July. The two sessions of the morning (“Ostracod biology” and “Freshwater faunas”) hosted 9 oral talks, with the second session dominated by the research on ostracods from Turkey. The single session Neogene and Pleistocene Ostracoda took place after lunch with 4 talks and at the end we had plenty of time to read and discuss the 34 posters, which were hanging on the walls of the hall since the first day. During the last day of the conference, the two sessions “Holocene Ostracoda” and “Ecology of Ostracoda” hosted eleven talks. There was enough time for several business meetings of working groups and for a very quick closing ceremony. The conference dinner was held at the University cafeteria and the atmosphere, the food and the drinks were simply perfect. The organisers succeeded in offering a meeting with a sound scientific content but without any stress. The conveners had all the opportunities to discuss and to meet beside the “official meeting” time and also the poster session was well attended.

The 8^th European Ostracod Meeting has gathered about 75 ostracod workers form all over the world, confirming the international character of these meetings. The 40 talks and 34 posters covered many aspects of ostracod research, with a good participation of young researchers. Fotos from the mid-symposium excursion and the social dinner are presented in the second gallery below.

The post symposium field trip was devoted to the Palaeozoic ostracods of the Estonian main land and Saaremaa Island. On the first day after a short stop to look at some of the earliest plants in the Kalana Lagerstätte (lower Silurian), the five participants of the field trip visited the Porkuni Quarry, the type locality of the uppermost Ordovician Porkuni Regional Stage. During the afternoon the group examined and sampled the Early and Middle Ordovician sediments of the Pakri Cliff which bears well preserved Palaeocope ostracods. The next morning, the participants stopped at the Ristna Cliff where they were presented the impact of a small ash-fall on the very rich and diverse fauna of Palaeocopes and Podocopes from the Middle Ordovician. After taking the ferry and making a short touristic stop in Muhu the group finally reached Saaremaa Island. The afternoon was dedicated to 2 outcrops: – The Abula cliff, one of the classical Wenlock (Silurian) locality bearing abundant Podocope ostracods and Leperditicopid arthropods; – The Suuriku Cliff, the second highest cliff on the Saaremaa Island, showing nicely preserved beyrichiid ostracods. The last day of the excursion, the participants saw the Ohesaare Cliff in the southernmost part of Saaremaa. The exposed strata represent the lower part of the Ohesaare Stage (upper Přidoli, upper Silurian) and is one of the best studied Silurian sections in Estonia showing abundant and well preserved beyrichiid, primitiopsid, podocopid and platycopid ostracods. Before leaving the island for Tallinn, a last ‘geotouristic’ stop was made at the Kaali meteoritic crater.

Report written by Renate Matzke-Karasz, Vincent Perrier and Ilaria Mazzini