The course provided participants with a unique opportunity to get state of the art knowledge in various aspects of molluscan biology as well as hands-on experience in the field and laboratory work on marine molluscs. The course covered a wide range of taxa including aplacophorans, polylplacophorans, gastropods, bivalves, and cephalopods. The lectures addressed various theoretical questions in molluscan biology, morphology and systematics. Major hypotheses on the phylogenetic relationships between the main molluscan clades were discussed and evolutionary adaptations to various, sometime extreme, marine biotopes were demonstrated. During the lab work, the students studied external and internal morphology of selected mollusc taxa and performed anatomical dissections.
The course was taught by Prof. Anne Louise Allcock (National University of Ireland, Galway), Dr. Christiane Todt (Rådgivende Biologer AS), Dr. Elena Krylova (Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences), Dr. Manuel Malaquias (University of Bergen), Dr. Yuri Kantor (Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences), Dr. Elena Vortsepneva, Dr. Irina Ekimova (Moscow State University), Dr. Gennady Kamenev, Dr. Anton Chichvarkhin (National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences).