Raquel here-
Ciao! Greetings from beautiful and sunny Urbino, Italy! For two weeks earlier this summer, I participated in the 10th International School on Foraminifera at ESRU Urbino. This workshop covers all aspects of foraminifera, from their modern ecology to their evolution since the Cambrian. The school is truly international as we not only have expert lecturers from all over the world, but also students representing more than 12 countries.
I was only 1 of 4 students from the U.S. I have made friends with fellow micropaleontologists from Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Israel and Russia and have enjoyed getting to hear what life is like as a scientist and micrpaleontologist in other parts of the world. This also means that for the most part, instead of learning any Italian I have been helping other students improve their English, something I am happy to do since English is the most prominent language of science. Each day we have lectures in the morning and in the afternoon, we look at samples and specimens under the microscope. This is great because everything we learn from lecture is reinforced with real forams and slides! As I am a Cretaceous and planktic person, my favorite lecture was biostratigraphy with Maria Rose Petrizzo. During lecture, we went through the important evolutionary changes in the planktic record and in the afternoon for our lab exercises we had just 10 minutes to pick different morphotypes from residue. Instead of speaking in terms of species, for foraminifera we speak in terms of ‘morphotypes’ this simply means we use shape (morphology) to define them. I had a lot of fun with this!
I also really enjoyed the lectures on modern planktic forams. The coolest thing I have learned is that although there is a lot we don’t know about forams in the past, biologists studying modern forams are still puzzled by these amazing protists. There are many questions surrounding their reproductive cycle, feeding habits and general ecology that biologists are still working out.
I learned a lot, but I must say the best part of the trip is the other scientists and foram enthusiasts I am meeting and getting to know. We live, work, and eat together and are forming relationships and networks that I’m sure will last through our careers. We already have plans to meet up at the big forams meeting next year in Scotland!
Bye for now!