Meeting Report : 5 th International Symposium on Testate Amoebae ( ISTA - 5 ) , Montbéliard , France , 14 – 17 September 2009 - Present Status of

A group of 55 scientists from 20 countries met for a three days symposium on testate amoebae in the French city of Monbéliard from the 14th to the 17th of September 2009. This meeting follows the previous ISTA meeting held in Antwerp, Belgium in 2006 (Warner and Beyens 2007). The number of attendees, countries represented, talks (30), and posters (28) presented all increased significantly since the previous ISTA, clearly illustrating the present dynamism of research on testate amoebae. The book of abstract is posted on the following website: (http://chrono-environnement. univ-fcomte.fr/spip.php?article631). The meeting was organised in five sessions: (1) biology, physiology and ecology, (2) biogeography and biodiversity, (3) phylogeny and taxonomy, (4) palaeoecology, and (5) testate amoebae and bioindication. Contributed talks and posters were dominated by descriptive ecological studies on community responses to ecological gradients and species-environment correlation: Over 50% of all contributions dealt with ecology and palaeoecology (Table 1) and 2/3 of these dealt with peatlands and lakes.