Fourteen symposia on early/lower vertebrates have taken place over the last 50 years, usually at about four year

intervals. An average 60 participants have taken part at these symposia, with over one hundred occasionally. The

results of the symposia have been published in proceedings. The symposia started honoring E. A:son Stensiö and

E. Jarvik. Honors were taken up at the 11th symposium in Uppsala again. Since the 13th symposium a Stensiö

award is also given to young researchers in the field.

The Silurian fishes from north-western Hunan, China are characterised by the earliest known galeaspids

Dayongaspis Pan and Zeng, 1985 and Konoceraspis Pan, 1992, and the earliest known antiarch Shimenolepis

Wang J.-Q., 1991, as well as rich sinacanth fin spines. Shimenolepis from Lixian County in north-western

Hunan, which was dated as the Telychian (late Llandovery), has long been regarded as the oldest representative

of the placoderms in the world. As such, in addition to eastern Yunnan and the Lower Yangtze Region,

north-western Hunan represents another important area in South China that yields important fossil material

for the research of early vertebrates and related stratigraphy. Here we summarise the Silurian fishes known in

north-western Hunan so far, and classify them into three vertebrate assemblages (i.e., the Wentang, Maoshan,

and Yangtze assemblages). Based on the updated Silurian vertebrate and stratigraphic databases, the Silurian

fish-bearing strata in north-western Hunan can be subdivided into the Rongxi, Huixingshao, and Xiaoxi formations

in ascending chronological order, which can be correlated with the Lower Red Beds, the Upper Red Beds,

and the Ludlow Red Beds in South China, respectively. A new look at the Silurian strata in Lixian suggests that

the age of Shimenolepis is late Ludlow rather than late Llandovery as previously suggested. The research on

Silurian fishes and biostratigraphy in north-western Hunan not only provides morphological data of early vertebrates,

but also offers new palaeoichthyological evidence for the subdivision, correlation, and age assignment of

the Silurian marine red beds in South China. The establishment of a related high-precision Silurian stratigraphic

framework in north-western Hunan will help to elucidate the temporal and spatial distribution of Silurian fossil

fishes, deepen the understanding of the evolution of early vertebrates, and unravel the coevolution between

Silurian vertebrates and the palaeoenvironment.

Knowledge on the Eemian (MIS 5e) fauna of Poland is based on vertebrate remains from 16 open-air localities and 8 cave sites. Considering the short period of time covered by MIS 5e, the amount of data is surprisingly large. There is still an ongoing debate on whether the age of some assemblages is Eemian, latest Saalian or even earliest Weichselian. There are faunal assemblages or stratigraphically isolated finds with some disputable evidence. The full picture of the evolution of the Eemian vertebrate fauna in the present-day territory of Poland is still far from being complete. The finds of various groups of vertebrates (fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) from the Eemian Interglacial of Poland are analysed in terms of their environmental preferences. A number of thermophilic species or forms which preferred temperate climate conditions are known from this period. Among them, Clethrionomys glareolus, Glis glis, Meles meles, Martes martes, Lynx lynx, Felis silvestris, Sus scrofa, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, and Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis indicate a forest environment. The presence of species that preferred more open environments ( Cricetus cricetus, Mammuthus primigenius, Coelodonta antiquitatis, and Equus ferus) is also recorded for the Eemian Interglacial of Poland. Characteristic was the presence of the large broad-toothed and flat-headed Ursus arctos taubachensis, which additionally often outnumbered remains of Ursus spelaeus sensu lato in the contemporary layers. The Eemian vertebrate fauna of Poland consisted of about 150 species (representing 61 genera and 26 families), most of which were recorded earlier from other localities of this age in central and eastern Europe.

The Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC) emphasises the need for simple tools and studies to characterise aquatic ecosystems. A wide range of methods has been developed, including different groups of biota and different taxonomic resolutions. Among these, the abundance biomass comparison (ABC) method is an important methodology widely used in marine benthic systems and well-founded from the ecological point of view. This method – with a slight modification using genera and families instead of species – was applied in a Mediterranean river (Eliche-Frío, northeast of Andalusia, Spain) using the macroinvertebrate community, together with the Margalef richness index and the Iberian BioMonitoring Working Party ( IBMWP) to determine the quality of the water. The obtained results show the suitability of the ABC curves method to analyse the macroinvertebrate community and estimate the ecological status of river ecosystems. Although both, the genus and family aggregations, showed a similar trend, the values obtained with the family level indicate a worse state of contamination than those shown with the genus level. The comparison between genus and family levels with other biological indices shows that the evaluation obtained with family aggregation is more similar to those obtained with the Margalef and IBMWP indices than the evaluation based on genera; therefore, we could conclude that this level of taxonomic resolution is adequate for the use of the ABC method in assessing the ecological status of Mediterranean rivers.