Laboratory of Benthic Paleobiology

The Laboratory of Benthic Palaeobiology of the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw, Poland) aims at the study of both fossil and recent brachiopods and benthic molluscs, following the long-standing tradition of brachiopod research in Poland, and, more specifically, by the founder of the Institute, Professor Roman Kozłowski (1889–1977) and his pupils.

The first fossil brachiopods described from Poland, were by “the father of Polish geology” Georg Gottlieb Pusch (who afterwards polonicised his name to Jerzy Bogumił Pusch-Koreński) as early as 1837 (the first palaeontological monograph in Poland entitled Polens Paläontologie). His collections were destroyed during the bombardment of Warsaw in 1939. Before 1914, several palaeontologists worked on brachiopods from the present territory of Poland, including Ludwik Zeuschner (Zejszner) in Cracow, Jan Trejdosiewicz in Warsaw, Georg Gürich in Wrocław (Breslau), and Dmitriy Sobolev in Warsaw.

After the Ist World War Professor Roman Kozłowski published several papers on Palaeozoic brachiopods, including the monograph Les Brachiopodes gothlandiens de la Podolie polonaise (1929), that is still esteemed as a standard of scientific excellence. His pupil Maria Wiśniewska worked on Jurassic brachiopods. Another pupil, Professor Gertruda Biernat, has published several important papers (see list) mainly on Cambrian to Devonian brachiopods. She was the head of the Laboratory of Brachiopods, Molluscs, and Echinoderms that existed between 1975 and 1977.

The Laboratory of Benthic Palaeobiology was created in 2009, the year of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Sobolev’s monograph The Middle Devonian of the Holy Cross Mountains (1909), the 80th of Kozłowski’s Gothlandian Brachiopods of the Polish Podolia, and the 50th of Biernat’s Middle Devonian Orthoidea of the Holy Cross Mountains (1959). The Laboratory regroups Professor Andrzej Baliński (Head), Professor Gertruda Biernat (Professor emeritus), Dr. Maria Aleksandra Bitner (Assistant Professor), Dr. Adam T. Halamski (Assistant Professor, Collection Curator), and Dr. Andrzej Kaim (Assistant Professor).

SCIENTIFIC STAFF

Andrzej BALIŃSKI, Ph.D., D.Sc., Professor
Devonian and Carboniferous brachiopods.

Gertruda BIERNAT, Ph.D., D.Sc., Professor emeritus
Palaeozoic brachipods (phosphate included): taxonomy, shell structure, paleoecology, and paleogeography.

Maria Aleksandra BITNER, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Cretaceous and Cenozoic brachiopods

Jerzy DZIK, Ph.D., D.Sc., Professor
Trace and skeletal fossils at the Ediacarian-Cambrian transition; Famennian conodont apparatuses and ammonoids

Adam T. HALAMSKI, Ph.D.
Devonian Brachiopods.

Andrzej KAIM, Ph.D.
Early ontogeny and phylogeny of Mesozoic gastropods, paleoecology of Mesozoic fossil assemblages, trends in body-size evolution.

Dawid MAZUREK, Ph.D. student
Early evolution of Metazoa. Precambrian-Cambrian trace fossils.