The International Working Group on Foraminiferal Classification
Co-chairpersons: Mike Kaminski (London) & Alla Michalevich (St. Petersburg)
Members: Miroslav, Bubík (Brno), Claudia Cetean (Cluj-Napoca), Johann Hohenegger (Vienna), Galina Nestall (Texas), Jeno Nagy (Oslo), Theodor Neagu (Bucharest); Jan Pawlowski (Geneva), Roberto Rettori (Perugia), Jaroslaw Tyszka (Kraków).
The International Working Group:
The International Working Group on Foraminiferal Classification is a new initiative of the Grzybowski Foundation. Originally set up in 2003, the working group's main goal is to revise the suprageneric classification of the Foraminifera and to compile a complete catalogue of the foraminiferal genera. The first meeting of the IWGFC was held in conjunction with the Romanian Paleontological Symposium in Cluj-Napoca in 2003. The group has met on two subsequent occasions, and we met again at the Mikro-2007 conference in Gdansk, on June 18th 2007.
In the first stage of our activities, it was decided to continue the task of compiling the genera of the foraminifera, in the style of well-known textbook "Foraminiferal Genera and their Classification" by Loeblich & Tappan (1987). As a first step towards the overall goal of achieving a new "foraminiferal treatise", the IWGFC is currently compiling a "Catalogue of Agglutinated Foraminiferal Genera". Work on the "Catalogue of miliolid Genera" and the "Catalogue of planktonic foraminiferal genera" is already underway.
The "Catalogue of Agglutinated Foraminiferal Genera" will be the first publication of the IWGFC. The catalogue contains of the 750+ genera of agglutinated foraminifera currently recognised as valid, and these are arranged in systematic order. Our short-term goal is to complete the documentation of the agglutinated genera, adding the newly described and reinstated genera described in the literature since 1987; and correcting their stratigraphic ranges. The IWGFC is currently seeking financial support in order to complete this project.
Achievements:
The revised systematics of the Agglutinated Foraminifera has recently been published by Kaminski (2004), while Michalevich (2004, 2005) has also revised the agglutinated foraminifera and the miliolids. Pawlowski (2005) has recently published the molecular phylogeny of the Foraminifera which supports many of the new views on foraminiferal systematics published by Michalevich (2000, 2004). In recognition of her long-standing work on the higher systematics of the Foraminifera, Alla Michalevich received the Grzybowski Award for 2006.
Mike Kaminski & Claudia Cetean have compiled the first draft of the "Catalogue of Agglutinated Foraminiferal Genera", which is now being updated and supplemented with additional information. The format of the catalogue is similar to the format adopted for the "Atlas of Paleogene Cosmopolitan Deep-Water Agglutinated Foraminifera" published by the Grzybowski Foundation in 2005. The draft catalogue is now available to supporters of the project – please contact the foundation for further details.