Freshwater bivalves have been highly threatened by human activities, and recently their global decline has been causing conservational and social concern. In this paper, we review the most important research events in freshwater bivalve biol- ogy calling attention to the main scientific achieve- ments. A great bias exists in the research effort, with much more information available for bivalve species belonging to the Unionida in comparison to other groups. The same is true for the origin of these studies, since the publishing pattern does not always corre- spond to the hotspots of biodiversity but is