ABSTRACT There are only a handful of free‐flowing rivers left on our planet. The unique biodiversity in these model systems offers a key to understanding the structures of naturally assembled fluvial metacommunities. Here, we use the benthic invertebrate fauna of the Vjosa River as a model system to infer metacommunity processes from biodiversity patterns at river network scale. To this end, we used data from standard, morphology‐based and metabarcoding approaches to describe community composition at 36 sites in spring and autumn. Classical ordination as well as joint species distribution modeling indicate that community composition in headwaters is mostly defined by (likely limited) dispersal and environmental filtering, whereas communities at downstream sites in the main stem are shaped more by associations among taxa. At the population level of individual taxa, the relative importance of spatial factors, environmental filtering, and potential associations to other taxa changed between seasons. Our study provides a realistic impression of the ecology of fluvial metacommunities under the fluctuating influences of spatial structure, environmental conditions, and biotic interactions in a free‐flowing river network.
<p>The response of the hydrological cycle to anthropogenic climate
change, especially across the tropical oceans, remains poorly understood due to the scarcity of long instrumental temperature and hydrological records. Massive shallow-water corals are ideally suited to reconstructing past oceanic variability as they are widely distributed across the tropics,
rapidly deposit calcium carbonate skeletons that continuously record ambient environmental conditions, and can be sampled at monthly to annual
resolution. Climate reconstructions based on corals primarily use the stable oxygen isotope composition (<span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O), which acts as a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST), and the oxygen isotope composition of
seawater (<span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O<span class="inline-formula"><sub>sw</sub></span>), a measure of hydrological variability. Increasingly, coral <span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O time series are paired with time series of strontium-to-calcium ratios (<span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M7" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="chem"><mi mathvariant="normal">Sr</mi><mo>/</mo><mi mathvariant="normal">Ca</mi></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="05c54804891904b379974c95750768ee"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00003.svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" src="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00003.png"/></svg:svg></span></span>), a proxy for SST, from the same coral to quantify temperature and <span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O<span class="inline-formula"><sub>sw</sub></span> variability
through time. To increase the utility of such reconstructions, we present
the CoralHydro2k database, a compilation of published, peer-reviewed coral <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M10" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="chem"><mi mathvariant="normal">Sr</mi><mo>/</mo><mi mathvariant="normal">Ca</mi></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="a8fcf3e6d62388e790f29de730d47925"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00004.svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" src="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00004.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> and <span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O records from the Common Era (CE). The database contains 54 paired <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M12" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="chem"><mi mathvariant="normal">Sr</mi><mo>/</mo><mi mathvariant="normal">Ca</mi></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="24501397176f693c176ed06eccebf5db"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00005.svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" src="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00005.png"/></svg:svg></span></span>–<span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O records and 125 unpaired <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M14" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="chem"><mi mathvariant="normal">Sr</mi><mo>/</mo><mi mathvariant="normal">Ca</mi></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="e4eb43ce70121447c45a804baadbd9dc"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00006.svg" width="33pt" height="14pt" src="essd-15-2081-2023-ie00006.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> or <span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i><sup>18</sup></span>O records, with 88 % of these records providing data coverage from 1800 CE to the present. A quality-controlled set of metadata with standardized vocabulary and units accompanies each record, informing the use
of the database. The CoralHydro2k database tracks large-scale temperature
and hydrological variability. As such, it is well-suited for investigations
of past climate variability, comparisons with climate model simulations
including isotope-enabled models, and application in paleodata-assimilation projects. The CoralHydro2k database is available in Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format with serializations in MATLAB, R, and Python and can be downloaded from the NOAA National Center for Environmental Information's Paleoclimate Data Archive at <a href="https://doi.org/10.25921/yp94-v135">https://doi.org/10.25921/yp94-v135</a> (Walter et al., 2022).</p>
Michal Ganobjak, Samuel Brunner, Jörg Hofmann
et al.
Silica aerogels are high-performance thermal insulation materials that can be used to provide unique solutions in the envelopes of buildings when space is limited. They are most often applied in historic buildings due to thin insulation thicknesses and since they are compatible with historic structures. In 2021, the first Aerogel Architecture Award was held at Empa in Switzerland in order to collect, evaluate and award outstanding uses of this relatively new building material. From the submitted projects, three were selected for an award by an expert jury. They showcased applications in which heritage protection and the conservation of a building’s character and expression were reconciled with significant improvements in the energy efficiency of the building. The submissions also showed that a broader communication of these types of solutions is important in order to provide more information and security to planners and heritage offices and to facilitate the application of these materials in the future so that they can contribute to the protection of cultural heritage and reductions in the operational and embodied emissions of our building stock by extending the life expectancy and energy efficiency of existing buildings.
The purpose of this study was to examine the writing skills of 7th- and 8th-grade students with a high proportion of migration background in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The study was part of the SchriFT project (2017–20), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. A writing task was given on the topic: Why can we only make assumptions about many past events? As an answer to the task, the students had to write a historical explanation that took into account the epistemological principles of historical reasoning. The students’ writing was analysed using a category system, and their historical knowledge was assessed through a knowledge test. The results showed that the students possess diverse levels of writing skills, with few producing elaborate explanations, and most struggling with the subject-specific language and reasoning skills. The study also highlights the potential for genre-based writing approaches in history education. The results suggest that many students perceive history as an image of the past and have limited understanding of historical reasoning. Further research is needed to investigate the influence of motivation and interest on language learning.
A measurement of the charge asymmetry in top-quark pair (tt¯) production in association with a photon is presented. The measurement is performed in the single-lepton tt¯ decay channel using proton–proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN at a centre-of-mass-energy of 13 TeV during the years 2015–2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. The charge asymmetry is obtained from the distribution of the difference of the absolute rapidities of the top quark and antiquark using a profile likelihood unfolding approach. It is measured to be AC=−0.003±0.029 in agreement with the Standard Model expectation.
This article examines Karl Barth’s confrontation with the Nazi past in his post-war occasional writings and speeches from 1945 to 1950. My thesis is that as early as January 1945, months before the end of the war in Europe, Barth publicly argued the collective guilt of the German people yet sought not to examine this guilt or demand a “collective punishment”—for the crimes were so great and far-reaching into German society, the responsibility too entangled, that it would be impossible to fully understand or appreciate the crimes committed during this period. Instead, Barth wished simply to acknowledge this guilt, encourage the German people to accept it, and continue with the monumental task of reconstructing Germany. Barth’s post-war work proved tremendously influential in challenging the history of the Protestant churches’ uncritical stand in obedience to the state.
Łukasz Peszek, Mateusz Rybak, Horst Lange-Bertalot
et al.
Background Rapa Nui (Easter Island = Isla de Pasqua) is of volcanic origin, best known for about 900 man-made stone statues known as moai. It is one of the most isolated inhabited islands on Earth and studies on the diatoms of Rapa Nui are very few. Methods Light (LM) and electron microscopic (SEM) observations of a single sample collected from Rapa Nui are presented. The samples (mix of soil and organic detritus) were collected from ground of cave entrance. Results The samples were characterized by low diatom diversity and strongly dominated by terrestrial (soil) forms. Among the taxa present in the material studied were cosmopolitan forms of the genera Humidophila, Nitzschia, Angusticopula, Orthoseira, Tryblionella and Luticola. Whereas most of taxa of the enumerated genera were identifiable, only one among four Luticola species distinguished in the samples studied was identified. This taxon was L. ectorii, a cosmopolitan species known previously from South America (Brazil) and Asia (China). The three remaining species could not be assigned to any established species. Therefore, based on external and internal morphological features from light and scanning electron microscopic analysis, we describe here three species new to science, including: L. georgzizkae, L. rapanuiensis and L. moaiorum. All three taxa new to science are compared to established Luticola species and their significance for the global distribution of the genus is discussed.
Stefan Abrahamczyk, Michaela Jandová, Zuzana Líblová
et al.
Abstract In the species‐rich genus Impatiens, few natural hybrids are known, even though closely related species often occur sympatrically. In this study, we aim to bridge the gap between micro‐ and macro‐evolution to disentangle pre‐ and postzygotic mechanisms that may prevent hybridization in the Impatiens purpureoviolacea complex from Central Africa. We analyzed habitat types, species distribution, pollination syndromes, pollinator dependency, genome sizes, and chromosome numbers of seven out of the ten species of the complex as well as of one natural hybrid and reconstructed the ancestral chromosome numbers of the complex. Several species of the complex occur in sympatry or geographically very close to each other. All of them are characterized by pre‐ and/or postzygotic mechanisms potentially preventing hybridization. We found four independent polyploidization events within the complex. The only known natural hybrid always appears as single individual and is self‐fertile. But the plants resulting from self‐pollinated seeds often die shortly after first flowering. These results indicate that the investigated mechanisms in combination may effectively but not absolutely prevent hybridization in Impatiens and probably occur in other genera with sympatric species as well.
Carolina Reyes-Puig, David B. Wake, Ramachandran Kotharambath
et al.
We describe two new species of salamanders of the genus Oedipina, subgenus Oedopinola, from two localities on the northwestern foothills of Ecuador, at elevations between 921 and 1,067 m. These are the southernmost members of the genus. We examined different museum collections and we found just three specimens of Oedipina from Ecuador, obtained throughout the history of herpetological collections in the country. We identify two of the three specimens as new species, but refrain from assigning a specific identity to the third, pending further study. Oedipina villamizariorum sp. n. is a medium-sized member of the genus, with a narrow, relatively pointed head and blunt snout; dorsolaterally oriented eyes, moderate in size; and digits that are moderately long and having pointed tips. Oedipina ecuatoriana sp. n., somewhat larger, has a narrow head and broadly rounded snout; this new species differs from all known Oedipina by the distinctive presence of paired prefrontal bones and a reduced phalangeal formula: 0-0-1-0; 0-1-2-1-1. We provide detailed descriptions of the osteology of both new species. Finally, we present a phylogenetic hypothesis for the genus, including one of the two new species, based on partial sequences of mitochondrial DNA.
In this article, the history of emigration from Germany and the immigration to Germany especially in relation to its changing borders in the 20th century is discussed. After 1945 Germany was confronted with the integration of a million German refugees. Starting in the 1950s, Germany intentionally attracted foreign workers, and integrated them fairly well. The article analyses the current discussions in Germany in relation to the impact of massive immigration of refugees from non-European areas around 2015. It concludes with a position that in the time of globalisation migration needs a society-focussed and political learning process which has not yet ended and will require more learning. But countries with a declining population are well advised to see immigration as an opportunity for future growth and social diversity.
Objective – to explore the history of the introduction and selection of climbing roses of the genus Rosa L. in the world and Ukraine, find out the main periods in the history of cultivation of these plants and identify the most important introduction and selection centers.
Material and methods. In the process of studying literary sources historical-scientific method was used. Problem-chronological method provided a sequence of presentation of the material.
Results. In the history of the introduction of roses, one of the main factors was the attraction to the culture of wild agrestic rosehip species. This process lasted quite a long time (five centuries), but had very positive consequences for the future development of roses and climbing particulars. The most intense exchange of plants occurred in the period of the great geographical discoveries, starting from the XV century. Long before New Era, roses were cultivated in China and India, in countries of the Middle East and Asia Minor. From there, with the flourishing of trade in the ancient period they penetrated into ancient Greece, and in subsequent centuries into the countries of Western Europe. The introduction of Sino-Chinese plants into the botanical gardens of Europe began in the first half of the XVIII century and reached its peak in the 40s–60s of the XIX century. During the XVII–XIX centuries and at the beginning of the XX century, significant amount of wild rose was brought from Southeast Asia, but the most important ancestors of climbing roses that originate from Asia are: R. chinensis Jacq., R. lucieae Franch. & Rochebr. ex Crep., R. multiflora Thunb., R. moschata Herrm.
Based on the analysis of the history of the selection of climbing roses in the world, three main periods can be distinguished: the last is the period of prehistory by 1875; the present – from 1875 to 1967, the modern – from 1967. Intensive selection work with roses in Europe began in the XVIII century. Wide-scale work was carried out in France, Germany, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark. The revolution in the formation of a new assortment of climbing roses produced R. multiflora and R. wichuriana Crep. Barbier (France) breeders in Jackson, Perkins and Brownelló in the USA achieved particularly significant results in the selection of Vihurayan roses in France. M.A. Gartvis, M.D. Kostetskiy, V.M. Klimenko, Z.K. Klimenko, K.I. Zykov made a significant contribution to the development of domestic breeding. As a result of the tremendous work done by the breeders, a worldwide assortment of climbing roses has been created, which now numbers thousands of varieties.
Conclusions. The early periods of the introduction of climbing roses in the world (the initial and the period of intensive introduction) are analyzed. It was revealed that R. moschata has long been used in climbing gardens in the Middle East countries, and in the United States (since 1759) the East Asian species R. laevigata. During the period of active involvement of Sino-Chinese plants R. multiflora (1868) was introduced into Europe’s botanical gardens. According to results of studying the history of culture and the experience of introduction of climbing roses of the genus Rosa in Ukraine, the main introduction centers have been identified. The study of the history of the selection of climbing roses in the world and in Ukraine and the analysis of the stages of the selection process with climbing roses made it possible to identify outstanding breeders who have made significant contributions to the development of selection and the creation of varieties of climbing roses.
The majority of studies on the ecological success of river restoration show improved morphological conditions, but a poor response of the biota. Because most river restoration projects are costly, a debate has started on the meaningfulness of such investments. Yet only a few studies have investigated the societal dimension of river restoration projects in detail. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to shed light on the social aspects of river restoration. Our empirical study consisted of two parts: (1) an explorative study conducted with 32 residents encountered at three restored river sections in Germany and (2) standardized telephone interviews with 760 residents living in the vicinity of 10 different restored river sections in three federal states. The survey covered questions including which activities local residents carry out at restored river sections, how they judge the nature experience, and how they perceive (negative) effects and costs. The restored river sections are perceived positively by > 80% of the respondents describing the respective section as near-natural and beautiful. In the view of the survey participants, both the ecosystem and residents profit highly from the restoration measure (> 90%), while the agricultural sector is not rated as a high profiteer (36%, multiple answers were possible). In full awareness of the costs of restoration projects (approximately 400,000 Euros per river km), 70% of the interviewees regard further restoration projects as useful and only 6% as not useful. The results show that river restorations are of great value and are held in high esteem by the population. Moreover, the interviewees considered the investments made by the public or sponsors to be predominantly useful. These results are highly valuable for water managers and politicians as the societal relevance of river restoration might be a key factor in the ongoing public and political discussion about river restoration.
The article is devoted to the problem of gender vote in the Weimar republic: what were political preferences of the German women of that period, who only had acquired the right to vote under the new constitution. Actuality of such research is caused by the opposite points of view among researchers in a question whow women voted for the main parties of the republic, and also in connection with the forthcoming of 100-year anniversary of formation of the Weimar state. In spite of the fact that the German statistics was one of the best in the world during the considered period, in available data there is a set of gaps that creates a problem of their interpretation and the general conclusions. The author comes to conclusions, 1) that on two Reichstags elections in 1924, parliamentary elections of 1928 and 1930 male and female votes for SDPG, NSDAP and GPP were divided approximately equally; 2) the biggest share of female votes was received by Zentrum party, and as concerns GNPP and the share of female voices prevailing over male voices it is possible to speak about that only before elections of 1924 inclusive, but not after; 3) throughout all history of the Weimar republic the Communist Party of Germany had a prevalence of votes of men over female votes.
The article discusses the little-known (in historiography) history ofdiplomatic relations between Christian Europe and Uzun Hassan (1423–1478), the ruler of Persia. The capital of the country was located in Tabriz, currently in north-western Iran. Uzun Hassan provided military support to Ottoman Turkey’s enemies and sought to establish diplomatic relations with Christian states. The author briefly describes the history of Persia’s diplomatic missions, which were usually aimed at Venice and Rome. In 1472, one of them also visited Krakow, the capital of the Kingdom of Poland. Aside from brief references in contemporary chronicles and diplomatic and diplomatic documents, we know little about details of those first political contacts with Persia. The main part of the article refers to an exceptionally well-documented, in terms of sources, journey of Venetian envoy Ambrogio Contarini to Uzun Hassan’s court in Tabriz. He embarked on the diplomatic mission from Venice in February 1474. As Turks at that time were blocking the crossing from Cyprus to Asia Minor, the Venetian envoy decided
to travel by land across Germany, the Kingdom of Poland and Ruthenia. His descriptions of obscure regions at Dnieper, including in Kiev itself, are extremely valuable. He also gave a detailed account of his adventurous journey to Caffa on the shore of the Dead Sea. From there, bypassing the Turkish territory and the mountains of the Caucasus, avoiding many dangers, Contarini made it to Persia.
History (General) and history of Europe, Fine Arts
Dans les comédies-ballets de Molière, les patres familias s’accordent le privilège de disposer librement de leurs filles en leur interdisant le mariage ou en les mariant avec un homme de leur choix, selon les avantages que les gendres leur apportent. Motivés par leur seul égoïsme, ils agissent d’une manière autoritaire contre la morale moderne de l’époque et provoquent un conflit avec leurs filles. Ce conflit n’est pas seulement un conflit entre les générations, mais aussi entre hommes et femmes. Du fait de la particularité du genre, la comédie-ballet offre des résolutions originales et présente de nouvelles conceptions de l’art dramatique du XVIIe siècle, qui ont également trait à sa dimension éthique et esthétique.
Friedrich von Schelling was a significant cultural influence when Henrik Ibsen lived in Germany in the 1850s. However, because of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, which stood out as irreconcilable with the scientific philosophy of the positivists, Schelling came to be more and more neglected after the mid-nineteenth century. His pronounced idealism, belief in God, and metaphysical comments were branded ‘old-fashioned’ soon after his death. Today, Schelling is mentioned in contexts where ideas about ‘mindfulness’ are of importance. In 1979 a clinic for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was founded and although originally articulated as an element of Buddhism, it is pointed out by committed practitioners that there is nothing inherently religious about mindfulness. It is however about integrating the healing aspects of Buddhist meditation practices with the concept of psychological awareness and healing. To a high degree in Western countries, psychotherapists have adapted and developed mindfulness techniques. When it comes to metaphysics, Schelling’s influence on the religious ideas that were accepted by Ibsen was never acknowledged. This text will throw some light upon Schelling as a source of inspiration for Ibsen and his milieu. Is it so, that Schelling’s ideas not until our ‘post-secular’ epoch have come into their own? Ibsen producers and actors are familiar with ‘New World Mindfulness’ and the history of mindfulness in the West.
Le sexe joue un rôle central dans la pensée sociologique, épistémologique, économique et politique de Ferdinand Tönnies. Si l’on concède parfois que ce fondateur de la sociologie allemande ne dépassait pas toujours les opinions de son époque, force est de reconnaître plutôt son caractère très conservateur dans la question de l’émancipation féminine, qu’il considère comme une aliénation de la nature innée de la femelle. La polarité entre les genres est à la base d’une théorie d’évolution historique du féminin au masculin, qui voit l’ordre masculin se substituer progressivement à la spontanéité féminine. Son épistémologie de genres anticipe les gender studies actuelles, tout en restant ancrée dans les préjugés de son époque.
Few fields in modern ecology have developed as fast as the analysis of marked individuals in the study of wild animal populations (Seber & Schwarz, 2002). This is the topic of EURING Conferences, which from 1986 have been the premier forum for advances in capture-recapture methodology. In this sense, EURING Conferences still maintain the flavour that originally inspired scientific meetings: to disseminate the very last findings, ideas and results on the field. Traditionally, EURING Conferences have been published in the form of Proceedings, which because of their relevant content, become a required reading to anyone interested in the capture-recapture methodology.
EURING 2003 was held in Radolfzell (Germany), hosted by the Max Planck Research Centre for Ornithology, and the Proceedings appear as a special issue of Animal Biodiversity and Conservation. The full title of the 2003 meeting was “The quantitative study of marked individuals in ecology, evolution and conservation biology”, which stands for one of the main aims of the meeting: to establish the capture-recapture approach as one of the standard methodologies in studies within these fields. One of the shared views is that capture-recapture methodologies have reached a considerable maturity, but the need still exists to spread their use as a “standard” methodology. The nice review paper by Lebreton et al. (1993) in Trends in Ecology and Evolution is still applicable, in that general ecologists and evolutionary biologists still resist their general use. The same applies to conservation biology, where the analysis of marked individuals may also be a key tool in its development. We hope, with the spread of 2003 Proceedings, to help to fill this gap.
The Proceedings follow the same general structure as the Conference. We organised the EURING meeting in 10 technical sessions, covering what we considered as fastest growing areas in the field. We appointed for each session, two chairs, which were charged with selecting 4-7 talks on the topic of their session. Each session additionally included a plenary conference intended to summarise or to provide a general but synthetic flavour of the topic. As a novelty in EURING conferences, we asked session chairs to include at least one talk dealing with study species other than birds. This is the result of a heated but fruitful discussion at EURING 2000 in Point Reyes, and fits with the general aim to spread the capture-recapture methodology beyond zoological groups: although EURING as an organization, deals with birds, and conferences have traditionally focused on this group, the capture-recapture approach is becoming a standard way to address biologically relevant questions on populations and individuals (Schwarz, 2002), for any zoological group. This volume, contains several nice examples of taxa other than birds.
As far as possible, we selected chairs so that each session was delineated with a good balance between the biological and the statistician emphasis. This balance has in fact characterised EURING conferences, which in addition to the workshop atmosphere always present, has lead to very fruitful exchanges. Session The quantitative study of marked individuals in ecology, evolution and conservation biology: a foreword to the EURING 2003 Conference which in addition to the workshop atmosphere always present, has lead to very fruitful exchanges. Session chairs were also asked to act as editors for the papers within their session. All the papers were hence subjected to peer review, as in any other issue of Animal Biodiversity and Conservation, and presentation of the paper in the Conference did not assure publication in the Proceedings. This has lead to an even higher quality of the papers presented at the Conference. Editors were additionally asked to write a short summary on their session. Given that these summaries also present the views of the Editors on the different topics presented, we have preferred each introduction to appear as a short paper in the front of each one of the sessions, so that it can be cited as a regular paper.
The Proceedings start with the Honour Speaker Talk by James Nichols (Nichols, 2004). This talk is traditionally the last one in the Conference, but we think that it nicely summarises how and why capture-recapture has developed to its current healthy state. The talk is in fact a tribute to David Anderson, to whom, as Nichols says, all of us are more or less in debt. Hence, we have preferred to move the Honour Talk to the front position of the Proceedings, and we would like this to be our humble tribute to David.
At the end of the Proceedings appear a few papers which were presented in poster format, and a paper summarising several of the main topics presented at the traditional short course on capture-recapture, this time organized by the unflagging Evan Cooch.
We would like to thank all the people who helped in one way or another to the successful completion of the EURING Conference and the Proceedings. We thank to the Session Chairs, their dedication and enthusiasm in organizing the sessions and also in editing the different papers. All their names appear in the front page of the Proceedings as credits. We thank Wolfgang Fiedler for the local organization of the event: a very difficult and exhausting task that is not always properly recognized. Jean Clobert, although unfortunately unable to attend the Conference, supported us with ideas and friendship meanwhile preparing the scientific program. Evan Cooch maintained the always successful web page (which probably will also become a classic in EURING conferences…), and organized the traditional course on capture-recapture.
Charles Francis very efficiently organized the poster session and acted as editor for the papers sent for publication. Finally we thank the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología for financial support to the publication of this special issue of Animal Biodiversity and Conservation (B.O.S. 2002-12283-E) and to the Natural History Museum of Barcelona for their support.