Following the retirement of former series editor, Alistair Lindley, SAHFOS, the publication of the plankton leaflets fell dormant. However, it has now been revived with the appointment of new co-editors Lidia Yebra, co-chair of the Working Group on Zooplankton Ecology (WGZE), and Antonina dos Santos, SCICOM member for Portugal.
Dos Santos is happy to bring the series back: "The plankton leaflets are an important resource and reference for the marine science community, as they are regularly consulted by scientists and students alike. They represent one of the main sources of online taxonomic guides for plankton identification and can be useful for future building of automatic image analysis of plankton."
The series returns with a new format that includes ecological and molecular information as well as the morphological identification keys.
The first leaflet from the revived series concerns Oithona, abundant cyclopoid copepods that are common in marine and brackish ecosystems worldwide. Readers are presented with the taxonomic and ecological characteristics of 14 Oithona species that are widely distributed in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea.
Yebra and dos Santos plan to update previously published leaflets as well as produce new titles.
ICES also publishes a series of ID Leaflets on diseases and parasites of fish and shellfish, providing diagnostic aids for identifying the most important diseases and parasites of fish and shellfish in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas.
