This is the first of the three to four parts of the proceedings of the 29th Congress of SIL, held in Lahti, Finland, August 8-14, 2004. The congress, which defines the state of the art in freshwater studies, was attended by 1125 delegates from 73 countries. 937 presentations (60% oral and 40% posters) were made, covering both basic and applied aspects of aquatic ecology in over 150 sessions. About one-quarter of these papers addressed topics dealing with plankton communities, food web interactions and integrated water management. The Baldi Lecture was presented by Dr. W. Junk and the Kilham Lecture by Dr. Dag Hessen. The plenary lectures were presented by Drs. Z. M. Gliwicz, K. Sivonen, H. Paerl, E. Jeppesen, R. Jones, E. Van Donk, and J. Stanford. Eight workshops by SIL Working Groups and others, were held during the Congress. Some 460 manuscripts were submitted for publication in Volume 29 of the Verhandlungen, the first 105 of which are published in this volume.
J Jones
Finland Finnland Plankton Süßwasser ecosystem environment freshwater plankton Ökosystem