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Jan Zima, 1952-2019
It is with great sadness that we report the death of our good friend and colleague Jan Zima, who died on 26th March 2019. He had been ill for some time.
Jan, known as Honza to his friends, was one of the editors of the first Atlas of European Mammals, published in 1999 and joined enthusiastically with our new project to prepare a second edition. He was present at our meetings in Rome and Prague and just last week had submitted a species account for Sorex araneus, which we will use as a model for our new atlas.
Jan was one of the most accomplished mammalogists in Europe, with a publication list of about 200 papers in international journals as well as many monographs, books and book chapters. This year, along with Jeremy Searle and David Polly, he published the multi-author book Shrews, Chromosomes and Speciation, a subject in which he had long been interested.
As well as being an outstanding researcher in both field and laboratory, Jan was also a gifted and experienced administrator and an important figure in the organisation of vertebrate research in the Czech Republic. He had a long association with the Institute of Vertebrate Biology in Brno, where he was Deputy Director, he was a Member of the Academy Council of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and he was also a member of the scientific councils of 7 universities and 4 research institutes. Truly a key figure in Czech science.
Our thoughts are with his wife and family at this sad time.
Mammals of Russia: Faunistics and Problems of Theriogeography
A Confe
rence on The Mammals of Russia: Faunistics and Problems of Theriogeography will take place in Rostov-on-Don on 17-19 April 2019.
The conference, which will help to deliver the EMMA2 project, will include sessions on the following themes:
- Local and regional mammal faunas
- Structure and dynamics of mammal distribution ranges
- Mammal phylogeography
- Introduction of mammals: modern problems
- Use of the "Mammals of Russia" database to increase the effectiveness of fauna studies
- Problems of mammal species identification in the Russian fauna
Further information about the conference is available from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The European Mammal Foundation
The Societas Europaea Mammalogica was set up to support the first edition of the Atlas by providing a formal organisation and a bank account. This was registered in Paris under French law. Since that time, the SEM has ceased to exist officially, so for the second edition of the Atlas, we have set up a new organisation to provide similar facilities. The European Mammal Foundation is registered as a charitable Foundation (Stichting) in the Netherlands and has the objective of publishing and keeping up to date an atlas and related products with all information about European mammals. It can thus be used to help with fund-raising for the Atlas project. At present, the Foundation has 4 officers:
- Chair: Tony Mitchell-Jones
- Vice-chair: Johan Thissen
- Secretary: Laurent Schley
- Treasurer: Svetlana Miteva
EMMA2 - 1 year on
A year after our initial meeting in Rome the project has made good progress and is on-track with the timetable we proposed there.
The main achievements this year have been:
- We have agreed the exact boundaries of the area to be mapped and prepared maps of the CGRS cells for each country (available here).
- We have agreed a full species list for the area, annotated with cases where taxonomic decisions may need to be made as the project moves forward. We recognise that changes may need to be considered during the lifetime of the project and have set up a system for doing this,
- We have appointed coordinators for almost every country involved in the project, as well as a small number of topic coordinators to help with the work (available here).
For 2018, we are planning an opportunity for all our coordinators to get together and discuss topics relating to the collection, management and storage of data for the atlas. We will also be opening discussions with a publisher to begin the process of planning the publication and we will also start looking for authors to prepare the species accounts.
EMMA2 - Meeting in Prague
Photo: G Amori
47 members of the Delivery Group, from 30 European countries, gathered in Prague on the weekend of 20-22 April for the first full meeting of the project group. Delegates listened to a variety of presentations, including case studies of atlas work across Europe, data sharing, setting standards for data collection and management, progress reports from each country and information about the data requirements for the atlas.
An impressive amount of work is already under way and there was great enthusiasm for this ambitious project, which has already led to the setting up of several national atlas projects.