[Annelida] Thank you all!

[Sergio Salazar]

Dear colleagues,

Last Friday, María Ana Tovar-Hernández defended her Ph.D. thesis. She was 
the last of the original batch of young, hard-working students that came to 
Chetumal for their graduate studies about 6 yr ago. Besides María Ana, they 
were Patricia Salazar-Silva, J. Rolando Bastida-Zavala, Luis F. 
Carrera-Parra, Mario H. Londoño-Mesa, and Víctor H. Delgado-Blas. Two other 
students are now under the M. Sc. program and you will surely hear about 
them in the near future: Beatriz Yáñez-Rivera, and Guillermo Ruiz-Cancino. 
Hope they can endure our lab conditions to reach a Ph.D. level as well.

Our scientific progress is due to a collective work. Several colleagues have 
being involved as external advisors for these colleagues, and that is why I 
thank the interest and support of Adriana Giangrande, Leslie Harris, Chris 
Glasby, Fredrik Pleijel, Harry ten Hove, J. Angel de León-González, Kirk 
Fitzhugh, Kristian Fauchald, Lobo Orensanz, Mikel Liñero, Patrick Gillet, 
and Vasily Radashevsky. As many of you know, they are extremely kind and 
generous by sharing their experience, time, and even tolerant of us since 
they have opened their homes during repeated visits of variable duration.

At the same time, the curators and researchers of most collections in 
Europe, Latin America, and the United States were very supportive by sending 
out materials to be studied here, or elsewhere, where we concentrated 
materials from several museums, in case they could not be sent to Mexico. 
Thanks a lot. This may look like a common place, but without the access to 
the type or topotype materials, our research activities would be of very 
limited relevance, indeed.

We happily acknowledge the kind help from many colleagues which have been 
sharing their precious time and experience by evaluating our Spanglish 
manuscripts, and by suggesting interesting means to improve their contents 
as well. This is not an exaggeration to say that the final products were 
really transformed thanks to the mostly anonymous refereeing work from our 
wise colleagues.

We have had the economic support from our National Council for Science and 
from our own institution, Ecosur. Although we are currently facing a 
difficult time for Science in Mexico, since there are few job opportunities, 
we are optimistic and trying to change this. Our scholarships program will 
be expanded to include foreigners, such that we keep the door open to 
promote new scientists. Hope to have better conditions in the near future, 
and to keep on enjoying your warm support. Thanks again and happy holidays.

Un abrazo,

Sergio