12 – 15 November 2012
Pakse, Champasak Province, Laos
It is a pleasure for us to welcome you to the Symposium “Spiders of the Greater Mekong Region” in Laos. This first meeting in this region is intended to bring arachnologists together to exchange their results and to facilitate future collaborations. It was planned in the year 2012 also as a preparative meeting for the first International Congress of Arachnology in Asia (Taiwan, Kenting, 23.–28.6.2013).
In Pakse, we found a nice venue at the banks of the river Mekong and close to habitats for a post-symposium workshop. The first part —three days of presentations, poster sessions and discussions— will be attended by more than 50 colleagues from fifteen countries. In the second part at Tad Etu, more than 30 persons will search for spiders, take photos, identify and, again, discuss results.
We hope that all participants will enjoy their time in Laos and gain valuable experiences. Since it is the first time we have organised such a meeting in Laos we apologise if everything does not flow smoothly. We try to help wherever we can, so do not hesitate to contact us during the meeting.
At this point we would like to thank Dr Emma Shaw for kindly polishing abstracts and other texts linguistically, and Gerry Duckitt for helping in organising on-site issues! We also thank BIOPAT e.V. (Germany) for their generous financial support in covering travel grants, local transport and venue costs.
We are looking forward to meeting you all in person and wish you a good time in Laos,
