The impetus to write a book on the riverine ecosystem synthesis emerged at the 2005 annual meeting of the North American Benthological Society in New Orleans, and barely 2 months later, we signed a contract with Academic Press. This book was to be an expansion of a manuscript that was In Press at that time in River Research and Applications (Thorp et al., 2006). However, the true origin of this synthesis, journal publication, and book was a rivers meeting held in Albury, NSW, Australia, in July 2003 where Jim gave a plenary talk (with suggestions from Mike) at the request of Martin, the conference leader. Martin.
