Preface -olumes of The Natural History of Enewetak sve research done at the Mid-Pacific Research ory from 1954 to 1984 under the auspices of the “apartment of Energy. The history of the laboratory and the reasons for its support by the United States Department of Energy are described in Chapter 1 of Volume I Over a thousand persons—established scientists, their assistants, and graduate students—conducted research at che laboratory during the 30-year perisd. Their efforts “led in 223 publications. These have been collected in “imes of reprints entitled Mid-Pacific Marine Laborairiputions, 1955-1979, U. S. Department. of ,.. Publication NVO 628-1. The laboratory has con: Bishop Museum in Honolulu and the U. S. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- ington, D. C. In addition to the species checklists. each chapter in Volume Il provides a succinct summary of the biota with respect to endemism, range extensions, and other features that set the Enewetak biota apart from those one might expect to find on equivalent Indo-Pacific islands. This compendium of taxonomic information for an atoll should prove of immense value to scientists interested in biogeog- raphy and evolutionary biology of island ecosystems for years to come. One of the problems of editing these volumes has been vinuvd operation on a limited scale to the present. A col: the correct use of place names. In some cases authors Murine Science, Volume 38. 1986. the native names. Even the native names have changed lection of papers recently appeared in the Bulletin of Much of the research conducted at the laboratory was on the marine environment. The reason was that the majority of scientists applying to work at Enewetak were ‘narme biologists. For many, this was the first opportunity -, the biota of a coral atoll. Fewer studies were con- used the military code names for islands while others used from early phonetic spellings to the spellings currently in use and preferred by the Enewetak people. For example, the name of the atoll has changed from Eniwetok to Enewetak, and, although the correct current spelling is used throughout, the old spelling occurs in older references biota. and maps which appear in these volumes. Maps giving the military code names and the native names preferred by the Enewetak people are located in Chapter 1 of Volume I. Surprisingly, it is difficult to determine the exact numberof islands. Due to the effects of storms. small islands are _ephemeral, and two islands and part of a third were ob literated by nuclear explosions. Currently there are 39 rec: ognizable islands, and these are shown on the map used throughout the book. .sily of research carried out by many scientists for néay years. In contrast, the chapters on meteorology and oceanography summarize research carried out under one ical surveys and studies which have been conducted by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, University of California, 1 the terrestrial environment and its .s.verineless, as these volumes attest, the coverage is amazingly complete and thorough, and there are few, if any, studies of an equivalent ecosystem that equa! the total research effort reported in these volumes. Volume I provides a synthesis of the research carried out under the subject headings of the respective chapters. Certain of the chapters, e.g., those on geology, subtidal ana i ‘2 intertidal environments and ecology, and those on reef. *sses and trophic relationships, summarize a great integrated program involving fewer scientists working over @ shorter period. Volume il of The Natural History of Enewetak Atoll provides information on the taxonomy of animals and plants known to occur at Enewetak Atoll This taxonomy “Presents a fulfillment of one of the first assignments to laboratory—to determine the scientific names of the xa of the atoll The collections on which the checklists ' each chapter are based are housed at the Bernice P 5002409 These volumes do not report on theextensive radiolog- and the Radiation Laboratory, University of Washington, also under the auspices of the U. S Energy. Department of Dennis M Devaney, senior editor of this volume. disap peared while collecting specimens off the Island of Hawaii on August 13, 1983. Dennis was doing what he loved best. collecting marine invertebrates. at the time of his death He collected extensively at Enewetex. and he undertook the task of organizing the systematic chapters of Volume ll Beatrice | Burch. Devaney’s assistant at the