In Memoriam – Dr. Beatrice E. Sambugar (1949–2014)

With great sadness we announce that our friend and colleague, Dr. Beatrice E. Sambugar, passed away in her sleep on 20/21 January 2014 after an extended illness. Beatrice was born in Verona Italy in 1948. She received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the University of Padova, Italy. During her professional career, she was employed as a teacher in a Secondary School in Verona, as manager of SARECO, and engineering and consulting firm in Verona, then later as director of Studio SARECO. She was also an Associate Researcher at the Museo di Storia Naturale in Verona from 1972 until her death. For many years, Beatrice focused on groundwater fauna and hydrobiology, working closely on many projects with her mentor and professor, Sandro Ruffo – one of the founders of the International Society for Subterranean Biology. During her career, Beatrice prepared numerous reports, and produced pedagogical material and diverse research – primarily related to monitoring and conservation of parks and other protected areas. She was author or coauthor on over 30 publications, focused primarily on the taxonomy, faunistics, distribution and ecology of freshwater oligochaetes, and many specific to subterranean waters in Southern Europe. In collaboration with other colleagues, she described 15 new species in seven genera and four families of oligochaetous Clitellata. Beatrice is survived by her daughter Chiara, a CNRS Researcher at the Institut de Physique Théorique, Paris. Although Chiara dedicates most of her time towards research on Theoretical Cosmology, she cultivates the love for Nature and Arts that she received from Beatrice. Our family of oligochaetologists, worldwide, will miss the personal warmth, kindness, and professionalism shared by Beatrice, unselfishly, with each of us – yet her spirit, dedication, and enthusiasm lives on in all of us. The 13th International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaeta, hosted by Masaryk University and convened 7-11 September 2015 at the Hotel Continental in Brno, Czech Republic, was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Beatrice Sambugar and other deceased members of our global oligochaete family. A more extensive memoriam honoring Beatrice, including citations for her publications, will be published at a later date. – – Enrique Martínez-Ansemil, Patrick Martin, and Mark J. Wetzel