The 13th International Grouse Symposium (IGS) was held in Reykjavik, Iceland from 8 to 11 September 2015. The IGS is a venue for grouse scientists, conservationists and managers from across the world to meet, discuss and present their results. The event in Reykjavik was attended by about 150 persons from Europe, North-America and Asia. The event was hosted by the Icelandic Institute of Natural History.
A total of 114 scientific contributions were presented, including 4 plenary talks, 75 talks and 25 posters. All the abstracts have been published in Grouse news (<http:// galliformes.org/newsletter>). As in previous grouse symposia, the authors were been encouraged to submit their work as publishable manuscripts to be published in a special issue of a scientific journal. The journal Wildlife Biology has served this function four times before and this is the 5 th issue presenting IGS derived papers. The return rate of IGS 2015 (publishable manuscripts as proportion of total titles presented) is not high (10%). Why this lack of interest? Are symposia and other scientific meetings becoming more of a meeting point than outlet of papers? I do not have an answer; it could be busy schedule and lack of time, work already published or intended for publication at another forum, etc. The 11 grouse papers in this issue cover different topics; there are 3 papers on management of grouse, 2 of each on habitat modelling and technology, and one of each on mating behaviour, climate change and trophic relations, movement , and parasite-host relationship. Seven of the papers are based on work done in Europe, 3 in America and 1 in China.
The review process has followed the standards of Wildlife Biology. Each paper had two reviewers and when reviewers were in conflict I resolved the disputed issues. The final responsibility for acceptance of papers rested with me.
I would like to thank the authors for their contribution and all their effort. Also, I thank the reviewers for their indepth scrutinizing of the manuscripts; this greatly improved the final products. Taking on the role of the chairman or the organizing committee for IGS 2015 and special editor for this volume has been a learning process for me. I have enjoyed this task and I hope that the readers will find the grouse papers presented here as interesting as I have.
