Prologue

Celebrating AEHMS’ partnership with Professor William Taylor: An advisor, editor and mentor.It is a great honour to dedicate this special tribute issue of AEHM to Professor William Taylor on his retirement. This idea originated when Drs. Andrew Muir and Abigail Lynch organized a tribute session at the IAGLR conference in Windsor, Canada, during which I gave a presentation highlighting the influence and support of Bill as a senior member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal (Munawar et al., 2023). The session was informative and interesting and based on 10 enthusiastic presentations by his students and colleagues, who outlined Bill's admirable career and service to global fisheries. When I came to know about the proposed session, I suggested the idea of a special tribute issue of AEHM to Andrew and Abigail in order to document and capture the experience of the students, colleagues and friends who have known and worked with Bill. Andrew liked the idea and offered to help by proposing it to a wider research community, while Jennifer Lorimer, the journal's Assistant to the Editor, promoted the tribute issue to the larger network of the AEHMS.The response was encouraging and enthusiastic, resulting in 23 wonderful and important contributions included in this special issue. The articles were then technically edited and revised by AEHMS. For this issue we also brought in a guest editor, Dr Nabila Munawar, to synthesize, curate and arrange the articles to present a narrative of Bill's contributions, impact and legacy. Given the breadth of Bill Taylor's work and accomplishments, we are presenting to you a collection of personal reflections, highlights of some of his vast scientific contributions and beyond that, heartening stories and memories of what he brought to our field not just scientifically, but personally. This special issue is a landmark collection of tributes from his colleagues, friends and students who will undoubtedly maintain the everlasting flame of knowledge ignited by Professor Bill Taylor. I hope you enjoy this issue and are inspired by his example.The AEHMS has been fortunate and blessed to have known him for more than 7 years and has immensely benefitted from his wisdom, guidance and advice regarding fisheries conservation and sustainability. We were privileged to have him as a member of the Editorial advisory board of our journal AEHM which resulted in many cooperative special issues (see references). Some of the issues were funded by Bill. As an editor, I was privileged to work with him and greatly benefitted from his treasure of global experience and knowledge. We also worked closely in the organization of the Blue Economy workshop for the Ecosystem Approach conference held at the University of Windsor during the summer of 2022, which resulted in the publication of two papers (Carlson et al., 2024; Van der Knaap et al., 2024).We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University for the publication of this issue. We acknowledge with thanks the travel funding provided by Fisheries and Oceans Canada to attend the IAGLR conference. Thanks go to Nabila Munawar for serving as guest editor and reviewing and synthesizing the content of the special issue in a thoughtful and cohesive fashion. We are grateful to Susan Blunt for the technical editing. Thanks are also due to I.F. Munawar, Martin Van der Knaap, Jennifer Lorimer, Lisa Elder and Jahanara Shaikh (Munawar et al., 2023) for their assistance in the preparation of this tribute issue. We appreciate the cooperation of all authors for their historical and meaningful accounts of their experiences with Bill, and greatly value the support and encouragement of AEHMS for its publication. The AEHMS hopes this special tribute issue will serve as a milestone and guidance for the current and future generations of fishery science researchers.Wishing you all the best, Bill.From your friend and colleague,MohiuddinMohiuddin MunawarPresident and Chief Editor, AEHMSFisheries and Oceans Canada867 Lakeshore Road,Burlington, Ontario L7S 1A1Legend (left to right, top to bottom): Old Grin, a charter boat in Lake Michigan that Bill frequented and accomplished department building aboard, 1990s; fishing Columbia River with Jim Martin, April 2015; Bill fishing with enthusiasm; Bill always working, Key West; GLFC poster on Sea Lampreys with Bill showing an example of the Great Lakes fishery; Bill writing with his helpmate; a word cloud built from the titles of Bill's papers; Bill on stage receiving the highest award at the American Fisheries Society, November 2021; Bill in Puerto Rico recruiting graduate students, January 2016; Bill in Rome; Nick Mandrak, Bill Taylor, Henry Regier and Mohiuddin Munawar at IAGLR 2018; Abigail Lynch and Bill Taylor in Austria to presented their research on whitefish, 2011; attendees of the IAGLR special session honouring Bill Taylor, May 2024; Bill and wife Evelyn at the IAGLR session, May 2024; Andrew Muir and Bill at the IAGLR session, May 2024.

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