A1 Acknowledgements

We wish to thank our many colleagues, whose ongoing research has supported this work by providing ideas and datasets. We trust that our citations in the text and associated with datasets provides ample evidence of the many researchers who have contributed towards the development of methods and this software. We extend special thanks to those who have organised courses and workshops with the earlier DOS and beta versions of this software, testing these methods. The software and the scope of the manual were greatly improved by these trials, especially through questions, comments and suggestions offered by participants. We offer special thanks to Antonio Terlizzi and Euan Harvey, who, by organising combined workshops at the University of Lecce and at the University of Western Australia, respectively, were largely responsible for bringing us together, leading to this joint endeavour. Thanks are also due to the University of Auckland, Plymouth Marine Laboratory and Massey University for their recognition and support of this work. KRC would like to acknowledge his Honorary Fellowships of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association of the UK, and his Adjunct Professorship at Murdoch University, Western Australia.