Special Issue

Acknowledgment of referees.- Age and growth studies of chondrichthyan fishes: the need for consistency in terminology, verification, validation, and growth function fitting.- Age and growth of the sandbar shark, Carcharhinus plumbeus, in Hawaiian waters through vertebral analysis.- A re-examination of the age and growth of sand tiger sharks, Carcharias taurus, in the western North Atlantic: the importance of ageing protocols and use of multiple back-calculation techniques.- Comparing external and internal dorsal-spine bands to interpret the age and growth of the giant lantern shark, Etmopterus baxteri (Squaliformes: Etmopteridae).- The potential use of caudal thorns as a non-invasive ageing structure in the thorny skate (Amblyraja radiata Donovan, 1808).- Terminology for the ageing of chondrichthyan fish using dorsal-fin spines.- Do differences in life history exist for blacktip sharks, Carcharhinus limbatus, from the United States South Atlantic Bight and Eastern Gulf of Mexico?.- Evidence of two-phase growth in elasmobranchs.- Two Bayesian methods for estimating parameters of the von Bertalanffy growth equation.- A critical appraisal of marginal increment analysis for assessing temporal periodicity in band formation among tropical sharks.- Elemental signatures in the vertebral cartilage of the round stingray, Urobatis halleri, from Seal Beach, California.- Bomb dating and age validation using the spines of spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias).- Investigations of ?14C, ? 13C, and ? 15N in vertebrae of white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) from the eastern North Pacific Ocean.- Application of bomb radiocarbon chronologies to shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) age validation.- Validated age and growth estimates for the shortfin mako, Isurus oxyrinchus, in the North Atlantic Ocean.- Validated age and growth of the sandbar shark, Carcharhinus plumbeus (Nardo 1827) in the waters off Western Australia.- Analysis of variability in vertebral morphology and growth ring counts in two Carcharhinid sharks.- Morphometric minefields-towards a measurement standard for chondrichthyan fishes.