Iberian Meetings of Subterranean Biology – regional initiatives towards a global comprehension of subterranean ecosystems (2009–2013)

The biogeographical position of the Iberian Peninsula, located in the extreme west of Europe, associated with the great diversity of subterranean habitats, has fascinated generations of biologists. Its richness in endemic elements and surprising subterranean biodiversity, has been constantly increasing with new discoveries and approaches. Organized under the auspices of the International Society for Subterranean Biology, the Iberian Meetings have biennial periodicity, unsynchronized from the International Conference. It constitutes a regional initiative to assemble the subterranean biologists community working in the Iberian Peninsula and the contiguous archipelagos of Balears, Canaries, Azores and Madeira. The Iberian Meeting of Subterranean Biology, started in 2009, in the Museu Valencia d’Historia Natural (Spain). Invited speakers and round-tables composed the first edition. More than 120 participants, among experts and students of the University of Valencia, attended to the 23 oral communications presented. This meeting included three round-tables about Biodiversity and Conservation in the Ibero-Macarronesian scope, providing a global view on the current knowledge in this geographic area, later synthesized in the meeting proceedings published in the volume 49 of the Boletin de la Sociedad Entomologica Aragonesa. Subterranean Biology 12: 1–2 (2013)