(Gaps are due to protect privacy.)
accompanied me on our collecting trip in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan in 2002. accompanied me to Morocco in 2004, to Myanmar in 2005, and to Cyprus in 2005 and to Corsica (France) in 2006.
gave me invaluable help in performing the field experiments in Central Europe.
Additional tissue samples were provided by
Additional recordings were provided by , The British Library Sound Archive, London, and The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.
The following persons made collection material available for this study (for museum acronyms see Table 5.1): (AMNH), (MTD), (MVZ), (MWHN), (NHM), (NMW), (NRM), (UMMZ), (ZFMK), (ZMB), (ZMH), (ZSM).
The staff of the university libraries of Mainz and in particular Frankfurt am Main and of the museum libraries at the AMNH, MTD, NHM, NMW, ZFMK and ZMB provided friendly help especially to check the original descriptions of Certhia treecreepers from 1758 up to 2000.
lent me a laptop, a desktop computer and a laser printer.
The Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst supported my graduation and financed my journey to SE Asia and my stay at the AMNH in New York. European Commissions Research Infrastructure Action via the SYNTHESYS Project funded the stay at the NHM in Tring.
This work on Certhia treecreepers is part of a Sino-German co-operation project supported also by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Authorities of the Chinese Academy of Sciences helped to organise travel within China.
My family, my partner and all other good friends gave me the emotional support I needed, and lent me an ear in difficult times.
To all the people and institutions that have contributed to the success of this undertaking, I give my heartfelt thanks.