A 2-stage survey was carried out to establish the point-prevalence of mental disorders and help-seeking behaviour in children aged 8, 11 and 15 living in the city of Valencia. Global prevalence rates, rates by age and rates by sex, as well as rates of specific diagnosis according to DSM-III-R criteria are described. Help-seeking behaviour was found to be related to an interaction between internalizing and externalizing symptoms and sex.

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A sample of 60 Spanish schizophrenic patients was studied to ascertain the relationship between their relatives' expressed emotion (EE) and relapse at follow-up. The relatives' EE and patients' relapse were operationalised following Leff & Vaughn's criteria. At nine months a significant association was not found between the relatives' EE and relapse, but this association became significant on reclassifying the relatives' EE scores after decreasing to four points the cut-off point for critical comments. At 24 months no association was found between EE and relapse. There was a tendency for patients who interrupted their medication or who did not work to relapse more frequently, particularly among the high-EE group.

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The network approach is crucial to understand how ecosystems are structured and how they will respond to the disturbances (e.g. the current global change). We have recreated the multi‐interaction network of a shallow freshwater lake dominated by submerged macrophytes (Charophytes), a known system very vulnerable to environmental changes, considering both trophic and non‐trophic relationships among its elements. To minimize the environmental variability, we established it in an experimental mesocosm, including three habitats: the pelagic, the habitat around the meadow and the periphytic community living on macrophytes. We aimed to study the structure of this network and the roles of its elements, as well as the response of this system to a foreseeable decrease in charophytes due to the global change. Thus, we tested whether there are species in the system that, due to the connections they establish, have central or connecting roles and if the reduction of charophytes affects more the elements that live intimately associated with them. Our results confirm that charophytes are the most central node in the network and that the high‐mobility large planktonic herbivores living within the meadow are acting as bridges between the conformant compartments. This suggests a structurally crucial tandem macrophytes‐herbivores with the former playing a foundation role (i.e. basal and abundant species centralizing non‐trophic interactions) and the latter being connectors in this network. Interestingly, we found that the periphytic elements where those with the highest capacity to affect the other elements of the network when being disturbed. Furthermore, an eventual decrease in the abundance of charophytes will cause a major direct damage to the meadow and periphyton, compartments to which they provide refuge and life support, respectively. Our study highlights the need of approaches encompassing the complex structure of the ecological networks to identify crucial species (such as foundation or connecting species) for their topology and vulnerability geared towards conservation biology.

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