I want to manipulate lists as described below: Imagine these two lists: > list1 $WR7 [1] 1 2 3 4 $YH5YH6 [1] 3 4 5 6 7 $YH4 [1] 4 5 $UC4UC8 [1] 4 5 6 7 8 9 > list2 V1 V2 1 WR7 Averrhoa 2 ? Sarcotheca 3 YH5YH6 caesia 4 YH4 arbuscula 5 UC4UC8 rosea 6 ? acetosella How can I exchange the names(list1) by the entries in the second column of list2, if (a) length(list1) ? length(list2) and (b) the elements of both lists are not in the same order? Is there a easy way to do this? Thank you! ________________________________________________________ Christoph Heibl PhD student 'Phylogenetics and phylogeography of endemic Atacama Desert flora' Systematic Botany Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen Menzinger Str. 67 D-80638 M?nchen GERMANY phone: +49-(0)89-17861-251 e-mail: heibl at lmu.de