Crustaceana 93 (11-12) 1233-1234 PREFACE On the 16th of July 2012, the eminent Chinese carcinologist Prof. Ruiyu Liu (known as J. Y. Liu or Jui-yu Liu to his carcinological colleagues and friends around the world) passed on. No longer would his friends, colleagues and students be able to rely on his invaluable knowledge of taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, macrobenthos and marine culture for their work. China and the carcinological world, will miss his selfless enthusiasm and wisdom. Prof. Liu was a polymath! As his students, we were always surprised he knew the Latin names of so many plant and microbe species! And Latin is not the easiest language for Chinese scientists. We have also been deeply touched by his meticulousness, patience and kindness to colleagues and students alike — and not just those in his disciplines. Even today, seven years after he left us, we still often talk about and recall the deeds of Prof. Liu with the greatest of respect. Prof. Liu’s research fields covered a variety of disciplines in marine biology. He was one of the founders of carcinology, marine macrobenthic ecology, and the founder of marine crustacean culture in China. Since the 1940s, he and his students have carried out taxonomic studies on many crustacean groups such as Decapoda, Cirripedia, Amphipoda, Stomatopoda and Mysida; mastering their taxonomy, species compositions in habitats, distributions and overall diversity. His first monograph, “The Economic Shrimps from Northern China”, published in 1955, is a classic crustacean reference, still widely cited in China. Subsequently, a series of monographs on the crustacean fauna of China, including three volumes of “Fauna Sinica”, and almost 100 papers on crustacean taxonomy, were published by him and his collaborators. These works, mostly on crustacean diversity in China, substantially expanded our knowledge of faunal compositions in Chinese waters, their zoogeographic characteristics as well as the phylogenetic relationships among many groups. In the 1960s, Prof. Liu divided the macrobenthic communities of China seas and defined several key habitats. For example, he found for the first time that the cold-water community in the deep-water area of the central Yellow Sea was protected by the cold waters of the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass. He also highlighted that this community was part of the Fauna of the North Pacific Temperate Zone, distinct from the warm water fauna of the Indo-West Pacific as well as the East and South China Seas. In the domain of aquaculture, Prof. Liu © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020Downloaded DOI 10.1163/15685403-00004060 from Brill.com10/02/2021 11:08:41PM via free access 1234 initiated marine shrimp culture in China and was the pioneer for the mass culture of the Chinese prawn (Penaeus chinensis) and white prawn (Penaeus vannamei). As one of the most experienced and senior marine scientists in China, Prof. Liu successively presided over many national and international comprehensive surveys, for example: “The comprehensive resource investigation of Chinese coast and shallow waters” (1958-1960), “The national comprehensive survey of resources of coastal and intertidal zones” (1981-1987), and “The Sino-German joint survey of marine biodiversity on Hainan Island” (1990-1992). He was also a leader in academic societies — he was the president or vice president of the Chinese Society for Oceanology and Limnology, the Chinese Society for Oceanography, the China Society of Fisheries, and the Chinese Crustacean Society. The “Checklist of Marine Biota of China Seas”, edited by Prof. Liu has been hailed as a landmark monograph by many international colleagues. Because of his outstanding contributions to scientific research in China, Prof. Liu was elected as member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997. In 2007, The Crustacean Society presented him with the ”Outstanding Research Contribution Award” in recognition of his numerous contributions to crustacean research. A total of 42 colleagues contributed 18 manuscripts to this issue, they are not only Prof. Liu’s students or his students’ students, but also close colleagues and friends for many years. During his lifetime, Prof. Liu published 97 papers and monographs on crustacean taxonomy, more than 70 papers and monographs on macrobenthos, and 43 papers on aquaculture. The contributions in this issue, however, are mainly on the taxonomy of crabs, shrimps and other crustacean groups, a field for which he is best known for by the international community. As guest editors of this issue, we would like to thank Drs. Charles H. J. M. Fransen and Peter K. L. Ng for their very kindly support of the publication and continually urging us to complete the work. We are also deeply appreciative of the chief editor of Crustaceana, Dr. J. C. von Vaupel Klein, for his support of this special issue. We are also mostly grateful to the anonymous reviewers and all the authors — friends of Prof. Liu — who have contributed to the success of this issue. September 2020, Guest Editors for the present issue XINZHENG LI WENLIANG LIU WEI JIANG Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 11:08:41PM via free access.