The Editors
Sakis Drosopoulos Ph.D. is Professor of Systematics and Biosystematics in the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology of the Agricultural University of Athens. Since 1972 his research has focused on two topics: first faunistic and floristic investigations on phytophageous Hemiptera and second biosystematics (ecology, ethology, genetics) of species complexes, which are difficult to separate only by pure morphological characters. All these still ongoing studies led him to develop his own ideas on the evolution of bisexual, pseudogamous and parthenogenetic organisms world wide. Some of these ideas are presented for the first time in this book. He enriched his knowledge as an active member of the Hellenic Zoological Society, having contacts with various zoologists from all over the world, organising or participating in several international congresses and collaborating with many distinguished scientists, amongst whom is Professor Michael Claridge, with whom he has shared a warm and firm friendship since 1975.
Mike Claridge is Emeritus Professor of Entomology at the University of Wales, Cardiff, U.K., where he served as Head of the School of Pure and Applied Biology from 1989 to 1994. He graduated in zoology at the University of Oxford where he continued for a D. Phil. in the Hope Department of Entomology. His career subsequently was based continuously in Cardiff, from 1959 to 1999, though many field projects on a wide variety of insects have taken him throughout Europe, Australia and tropical South and Southeast Asia. His research interests have always centred on species problems and speciation in insects. In 1997 he coedited, with Hassan Dawah and Mike Wilson, and authored two chapters in a multi-author volume Species: The Units of Biodiversity (Chapman & Hall). He came relatively late to studies on acoustic behaviour in order to identify specific mate recognition systems and species isolating barriers in leafhoppers and planthoppers. He has had the privilege to serve as President of the Linnean Society of London (1988-1991), the Systematics Association (1991 — 1994) and the Royal Entomological Society of London (2000-2002). He was awarded the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society in 2000 for services to zoology. His long friendship with Sakis Drosopoulos and love affair with Greece have resulted in the present book.
Sakis Drosopoulos (left) and Michael Claridge (right). Photo by Hanneke Drosopoulou
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