刘瑞玉院士在工作中

Onthe 16^th of July 2012, the eminentChinese carcinologist Prof. Ruiyu Liu (known as J. Y. Liu or Jui-yu Liu to hiscarcinological colleagues and friends around the world) passed on. No longerwould his friends, colleagues and students be able to rely on his invaluableknowledge of taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, macrobenthos and marine culturefor their work. China and the carcinological world, will miss his selflessenthusiasm and wisdom.

Prof.Liu was a polymath! As his students, we were always surprised he knew the Latinnames of so many plant and microbe species! And Latin is not the easiestlanguage for Chinese scientists. We have also been deeply touched by hismeticulousness, patience and kindness to colleagues and students alike —and not just those in his disciplines. Even today, seven years after he leftus, we still often talk about and recall the deeds of Prof. Liu with the greatestof respect.

Prof.Liu’s research fields covered a variety of disciplines in marine biology. Hewas one of the founders of carcinology, marine macrobenthic ecology, and thefounder of marine crustacean culture in China. Since the 1940s, he and his studentshave 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. Hisfirst monograph, “The Economic Shrimps from Northern China”, published in 1955,is a classic crustacean reference, still widely cited in China. Subsequently, aseries of monographs on the crustacean fauna of China, including three volumesof “Fauna Sinica”, and almost 100 papers on crustacean taxonomy, were publishedby him and his collaborators. These works, mostly on crustacean diversity inChina, substantially expanded our knowledge of faunal compositions in Chinesewaters, their zoogeographic characteristics as well as the phylogeneticrelationships among many groups. In the 1960s, Prof. Liu divided themacrobenthic communities of China seas and defined several key habitats. Forexample, he found for the first time that the cold-water community in thedeep-water area of the central Yellow Sea was protected by the cold waters ofthe Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass. He also highlighted that this community waspart of the Fauna of the North Pacific Temperate Zone, distinct from the warmwater fauna of the Indo-West Pacific as well as the East and South China Seas.In the domain of aquaculture, Prof. Liu initiated marine shrimp culture inChina and was the pioneer for the mass culture of the Chinese prawn (Penaeus chinensis)and white prawn (Penaeus vannamei).

Asone of the most experienced and senior marine scientists in China, Prof. Liusuccessively presided over many national and international comprehensivesurveys, for example: “The comprehensive resource investigation of Chinesecoast and shallow waters” (1958-1960), “The national comprehensive survey ofresources of coastal and intertidal zones” (1981-1987), and “The Sino-Germanjoint survey of marine biodiversity on Hainan Island” (1990-1992). He was alsoa leader in academic societies — he was the president or vice president ofthe Chinese Society for Oceanology and Limnology, the Chinese Society forOceanography, the China Society of Fisheries, and the Chinese CrustaceanSociety. The “Checklist of Marine Biota of China Seas”, edited by Prof. Liu hasbeen hailed as a landmark monograph by many international colleagues. Becauseof his outstanding contributions to scientific research in China, Prof. Liu waselected as member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997. In 2007, TheCrustacean Society presented him with the ”Outstanding Research ContributionAward” in recognition of his numerous contributions to crustacean research.

Atotal of 42 colleagues contributed 18 manuscripts to this issue, they are notonly Prof. Liu’s students or his students’ students, but also close colleagues andfriends for many years. During his lifetime, Prof. Liu published 97 papers andmonographs on crustacean taxonomy, more than 70 papers and monographs onmacrobenthos, 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.

Asguest 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 thepublication and continually urging us to complete the work. We are also deeplyappreciative 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 theanonymous reviewers and all the authors — friends of Prof. Liu — whohave contributed to the success of this issue.

September2020, Guest Editors for the present issue

Xinzheng Li

Wenliang Liu

Wei Jiang