The present volume includes papers presented in the International
Symposium on Adaptations to Terrestrial Environment, held in Halkidiki,
Greece from September 26th to October 2nd, 1982, as well as some invited
ones from well known scientists working in the same field. It seemed
rather optimistic to deal just in the same volume with such a variety of
organisms (micro- organisms to higher plants) on the basis of the1r
adaptive strategies for survival on land. It would appear as the entire
ecology ought to be included. It was a challenge for us. We undertook
this challenge hoping that the output would not be unsuccessful. The
Editors allowed the authors of the accepted papers great leeway in terms
of thoroughness of their contributions. The quality of the papers
included is high while some of them had to be rewritten in order to
include valuable comments developed during the Symposium discussions. We
have tried to include many papers from Eastern Europe since generally,
because of the language problem, they do not get widely known. The
Editors wish to express their thankfulness to UNESCO for sponsoring the
Symposium in the frame of Man and Biosphere Program; to all scientists
who have contributed papers in this volume; and to Mrs. A.
Karamanli-Vlahopoulou for her patient and skillful typing of part of the
manuscript.