For the preparation of his review on Ecophysiology, Park Nobel gratefully acknowledges the support of the University of California, Los Angeles - Ben Gurion Programme of Cooperation, through the generous gift of Dr Sol Leshin. Likewise, financial assistance from the Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo is gratefully acknowledged for the research reported by Juan C. Guevara and Oscar R. Estevez, in their paper. Severino Gonzaga de Albuquerque, co-author of the chapter on “Fodder Opuntia use in the Semi-arid NE Brazil,” acknowledges his dept to his father, César Gonzaga - a grower convinced of the potential of opuntia, who passed away during the writing of the paper. Final editing, formatting and production of camera-ready copy was undertaken
