John Webster is Professor Emeritus of the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter, UK. Dr Roland W. S. Weber (B.Sc., Ph.D., University of Exeter, UK) has an exceptionally broad university-based research and teaching experience spanning all areas of mycology as well as most groups of fungi. He is currently working at the Fruit Experiment Station (OVB) in Jork, Northern Germany, where he is establishing a mycology laboratory and research group. Current research activities include the biology of new and uncommon fungal pathogens, notably Fusarium avenaceum cane blight of raspberries, sooty-blotch disease and Gloeosporium-type storage rots of apples. He is also concerned with the effects of climate change on apple pests and diseases. From July 1999 until November 2006 Dr Weber was a lecturer in fungal biotechnology at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. As a research fellow at the University of Exeter (1996–1999), Dr Weber worked with Professor John Webster on the ecology of coprophilous fungi and on the rust fungus Puccinia distincta, a new arrival in Europe which has now established itself across the Continent. The extensive collaboration between both mycologists has culminated in their recently published textbook Introduction to Fungi (third edition, Cambridge University Press, 2007). Dr Weber has authored some 90 scientific publications in a wide range of journals, as well as several book chapters. He is a current editorial board member of Mycological Research and a member of the British Mycological Society, Royal Horticultural Society and German Mycological Society.