**About the Editors**

#### **Daniel Puppe**

Daniel Puppe is a researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Muncheberg, Germany. As a biologist, he is generally interested in all forms of life. However, in ¨ his research he is focused on organisms that form biogenic silica structures (e.g., plant phytoliths, testate amoeba shells, or sponge spicules) and the role of biogenic silica for biogeochemical silicon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and agricultural landscapes. With his research, Daniel aims to find environmentally friendly and sustainable strategies in order to deal with the challenges that global change poses to (agro)ecosystem functioning. He was trained at the TU Brunswick (diploma in biology) and the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg (PhD) in Germany. Daniel is a member of the German Soil Science Society (DBG) and the German Society for Protozoology (DGP), serves as reviewer for science funding associations (German Research Foundation, National Science Centre of Poland) and international peer-reviewed journals, and is author of various scientific publications (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3140-0528).

#### **Panayiotis G. Dimitrakopoulos**

Panayiotis G. Dimitrakopoulos is Professor of Functional Ecology at the Department of Environment of the University of the Aegean, Greece. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of the Aegean in 2001. His postdoctoral research was carried out in the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and was funded from the European Science Foundation (LINKECOL program). His research focuses on functional plant ecology, community ecology, biodiversity conservation, and conservation policy. He has served as President of the Hellenic Ecological Society (2012–2014), member of the "Natura 2000" National Committee (2010–2020), and Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (2019–2022). He serves as Section Editor-in-Chief of Ecology in Biology and is a member of the editorial board of six journals and referee for more than 60 journals. He has published more than 85 papers in peer-reviewed journals (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8374-4392).

#### **Baorong Lu**

Baorong Lu is a professor of evolutionary biology and genetic resources at the School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, China. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in 1993. He was promoted as an associated professor in SLU (since 1994) and a professor (since 1995) in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He worked as a Germplasm Specialist (senior scientist) in the International Rice Research Institute during 1995–2000 until he joined Fudan University in the end of 2000. He received the Distinguished Young Fellow Award by the National Science Foundation of China in 2001. He has served as the member of the Chinese National Biosafety Committee since 2002. He is actively involved in research and teaching on botany, evolutionary biology, cytogenetics, biodiversity conservation, biotechnology, and the biosafety assessment of genetically engineered crops, particularly the issue of transgene flow and its ecological/environmental consequences. He has published more than 300 academic articles in peer-review journals and these articles have been cited more than 12,000 times. He has also served as the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor or an Editorial Member of several international and national journals.
