Ecology, Evolution, and Management of Agricultural Weeds
A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Protection, Diseases, Pests and Weeds".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 September 2026 | Viewed by 876
Special Issue Editors
Interests: agricultural ecological protection; agricultural ecological restoration; agricultural environmental health; ecological security
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Agricultural weeds, including invasive species, pose significant challenges to global food security by competing with crops for resources, altering ecosystem functions, and evolving resistance to control measures. Understanding their ecological dynamics, evolutionary adaptations, and sustainable management strategies is critical in the context of climate change and intensified agriculture.
This Special Issue of Agriculture invites cutting-edge research that bridges fundamental ecology, evolutionary biology, and applied weed management to address these multifaceted challenges. We particularly encourage the application of interdisciplinary technologies in weed identification, monitoring, prediction, and control, such as using AI technology to identify and remove weeds, and employing ecological methods to control weeds.
For this reason, we invite highly interdisciplinary quality studies from a range of research fields including agriculture, ecology, and engineering, among others. We welcome original research articles, reviews, and case studies covering (but not limited to) the following:
- Ecological Mechanisms: Weed-crop interactions, soil microbiome influences, and weed community assembly under different agricultural practices.
- Evolutionary Adaptations: Genetic basis of herbicide resistance, rapid evolution in response to management, and invasiveness traits.
- Integrated Management: Innovations in biological control, precision agriculture, crop diversification, and traditional cultural practices to suppress weeds sustainably.
- Invasive Weeds: Spread dynamics, ecological impacts, and region-specific management strategies for invasive species.
- Policy and Socioeconomics: Farmer decision-making, cost–benefit analyses of management options, and policy frameworks for weed control.
Dr. Zhicong Dai
Dr. Zheng Zhang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- agricultural weeds
- ecological mechanisms
- evolutionary adaptations
- invasive weeds
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