Wildlife in Forest Ecosystems: Game Damage vs. Conservation
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Biodiversity".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2024 | Viewed by 1036
Special Issue Editors
Interests: human-wildlife conflict; game management
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
European landscapes have faced dramatic changes over the last 100 years, especially in recent decades. Moreover, forest ecosystems are affected by ongoing global climate change which significantly modifies the structure of forest stands, tree species composition, and consequentially habitat conditions for a wide range of wildlife. Those changes have indeed exposed the winners and losers of wildlife species. On the one hand, wild ungulates have successfully increased their numbers in human-dominated landscapes with substantial negative impacts on forest stands associated with tree regeneration, bark stripping, or fraying damage. The population increase has not only been concerned with native species such as roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), or red deer (Cervus elaphus), but also introduced ones, especially sika (Cervus nippon nippon) or fallow deer (Dama dama). On the other hand, mentioned changes negatively affected protected wildlife species, such as forest grouses including black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix) and Western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) or owls, and many other species.
Therefore, the main aim of this Special Issue is to focus on particular aspects of forest management which can significantly affect game damage to forest ecosystems or the conservation of endangered wildlife species in European conditions in a period of ongoing climate change.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Damage to forest caused by browsing, barks stripping, and fraying;
- Wild boar rooting;
- Tree seedlings and sampling protection;
- Ungulate preferences of tree species and habitats;
- The impact of wildlife on forest soils;
- The impact of wildlife on forest ecosystems;
- Forest management methods used for wildlife conservation;
- Factors influencing the effect of wildlife on forest ecosystems;
- Nature conservation vs. wildlife;
- Methods of forest management for tree regeneration protection;
- The impact of introduced ungulates on forest stands.
Dr. Jan Cukor
Dr. Jakub Drimaj
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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
- wild ungulates
- game damage
- bark stripping
- forest management
- wildlife conservation
