Species Vulnerability and Habitat Loss (Third Edition)

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land, Biodiversity, and Human Wellbeing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 1022

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
Interests: stress; wildlife management; conservation education; outreach; primates; animal behaviour
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Guest Editor
Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
Interests: conservation; agroforestry; bio-loggers; biodiversity; translocations; animal behaviour; ecosystem services
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Understanding species’ vulnerability to habitat loss is of pivotal importance for conservation planning of threatened species. It is well known that habitat loss is one of the major threats of biodiversity loss worldwide. When a habitat is destroyed, degraded, or becomes fragmented, the plants, animals, and other organisms that occupy the habitat exeperience a reduction in the capacity or ability to survive, to the point that populations can decline and become extinct. Some species, however, can thrive in conditions of degraded and fragmented habitats, and can  even spread into human-modified habitats.

In this Special Issue we are seeking original articles, commentaries, meta-analyses, and reviews that investigate species’ responses to habitat loss and the creation of new habitats. What are the traits that are linked to the ability to survive in conditions of habitat loss? What are the consequences of habitat loss in terms of physiological responses and stress levels? This Special Issue is mainly focused on plants and animals, but original contributions on other organisms may be accepted.

We encourage submissions on the following topics:

  • Species traits that can predict vulnerability to habitat loss;
  • Species responses to edge habitats;
  • Stressors and stresses linked to habitat loss;
  • The ability of species to survive in human-modified habitats;
  • Importance of dispersal in allowing the persistence of species in fragmented landscapes;
  • Successful conservation planning strategies.

Other topics relevant to the SI can be also considered prior to an inquiry sent to the guest editors.

Dr. Michela Balestri
Dr. Marco Campera
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. Land 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

  • edge effect
  • stress
  • species trait
  • threatened species
  • fragmentation
  • habitat shift
  • dispersal
  • extinction risk
  • conservation planning

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 10627 KB  
Article
The Impact of Climate and Land Use Change on Greek Centipede Biodiversity and Conservation
by Elisavet Georgopoulou, Konstantinos Kougioumoutzis and Stylianos M. Simaiakis
Land 2025, 14(8), 1685; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14081685 - 20 Aug 2025
Viewed by 921
Abstract
Centipedes (Chilopoda, Myriapoda) are crucial soil predators, yet their vulnerability to climate and land use change remains unexplored. We assess the impact of these drivers on Greek centipedes, identify current and future biodiversity hotspots, and evaluate the effectiveness of the Natura 2000 Network [...] Read more.
Centipedes (Chilopoda, Myriapoda) are crucial soil predators, yet their vulnerability to climate and land use change remains unexplored. We assess the impact of these drivers on Greek centipedes, identify current and future biodiversity hotspots, and evaluate the effectiveness of the Natura 2000 Network of protected areas for their conservation. We used an updated species occurrence database of Greek centipedes, derived from literature reviews and museum collections, and evaluated database completeness and geographic sampling biases. Species Distribution Models were employed to predict future distribution shifts under climate and land use change scenarios. Biodiversity hotspots were identified based on species richness (SR) and corrected-weighted endemism (CWE) metrics. We overlapped SR and CWE metrics against the Natura 2000 Network to assess its effectiveness. We found that sampling effort is highly heterogeneous across Greece. All species are projected to experience range contractions, particularly in the 2080s, with variation across scenarios and taxa. Current biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in the south Aegean islands and mainland mountain ranges, where areas of persistent high biodiversity are also projected to occur. The Natura 2000 Network currently covers 52% of SR and 44% of CWE hotspots, with projected decreases in SR coverage but increases in CWE coverage. Our work highlights the vulnerability of Greek centipedes to climate and land use change and reveals conservation shortfalls within protected areas. We identify priority areas for future field surveys, based on sampling bias and survey completeness assessments, and highlight the need for further research into mechanisms driving centipede responses to global change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Species Vulnerability and Habitat Loss (Third Edition))
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