Environmental Change and Forest Biodiversity Conservation
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability, Biodiversity and Conservation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 19 April 2025 | Viewed by 52
Special Issue Editor
2. Institute de Recherche sur la Forêt Université du Québec en Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Rouyn Noranda, QC J9X 5E4, Canada
Interests: disturbance ecology; windthrow; forest change monitoring; silviculture; forest growth & productivity; forest ecology
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Forest ecosystems perform a myriad of functions including carbon sequestration, foraging habitat for wildlife, production of oxygen to sustain life, timber supply, source of critical medicinal materials, primary production that sustains the critical ecosystem food chain, impacts on stress levels for hiking individuals, unique historic, symbolic or religious benefits, etc. The forest ecosystem is, however, faced with multiple biotic and abiotic stressors that are recurrent and have the capacity to change the ecosystem over the long term. Due to stricter hunting regulations, coupled with a reduction in predator populations, white tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations have increased across temperate forests leading to the potential for vegetation diversity collapse. Owing to ongoing changes in climate regimes, the impact of catastrophic disturbances, such as windstorms, has increased in recent decades, the rapid drying of forest fuels has led to larger and more intense fires, the redistribution of precipitation events is leading to drought events, and insect and pest outbreaks particularly of invasive species are causing significant damages. There is evidence that some of these disturbances are interacting in ways that produce compounded effects. Humans have also impacted this resource, from marginal impacts resulting from recreational uses to major industrial pollution effects and large-scale clear cutting and urbanization effects. There is, therefore, a need for the continuous monitoring of vegetation changes from ground-level resource surveys to larger-scale satellite monitoring of changes. Technology such as the rapid advances in artificial intelligence has stirred up citizen science interests in the collection and identification of biological specimens. This Special Issue seeks to provide the state of the knowledge on forest biodiversity conservation across temperate and boreal forest ecosystems of north America and similar ecosystems elsewhere. Papers that provide novel insights into environmental changes, forest resource changes, the drivers of resource change, new methodologies and tools for monitoring forest change, new insights into native and invasive forest tree species dynamics, and new developments in forest biodiversity conservation are welcome.
Dr. Kenneth Anyomi
Guest Editor
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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
- forest biodiversity
- conservation
- forest change analysis
- disturbance ecology
- environmental change
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