Biotic Interactions in Forest Ecosystems
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2020) | Viewed by 4854
Special Issue Editors
Interests: community assembly; global change; planta-plant interactions; ecosystem functioning
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Forests are complex ecosystems that have long fascinated ecologists. After decades of research focusing on the responses of trees to abiotic factors (e.g., climate, soil, and disturbances), biotic interactions have emerged as important mechanisms that shape species differences in tree performance, thereby contributing to patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning along environmental gradients. Biotic interactions also have the potential to improve the prediction and mitigation of the consequences of land management and global changes on forest systems, in particular to develop tools to maintain the services that forests provide to humans.
This Special Issue aims to gather contributions covering the most important biotic interactions in forests, from competitive/facilitative interactions between trees (i.e., within a trophic level) to interactions between trees and their mutualistic partners or natural enemies (i.e., between trophic levels). We will focus on providing a better mechanistic understanding of (i) the role of biotic interactions in generating forest diversity and function, but also (ii) the role of the interplay of biotic interactions with environmental and management factors in shaping forest systems. We will include contributions that report on the key forest biomes on Earth through diverse approaches (modeling, experimental, and observational studies) and on various spatio-temporal scales (from tree individuals to forested landscapes, and from instant tree responses to long-term forest dynamics). This joint effort will present the cutting edge of current research on the roles of biotic interactions in forest ecosystems.
Dr. Santiago SoliveresDr. Claire Fortunel
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
- plant–plant interactions
- plant–pathogen interactions
- plant–herbivore interactions
- plant–soil interactions
- mutualistic interactions
- species coexistence
- global change
