Dear Colleagues,

As all of you know, biodiversity is now under siege at all spatial scales; some environments are more vulnerable than others, and high-altitude grasslands are among them.

These habitats host a plethora of rare or endemic species, with complex biogeographic histories and often deserving conservation actions, especially in light of the changing climate.

Also, the centuries-old (or, sometimes, millennia-old) relationship with human activities, mainly represented by agriculture and pasture, shaped the occurrence of species, sometimes creating peculiar equilibria which are now threatened by the changes in land use.

The study of those complex ecosystems still needs to be completed, as the high-altitude grasslands may be challenging to reach, and data collection can be demanding for their intrinsic nature. Also, they host species with complex phenology, an aspect that complicates, even more, the research on this topic. Still, studies on these delicate environments must be conducted to pose the basis for their protection.

This Special Issue aims at collecting research articles, reviews, and short communications dealing with every aspect of those topics, taking advantage of approaches ranging from landscape ecology to fine-scale ones, which can be used as models to increase the knowledge, inform and support management actions in the light of the ongoing global change.

I, therefore, encourage you to send your contributions to this Special Issue of Land focusing on “High-altitude grasslands: Biodiversity Conservation, Management, and Habitat Preference”.

The submission of the following subjects is particularly encouraged:

• Substantial contributions to the biogeography of rare/endemic/threatened high-altitude grassland species;
• The role of high-altitude grasslands as glacial refugia, especially in terms of phylogeographic patterns;
• Climate and/or land use change impact on grassland species/communities;
• Positive or negative impact of human practices (e.g., agriculture, pasture) on high-altitude grassland species/communities at a landscape scale;
• Remote sensing or species distribution modelling techniques and applications to improve high-altitude grassland research and knowledge;
• Innovative approaches (new tools, algorithms, digital workflows) to support landscape-scale data analysis;
• Management proposal for highly endangered high-altitude grasslands or identity areas;
• Case studies of success or failure of landscape-scale management actions;
• Protected Areas' contribution to the conservation of high-altitude grassland species or communities;
• The role of OECMs (Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures) in preserving high-altitude grasslands;
• Theoretical approaches to the management of the high-altitude grasslands in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular attention to SDGs 13 and 15.

Dr. Mattia Iannella
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. 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.

• high-altitude grasslands
• biodiversity
• habitat
• landscape-scale management actions
• sustainable development goals (SDGs)