Plant Communities: Identification, Monitoring and Evaluation of Temporal Dynamics

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to introduce the Special Issue entitled “Plant Communities: Identification, Monitoring and Evaluation of Temporal Dynamics”, which addresses the context of global challenges associated with climate change, community adaptation and resilience, and biodiversity conservation. We are glad to invite your original contributions dealing with a broad spectrum of community ecology topics from any part of the world, including, but not limited to, the following research areas:

• Identification and characterization of dominant species: Sampling designs; inventories of plant species; analyses of importance value indexes; identification of dominant plant species in matrix or corridor patches and ecotones.
• Classification of plant ecological communities: Classification of vegetation of any geographical region of interest into discrete units of plant (ecological) communities based on physiognomic, ecological, physiognomic–ecological, dominant species, dominant species–physiognomic, or dominant species–physiognomy–ecological (DSPE) systems.
• Spatial distribution modeling and prediction: Modeling and prediction of spatial distribution of plant communities including rare and endangered species in various geographical areas based on bio-climatic, topographic, geologic, or socio-economic attributes.
• Remote sensing differentiation and mapping: Detection, differentiation, and mapping of plant species and ecological communities including invasive species on natural, agricultural, or urban ecosystems using different types of remote sensing images at different spatial levels.
• Monitoring and evaluation of temporal dynamics: Long-term ecological process analysis using field or remote sensing data and evaluation of environmental or anthropogenic factors responsible for temporal dynamics of plant communities including tree-line species.

We thank you in advance for your contributions to this Special Issue.

Dr. Ram C. Sharma
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. Ecologies is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly 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 1000 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.

• plant communities
• temporal dynamics
• remote sensing
• dominant species
• classification
• monitoring
• evaluation
• DSPE
• importance value index
• tree-line species
• patches
• community ecology
• physiognomy
• modelling
• prediction