Advances in Wildlife Conservation and Habitat Management in the Anthropocene, Second Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of the Special Issue “Advances in Wildlife Conservation and Habitat Management in the Anthropocene”, we are pleased to announce a second volume.

The Anthropocene, characterized by profound human impacts on Earth’s ecosystems, has introduced a complex and interacting array of environmental stressors that increasingly challenge traditional approaches to wildlife conservation and habitat management in terrestrial environments. These pressures include anthropogenic stressors such as habitat loss, fragmentation, deforestation, urbanization, agricultural intensification, land-use change, pollution, overexploitation, and infrastructure development. Such activities disrupt ecological connectivity, degrade critical habitats, reduce population viability, and alter ecosystem functions across multiple spatial and temporal scales, from individual organisms and local populations to entire landscapes.

Alongside these anthropogenic pressures, biotic stressors, including intra- and interspecific competition, predation, disease outbreaks, invasive species, and altered species interactions, further complicate conservation efforts. Habitat degradation and climate change can intensify these pressures, facilitating biological invasions, pathogen spread, community reorganization, and the erosion of ecosystem resilience. At the same time, terrestrial ecosystems are increasingly exposed to abiotic stressors, including wildfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves, water limitation, salinity, altered light regimes, nutrient imbalance, and other environmental gradients that may push species beyond their physiological and ecological tolerances.

In light of these challenges, advances in ecological monitoring, modeling, and adaptive management are essential for understanding, predicting, and mitigating the impacts of complex and interacting stressors. There is a growing need for conservation studies that move beyond descriptive assessments and provide mechanistic understanding, predictive capacity, and management-relevant outputs. Studies that integrate field ecology, remote sensing, ecological modeling, long-term monitoring, experimental approaches, non-invasive technologies, and decision-support frameworks are particularly valuable for guiding conservation action under rapid environmental change.

In this Special Issue, we aim to highlight innovative approaches and cutting-edge advancements in wildlife conservation and habitat management in the Anthropocene. We invite submissions from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers addressing theoretical frameworks, experimental studies, methodological advances, applied conservation research, and practical management applications. Contributions may include original research articles, reviews, short communications, and case studies. We particularly encourage submissions that examine the individual and combined effects of anthropogenic, biotic, and abiotic stressors on wildlife, habitats, ecological communities, and ecosystem processes.

By bringing together pioneering research and practical insights, this Special Issue seeks to equip conservation practitioners and policymakers with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the complex interplay between anthropogenic, biotic, and abiotic stressors in terrestrial ecosystems. The featured works will report and advance conservation practices, aligning with the broader scope of the journal: the dissemination of knowledge that supports sustainable land management, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem resilience.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts directly addressing challenges including, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Innovative Conservation Methods and Technologies: Papers that showcase new tools, technologies, and methodologies for monitoring, managing, and mitigating the impacts of environmental stressors on wildlife and habitats.
• Habitat Suitability Modeling under Climate Change: Research employing advanced modeling techniques to evaluate how climate change and other stressors impact habitat suitability. This includes developing and refining models to predict shifts in habitat conditions, species distributions, and ecological interactions and using these insights to inform adaptive conservation and management strategies.
• Anthropogenic Stressors and their Impact: Investigations into how human activities such as habitat deterioration, urbanization, and infrastructure development are affecting terrestrial wild species and their habitats.
• Biotic and Abiotic Stressors: Comprehensive analyses of how environmental stressors, such as climate change and disease outbreaks, in combination with human-induced changes, influence ecosystem dynamics and inform conservation strategies.
• Protected Areas and Habitat Management: Examination of the role and effectiveness of management strategies for protected areas in conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem resilience amid various stressors.
• Conservation of Keystone and Threatened Species: Studies focused on conservation strategies for keystone species and those listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, addressing specific threats and management approaches.
• Long-Term Monitoring and Evaluation: Papers focusing on the importance of long-term ecological monitoring and evaluation in understanding trends, assessing conservation outcomes, and adapting management strategies.
• Multi-Stressor and Cross-Scale Conservation Research: Studies examining how multiple stressors interact across biological levels, from physiology and behavior to populations, communities, landscapes, and ecosystem processes.
• Restoration, Rewilding, and Nature-Based Solutions: Research assessing habitat restoration, ecological rehabilitation, rewilding initiatives, and nature-based solutions as tools for biodiversity recovery and ecosystem resilience.
• Human–Wildlife Interactions and Coexistence: Studies addressing conflict, coexistence, socio-ecological dynamics, stakeholder engagement, and the integration of human dimensions into wildlife conservation and habitat management.

We look forward to receiving your research articles and reviews.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Land.

Dr. Yiannis G. Zevgolis
Prof. Dr. Panayiotis G. Dimitrakopoulos
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biology 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 2700 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.

Publisher’s Notice

The Special Issue has been assigned to the journal section "Ecology" on 8 July 2026. At the time of the move, there were no publications in this Special Issue.

• innovative technologies
• advanced monitoring techniques
• habitat suitability modeling
• species distribution modeling
• climate change scenarios
• anthropogenic, biotic, and abiotic stressors
• environmental impact assessments
• invasive species management
• disease outbreak impacts
• long-term ecological monitoring
• protected area effectiveness
• keystone species conservation
• threatened species
• adaptive conservation strategies
• conservation planning
• wildlife conservation
• habitat management