Biological Novelty as Source of Biodiversity in Mountains

	Pix 1: Yading Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China
	Pix 2: Lilium carniolicum in the Kamnik–Savinja Alps, Slovenia
	Pix 3: Trient Valley and Glacier, Valais, Switzerland
	Pix 4: Emaney, Valais, Switzerland

Dear Colleagues,

Mountains are well-known reservoirs of biodiversity. Underlying their remarkable species richness is a suite of biotic and abiotic factors acting in concert to foster diversification. Abiotic drivers, including geological and climatic dynamics, are often regarded as sole contributors to biodiversity in topographically complex areas. However, diversification itself may be initiated and fueled by biological processes at least partially independent from abiotic factors, an aspect which is more rarely investigated. For example, biological novelties may modify biotic interactions or allow taxa to seize ecological opportunities opened up by abiotic changes, thus allowing them to embark on their own evolutionary track towards speciation and diversification. The evolution of such key innovations, morphological, physiological or otherwise, may find its origins in biological processes such as variations in genome sizes and polyploidization, as well as hybridization and drift. In a sense, the immigration of pre-adapted lineages, with their own sets of traits, may also represent some form of novelty for local floras and faunas. Although these processes are likely to contribute to diversity in all mountain systems in the world, they remain vastly overlooked in some of them. This special issue is thus dedicated to case studies or reviews investigating the source of biological novelty as starting point of diversification in mountains, including biological interchange. In order to promote a more holistic understanding on how such high biodiversity levels were reached, the special issue will include studies on various taxa throughout the tree of life and across all mountain systems in the world. Relying on state-of-the-art and integrative methodological approaches, this special issue will not only produce a catalogue of biotic factors at the source of biodiversity, but also pave the way for a more unified theory on the origin of mountain biodiversity.

Dr. Adrien Favre
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 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-blind 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.