Chemical Diversity of Plant Bioactives: Ecological Functions, Organismal Interactions, and Environmental Adaptations
A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 42
Special Issue Editor
Interests: bioactive compounds; food safety; food composition; food preservation technologies; food security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Plant-derived bioactive compounds play ecological and evolutionary roles, mediating interactions between plants and their environment. These compounds are fundamental in plant defense mechanisms, symbiotic relationships, and co-evolutionary processes with microorganisms, herbivores, and pollinators. Their chemical diversity has shaped ecological networks over time and continues to offer valuable applications in food, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnological industries. However, a deeper understanding of their biosynthesis, ecological functions, and evolutionary significance requires new analytical frameworks that integrate experimental, computational, and data-driven approaches.
This Special Issue seeks to highlight interdisciplinary research on plant-derived bioactive compounds, emphasizing their chemical diversity, ecological functions, and evolutionary relevance. We welcome contributions focusing on the following:
- Chemical ecology and plant–microorganism interactions, including the role of bioactives in plant defense, symbiosis, and allelopathy.
- Bioactive compounds in plant–herbivore and plant–pollinator relationships, exploring their influence on evolutionary adaptations and ecological networks.
- Omics-based strategies (e.g., metabolomics, genomics, and proteomics) for profiling and understanding plant bioactives.
- Environmental and evolutionary drivers of bioactive compound diversity in different ecosystems.
- Green extraction and sustainable processing technologies for preserving plant bioactives and analyzing their ecological integrity.
- Adaptive and co-evolutionary dynamics of bioactive compounds in response to climate change, habitat shifts, and species interactions.
- Data-driven approaches, including data science and machine learning, for predicting the ecological roles and bioactivity of plant-derived compounds based on large datasets from chemical, genomic, and environmental sources.
By integrating ecological, evolutionary, and computational perspectives, this Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of how plant bioactive compounds shape biological systems and provide sustainable benefits. We welcome original research, hypotheses, and review articles addressing these themes.
Dr. Jesus Fernando Ayala-Zavala
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 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 bioactive compounds
- chemical diversity
- ecological interactions
- evolutionary adaptations
- data-driven bioactivity prediction
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