Biodiversity Conservation in Metacommunities

Dear Colleagues,

A metacommunity is a set of local communities that are linked by the dispersal of multiple potentially interacting species. Metacommunity theory describes the processes that occur at the metacommunity scale and suggests novel ways of thinking about species interactions, with fundamental implications for conservation ecology and biogeography.

The editor of this Special Issue welcomes submissions of both original research and synthetic reviews, including, but not limited to: 1) analyses of metacommunity structure; 2) analyses of metacommunity biodiversity (alpha, beta and gamma diversity); 3) analyses of species assemblage (modularity, nestedness, and species co-occurrences); 4) analyses of metacommunity changes over time; 5) analyses of the connection between species assemblage and environmental/anthropogenic drivers; 6) conceptual models to explain patterns in presence–absence data; 7) analyses of dispersal dynamics among communities; and 8) analysis of the biotic drivers (e.g., competition and mutualism) that shape the presence–absence of species. Studies about any type of metacommunity (e.g., islands in an archipelago, wetlands on land, and networks of protected areas) of both animals and plants are welcome, with a main focus on biodiversity conservation.

Dr. Alessandro Ferrarini
Guest Editor

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