Drones for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecological Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have already become an affordable and cost-efficient tool to quickly map a targeted area for many emerging applications in the arena of Ecological Monitoring and Biodiversity Conservation. Managers, owners, companies and scientists are using professional drones equipped with high-resolution visible, multispectral or thermal cameras to assess the state of ecosystems, the effect of disturbances, or the dynamics and changes of biological communities inter alia. We are now at a tipping point on the use of drones for these type of applications over natural areas. UAV missions are increasing but most of them testing applicability. It is time now to move to frequent revisiting missions, aiding in the retrieval of important biophysical parameters in ecosystems or mapping species distributions.

This Special Issue aims at collecting UAV applications contributing to a better understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem status, threats, changes and trends. We welcome submissions from purely scientific missions to operational management missions, evidencing the enhancement of knowledge in:

• Essential Biodiversity Variables and Ecosystem Services mapping
• Ecological Integrity parameters mapping
• Long-term ecological monitoring based on UAVs
• Mapping of alien species spread and distribution
• Upscaling ecological variables from drone to satellite images: methods and approaches
• Rapid risk and disturbance assessment using drones
• Ecosystem structure and processes assessment by using UAVs
• Mapping threats, vulnerability and conservation issues of biological communities and species
• Mapping of phenological and temporal trends
• Habitat mapping, monitoring and reporting of conservation status

Dr. Ricardo Díaz-Delgado
Dr. C.A. Mücher

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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.