Microbial Community Structure and Soil Health in Forests
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Soil".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 49
Special Issue Editors
Interests: agroforestry systems; carbon dynamics in forests; agroforestry; agroecosystems; GHG emissions and mitigation; rehabilitation of degraded forests; soil health/quality in terrestrial ecosystems; sustainable forest management
Interests: carbon dynamics in agroecosystems and agroforestry; soil spectroscopy (Vis-IR) and spectral libraries; soil health/soil quality in terrestrial ecosystems; biogeochemical cycles (C, N, P, S); sustainable soil management
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Soil is a complex system, and its functions are critical to ecosystem sustainability through its support of relevant ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration, climate regulation, food production, habitat for organisms, soil and water quality and quantity). Soil health is a relatively new concept (emerged in the early 2000s) and is defined as the soil conditions predicting its functioning as a vital ecosystem. It is a broader concept than soil quality and emphasizes the overall living components of the soil. This framework highlights the biological perspective of sustainable soil management for high plant production in forest ecosystems and simultaneously promotes a soil microbiome requiring management of microbial abundance and activity, community composition, and specific functions.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Soil biological quality indicators in forest soils;
- Soil microbiome and its recruitment by plants;
- Soil microbial contributions to soil and plant health;
- Soil health indexes and forest soils;
- Agroforestry systems and soil health;
- One health and forest soils.
Dr. Francis Dube
Dr. Erick Zagal
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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. Forests 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.
Keywords
- biological quality indicators
- litter quality
- microbial abundance and diversity
- one health
- soil microbiomes
- sustainable soil management
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