Ecological Interactions in Forest Understory
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 128
Editors
2. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Medioambiente BIOMA, Universidad de Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain
Interests: plant community ecology; functional traits; spatio-temporal community dynamics; long-term studies
2. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Medioambiente BIOMA, Universidad de Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain
Interests: plant community ecology; vascular plants; plant community dynamics
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Understory vegetation is one of the most important components of forest ecosystems, comprising a significant proportion of forest biodiversity and hosting most of the ecological processes responsible for proper forest functioning, such as nutrient cycling or forest regeneration and succession. These processes depend, in turn, on a wide variety of abiotic and biotic interactions taking place in the understory. Abiotic factors related to natural disturbances, climatic conditions, or edaphic properties, as well as biotic interactions between understory vegetation and the canopy layer, soil fauna, or microbial communities, can lead to changes in nutrient cycling and forest regeneration, influencing forest structure, composition, and diversity, as well as their stability and resilience. Despite their importance, the influence of different ecological interactions occurring in the understory and the mechanisms through which they shape forest responses to natural and anthropogenic disturbances are still understudied.
This Special Issue invites contributions addressing ecological interactions in forest understory from a theoretical, empirical, or modeling perspective. Reviews and research studies focused on abiotic or biotic interactions (including plant-plant interactions or interactions between plants and other organisms), across different spatial or temporal scales, and from a taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic approach are welcome.
Dr. Mercedes Valerio
Dr. Ricardo Ibáñez
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-anonymized 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
- abiotic factors
- biodiversity
- competition
- ecological networks
- microbial communities
- nutrient cycling
- plant–animal interactions
- plant–plant interactions
- regeneration
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