Insect Adaptive Dynamics in a Changing Environment
A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 100
Special Issue Editors
Interests: animal ecology; biodiversity conservation; climate change biology; evolutionary biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, 9712 CP Groningen, The Netherlands
Interests: ecology and evolution of social behavior; animal sociality; insect ecology; chemical ecology
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Climate change represents one of the most urgent environmental and societal challenges, with profound consequences for individual survival, population dynamics, and biodiversity loss. Insects, which constitute the majority of animal biomass and occupy nearly every ecological niche, exhibit remarkable adaptive capabilities to environmental changes. These adaptations arise through diverse morphological, physiological, behavioral, and life-history modifications shaped by evolutionary processes and phenotypic plasticity. Across their extraordinary diversity, insect species have evolved a wide range of strategies to cope with shifting environmental conditions, including thermal tolerance, developmental and metabolic adjustments, shifts in phenology, behavioral modifications, and changes in interspecific interactions at both population and community levels. While many aspects of insect biodiversity and responses to ecological stressors have been studied extensively, there remains a critical need to consolidate recent research to better understand how insect diversity, evolutionary trajectories, and phenotypic plasticity interact to shape the adaptive potential of insects in a changing environment.
This Special Issue aims to compile recent advances that illuminate the general principles and specialized mechanisms underlying how insects and other arthropods respond, adapt, and evolve under environmental change.
We invite contributions that draw from a broad range of perspectives, including ecology and evolution, molecular biology, insect genomics and genetics, interspecific interactions, population biology, computational biology, behavioral biology, sociobiology, conservation, and pest management science. By synthesizing these perspectives, this Special Issue seeks to deepen our understanding of insect resilience and vulnerability in the face of global environmental change, and to provide valuable insights for biodiversity conservation and the development of sustainable pest management strategies.
Prof. Dr. Jan Komdeur
Guest Editor
Dr. Long Ma
Guest Editor Assistant
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. Insects 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
- climate change
- conservation biology
- ecological and evolutionary adaptation
- ecological stressors
- evolutionary ecology
- insect ecology and evolution
- insect sociality
- pest management
- population biology
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