Responses of Plants and Plant Communities to Environmental Changes in Mountain Areas—2nd Edition

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 388

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ge.S.Di.Mont. Research Centre, University of Milan, 25048 Edolo, BS, Italy
Interests: environment science; plants; mountain area
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ge.S.Di.Mont. Research Centre, University of Milan, 25048 Edolo, BS, Italy
Interests: environment science; mountain area
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The mountain areas of our planet are particularly rich in plant species and plant communities. Many of these are now threatened and/or are undergoing imbalances due to drastic changes in their environment, the causes of which are mainly attributable to global warming and land management changes.

This Special Issue, entitled “Responses of Plants and Plant Communities to Environmental Changes in Mountain Areas—2nd Edition” has the aim of gathering studies on the responses of plant species and vegetation to environmental changes, in order to provide adequate knowledge to understand future scenarios and plan more correct actions for nature conservation in mountain (and surrounding) areas.

We welcome papers that are related to any of the following topics:

  • Morphological, ecological and physiological adaptations of plant species to the environment. Studies concerning any mountain plant are welcome, regardless of their distribution (both steno-endemic and cosmopolitan studies can be considered) and their environment. Studies concerning agricultural plants grown/cultivated in the mountains will also be accepted.
  • Floristic changes in plant communities (including plant successions) in relation to disturbance phenomena and/or environmental/landscape changes. Phytosociological and palynological studies are also welcome.
  • Responses of plant species and vegetation used in environmental restoration and/or nature conservation projects (e.g., plant translocation).
  • The application and/or development of models for the distribution of plants (both native and exotic) and/or vegetation change in relation to environmental variables.
  • The cultivation/experimentation of “new” agricultural and forestry plants in mountain agro-ecosystems. Studies related to the application of evolutionary mixtures will also be considered.

This Special Issue will provide a reliable source of scientific information for both researchers and land managers. The Special Issue is open to a broad range of research, and we will consider a wide variety of contributions (including original articles, reviews, and short communications).

Dr. Luca Giupponi
Prof. Dr. Annamaria Giorgi
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. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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

  • plant ecology
  • adaptation traits
  • morpho-ecological plasticity
  • plant succession
  • flora and vegetation changes
  • plant translocation
  • plant–environment interactions
  • phytosociology
  • species distribution models
  • invasive alien species
  • mountain agro-ecosystems

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 4438 KiB  
Article
Ecology, Floristic–Vegetational Features, and Future Perspectives of Spruce Forests Affected by Ips typographus: Insight from the Southern Alps
by Luca Giupponi, Riccardo Panza, Davide Pedrali, Stefano Sala and Annamaria Giorgi
Plants 2025, 14(11), 1681; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14111681 - 31 May 2025
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Abstract
In recent years, many spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst., Pinaceae) forests have been severely affected by bark beetle (Ips typographus L., Coleoptera: Curculionidae) outbreaks in the Southern Alps, but their ecological impacts remain poorly studied. We analyzed the distribution, ecological, [...] Read more.
In recent years, many spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst., Pinaceae) forests have been severely affected by bark beetle (Ips typographus L., Coleoptera: Curculionidae) outbreaks in the Southern Alps, but their ecological impacts remain poorly studied. We analyzed the distribution, ecological, and floristic–vegetational characteristics of forests recently affected by the bark beetle in the upper basin of the Oglio River (Northern Italy) and developed a MaxEnt model to map forests with a bioclimate more prone to severe insect attacks in the coming decades. The results showed that the spruce forests affected by the bark beetle are located exclusively in the submountain and mountain belts (below 1600 m a.s.l.) and that 85% of them are found in areas with high annual solar radiation (>3500 MJ m−2). The predictive model for areas susceptible to severe bark beetle attacks proved highly accurate (AUC = 0.91) and was primarily defined by the mean temperature of the dry winter quarter (contribution: 80.1%), with values between −2.5 and 2.5 °C being particularly suitable for the pest. According to the model, more than 58% of the current spruce forests in the study area will exhibit high susceptibility (probability > 0.7) to severe bark beetle attacks by 2080. The floristic–vegetational and ecological analysis of plant communities of 11 bark beetle-affected areas indicated that more thermophilic and significantly different forest communities (in both floristic and physiognomic terms) are expected to develop compared to those of pre-disturbance. Furthermore, the high coverage of spruce snags/standing dead trees appears to accelerate plant succession, enabling the establishment of mature forest communities in a shorter time frame. Full article
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