Green Machines: Understanding the Interplay Between Natural and Human-Induced Factors on Plant Life

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 27 June 2025 | Viewed by 835

Special Issue Editor


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Instituto de Ecología, A.C., Veracruz, Xalapa 91070, Mexico
Interests: plant ecology; restoration ecology; invasive species; ecosystem services; coastal dunes
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a new Special Issue for the MDPI journal Plants titled “Green Machines: Understanding the Interplay Between Natural and Human-Induced Factors on Plant Life”.

Environmental changes, both of natural and anthropogenic origin, play a key role in sessile organisms such as plants. As they lack mobility (except for their disapores), plants are forced to respond “in situ”. The responses of plants to environmental changes occur at different levels. They may be physiological, such as adaptations to heat, sun, shade, drought, flooding. However, plants may also respond at the population level through alterations in birth and death rates, which will lead to a modified community in terms of composition, abundance, and structure. Inter and intraspecific interactions vary as the environment changes and plants respond to these changes. In brief, studying the processes and factors that determine the spatial variation in plants is vital for understanding the biodiversity of plant life. Furthermore, it is key for the comprehension of how plants respond to the increasing impact of human activities and the accompanying environmental changes, which can be local, regional, or even global in scope. Such knowledge will help us make predictions and projections of how plant life will change and, ultimately, be prepared and respond adequately through conservation and restoration actions.

This Special issue will gather a broad set of studies focusing on the responses of plant life to environmental changes of both natural and anthropogenic origin. Plant responses may occur at different levels, ranging from the physiological to the demographic and community levels. Some of the questions that we will try to answer are as follows: What environmental factors affect plants the most? Are human activities significantly affecting plant life? What remediation actions are available? Are some plant communities more affected than others?

Dr. M. Luisa Martínez
Guest Editor

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

  • plants responses to extreme conditions
  • population dynamics under varying conditions
  • human impacts on plant communities
  • biodiversity
  • physiology

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 3073 KiB  
Article
Sandy Paradise or Rocky Hell? Investigating Soil Influence on Thrinax radiata Palm Groves from a Caribbean Island
by Gonzalo Castillo-Campos, M. Luisa Martínez, Jesús Pale Pale and José G. Garcia-Franco
Plants 2025, 14(6), 853; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14060853 - 9 Mar 2025
Viewed by 612
Abstract
Palm groves are abundant in southeastern Mexico and have significant economic and socio-cultural relevance. Studies on the production and management of palm groves are abundant in the area. However, an ecological approach is scarce but necessary for conserving these overexploited species. Palm groves [...] Read more.
Palm groves are abundant in southeastern Mexico and have significant economic and socio-cultural relevance. Studies on the production and management of palm groves are abundant in the area. However, an ecological approach is scarce but necessary for conserving these overexploited species. Palm groves are abundant on the island of Cozumel and develop on contrasting substrates: rocky and sandy ones. Thus, we aimed to explore how soil types affected community structure and composition. We sampled a total of 2900 m2 (29 plots of 10 × 10 m) of palm grove, 13 growing in sandy soil and 16 in rocky soil. We registered the species present in each plot, plant density, cover, height, and DBH. A hierarchical cluster analysis re-grouped the sampled plots based on their floristic affinities, and thus, we had 17 plots for the sandy substrate and 12 from the rocky substrate, which were used for later analyses. The dominant species in both palm groves was Thrinax radiata, and species richness was the same in both soil types (33 species). Contrasting substrates resulted in different community composition and structure. The palm groves from the sandy substrate had more vines but fewer shrubs and higher plant density, height, and DBH. The above suggests that the low availability of soil in the rocky substrate does not allow the same state of vegetation development that occurs in the sandy substrate. Full article
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