Dynamic Assessment of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

We are drawing together the latest research on the dynamic assessment of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation for a new Special Issue of Sustainability. Sustainability is a peer-reviewed open access journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of sustainability. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability. 

Ecosystems and their associated ecological processes are constantly providing ecosystem services for the benefit and survival of humans. The dynamic energy and material flow in an ecosystem will induce changes in the various services it provides to human beings. Moreover, as the impacts of climate change and land use/cover change, intensify, and interact in the coming decades, they will increasingly alter ecosystem functions and structures, thus having profound effects on biodiversity patterns and the provision of ecosystem services to human and society. These impacts will also lead to changes in the synergy and trade-off between multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity in time and space. However, the impacts of these drivers on biodiversity and ecosystem services have rarely been analyzed simultaneously and remain largely unknown. As the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem services have received increasing attention in public policy to advance sustainability goals in recent decades, there is a need to understand the ecological dynamics of these impacts toward identifying the vulnerability and resilience of ecosystem restoration in addition to priority areas for biodiversity conservation. Therefore, it is very important to dynamically evaluate ecosystem services and integrate them into long-term ecosystem management plans to ensure the sustainable flow of these services.

This Special Issue will bring together original research on the topic of dynamic assessment of ecosystem services and biodiversity, focusing on the temporal variability of ecosystem services as well as considering temporal dynamics of the complexity of their relations toward enabling improved planning of ecosystem management and, therefore, to ultimately enhance human well-being. We welcome original contributions on, but are not limited to, the following potential topics:

• Spatiotemporal dynamics of ecosystem services and biodiversity
• Ecosystem process and services
• The impacts of atmosphere pollution on ecosystem services
• Machine learning for ecosystem services
• Co-benefits between ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation
• Impacts from climate change and human activities on ecosystem services and biodiversity
• Mapping and analyzing tradeoffs, synergies, and losses among multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity
• Big data analytics for ecosystem services

Based on this vision, we welcome contributions ranging from theoretical and foundational research of methods and tools to the assessment of ecosystem services and biodiversity. We especially welcome papers that add a social, spatial, and temporal dimension to ecosystem management research as well as application-oriented papers dynamically conserving biodiversity. There is no limit to the form of manuscripts, which can be systematic reviews, meta-analyses, conceptual papers, and case studies. If you are uncertain about whether your paper fits into the scope of this Special Issue, please contact the Guest Editors.

Dr. Renqiang Li
Dr. Zhaosheng Wang
Dr. Fen Zhao
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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability 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 2400 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.

• atmosphere pollution
• biodiversity conservation
• carbon sequestration
• conservation strategies
• conservation effectiveness
• climate change
• ecosystem process
• ecosystem restoration
• ecosystem modelling
• ecosystem service bundles
• human activities
• environmental management
• land use and land cover change
• synergy and trade-off assessment
• spatiotemporal pattern of ecosystem services
• social-ecological systems
• protected area