Plant Diversity and Conservation in the Mediterranean

Dear Colleagues,

More than 400,000 plant taxa are currently known to science, with nearly 2,000 taxa being described each year. This remarkable plant diversity, which is unevenly distributed on the planet, is facing unprecedented levels of threat due to human actions. Biodiversity loss at any level (taxonomic, phylogenetic, functional, genetic) has been increasing all over the globe and at all spatial scales since the Industrial Revolution as a result mainly of habitat loss and degradation. This trend is projected to continue in the next decades during the Anthropocene, which is characterized by human-induced climate change and elevated extinction rates and is challenging global ecosystem health, increasing biotic homogenization, as well as altering biodiversity patterns and biotic interactions. Even though several conservation initiatives aim to halt this extinction crisis, we are still unaware which plants are threatened, where, and why. The Mediterranean, apart from being the second largest global biodiversity hotspot, is also a global biodiversity hotspot of vulnerable taxa and is among the regions where the effects of climate and land-use change on plant diversity are expected to be the largest. There is thus an urgent need to assess current biodiversity patterns, conservation actions, practices and management plans, as well as for studies conducted on potentially threatened or socio-economically important taxa. This Special Issue aims to encourage on-going plant diversity and conservation research in the Mediterranean at any level (from molecular to ecosystem). 

Dr. Kostas Kougioumoutzis
Prof. Panayiotis Trigas
Guest Editors

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