Ecosystem and Biodiversity Conservation in Protected Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Accelerating environmental change is causing increasing stress on natural ecosystems with cascading effects on biodiversity and sustainability. The rate of change in ecosystems challenges prior assumptions for place-based priority setting and ecosystem-based management or restoration. Science-driven conservation, involving ecosystem inventory, assessment, management/restoration, and monitoring, is foundational to sustainability. This certainly applies to protected areas and adjacent landscapes designated for conserving biodiversity, other ecosystem values, and critical services. However, both challenges to and opportunities for implementing ecosystem-based conservation continue to advance. Emerging technologies and tools provide essential insights for policymakers, planners, and managers engaged in place-based biodiversity conservation.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to give insights about these emerging challenges, opportunities, technologies, and tools for implementing ecosystem-based conservation, with an emphasis on actions to support areas designated for biodiversity conservation. This Special Issue will highlight key aspects of ecosystem-based conservation science, from prioritizing places for conservation designation, documenting trends in threats to ecosystems and ecosystem condition, and systematic approaches for taking actions to conserve and restore ecosystems and the species they support. Treatments of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems will be encouraged. This Special Issue aims to demonstrate the current state of the science in ecosystem-based conservation, especially as it applies to protected areas.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

• Ecosystem condition assessment;
• Ecosystem degradation;
• Landscape dynamics, alteration, and stress;
• Place-based conservation priorities;
• Management and restoration of socio-ecological systems;
• Climate change vulnerability assessment;
• Biodiversity conservation planning;
• Ecosystem monitoring.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Prof. Patrick J. Comer
Dr. Gregory E. Eckert
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. Land 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.

• ecosystem condition assessment
• ecosystem degradation
• landscape dynamics, alteration, and stress
• place-based conservation priorities
• ecosystem management and restoration
• socio-ecological systems
• climate change vulnerability and adaptation
• biodiversity conservation planning
• ecosystem monitoring