Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

Climate is considered one of the most important environmental factors controlling the distribution of species and vegetation. According to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (IPCC, 2014), the climate system is unequivocally warming, and many of the changes seen since the 1950s are unprecedented in either decades or millennia. The global average combined land and ocean surface temperature data calculated as a linear trend showed a warming of 0.85 (0.65 to 1.06) °C (confidence interval at 90%) in the period 1880 to 2012. The report also shows that average precipitation over the mid-latitude land areas in the Northern Hemisphere has increased since 1901 (medium confidence before and high confidence after 1951). The increase of global mean surface temperature by the end of the 21st century (2081–2100) relative to 1986–2005 is likely to be 0.3°C to 1.7°C under RCP2.6, 1.1°C to 2.6°C under RCP4.5, 1.4°C to 3.1°C under RCP6.0, and 2.6°C to 4.8°C under RCP8.5.

There is evidence that climate change is a significant driver of biodiversity loss, and yet predicting species’ responses to climate change is a major challenge for ecology and biodiversity conservation. Changes in community structure, geographic distribution, dynamics, and composition have been observed at ecosystem levels, whereas alterations in phenology, shifts in geographic distribution, and physiological modifications have been reported at the species level.

This Special Issue is focused on the implications of climate change on biodiversity at the species, population, biocenosis, or habitat levels. Contributors from different fields are invited to submit their articles on this topic.

Prof. Dr. Sara del Río
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. 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.

• Climate change
• Biodiversity
• Adaptation
• Mitigation
• Conservation
• Vulnerability
• Species
• Habitats
• Ecosystems
• Distribution models