Call for articles on extreme events in a special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (Paleoecology)
This Research Topic addresses the issue of extreme climate change and its perturbations on the functioning of forest ecosystems and on biodiversity. We consider an extreme disturbance to be an event with an amplitude that is outside the range of historical or instrumental records. Evidence from instrumental climate data (the last 200 years) and ecosystem observation clearly shows a global impact of rapid global warming on terrestrial ecosystems.
In this Research Topic, we aim to address these abrupt climate events and their impacts by using fossil data to characterize the natural range of variability in particular, as well as modeling approaches to simulate future disturbance regimes and ecosystem dynamics, and to develop mitigation and biological conservation strategies. Both fossil data and model simulations will help us improve our predictive capabilities.
The expected contributions will be multidisciplinary and include experimental, theoretical, and descriptive approaches. Our overall goal is to contribute to the understanding of climatic conditions that generate extreme disturbances at different temporal (decadal to millennial) and spatial (regional to continental) scales, and their consequences for terrestrial ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Contributions addressing biological conservation approaches in the context of climate, land use, and disturbance regime changes are also welcome.
Keywords: extreme climate change, perturbations, disturbance regimes, ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.