GUANGZHOU, China — 29 September 2026 — Biological Diversity (Wiley, for South China Botanical Garden, CAS) invites manuscript contributions for its upcoming special issue: Resilient Nature: Ecosystem Responses and Recovery in a Changing World — Biodiversity, Ecosystem Responses, and Ecological Restoration.
Climate disruption, extreme weather events, land‑use transformation, urban expansion, pollution, biological invasions and over‑exploitation are reshaping global biodiversity, ecosystem structure and function. Ongoing biodiversity loss erodes ecosystem productivity, stability, multifunctionality, disturbance resistance, adaptive capacity and recovery potential. Contemporary research is shifting beyond single‑driver, single‑species studies toward multiple stressors, multi‑trophic interaction networks, cross‑scale feedback loops and ecological tipping‑point risks. Ecological restoration practice is also evolving past local structural reconstruction, to embrace ecological integrity, recovery trajectories, climate adaptation, long‑term durability and trade‑offs between biodiversity goals, climate mitigation and ecosystem services.
Clarifying causal links connecting biodiversity, ecosystem responses, stability and resilience is critical for global‑change risk assessment, biodiversity conservation, degraded‑land restoration, nature‑based‑solution deployment and adaptive ecosystem management. This special issue welcomes fundamental theory, technical innovation, long‑term monitoring datasets, integrated assessments and real‑world restoration case studies bridging biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and restoration ecology.
Guest editing team members Professor Qing Ye and Professor Hui Liu (South China Botanical Garden, CAS), alongside Professor Feilong Li (Guangdong University of Technology), commented: “We seek contributions that advance our capacity to predict, interpret and foster ecosystem resilience amid accelerating anthropogenic pressures, supporting evidence‑based restoration and adaptive management worldwide.”
Accepted paper topics cover multi‑dimensional biodiversity‑ecosystem‑function relationships; above‑ground‑below‑ground multitrophic networks; combined impacts of multiple global‑change stressors; stability, tipping‑point thresholds and resilience indicators; landscape connectivity and cross‑scale ecosystem responses; degradation diagnostics and recovery baseline setting; passive, assisted and active restoration strategies; community reassembly and ecological‑process recovery; soil‑microbiome restoration and biogeochemical feedback; plus climate‑smart restoration evaluation, monitoring tools including remote sensing, eDNA and artificial‑intelligence workflows, and adaptive governance frameworks.
All submissions must comply with the journal’s author instructions. APCs are fully waived now. When submitting manuscripts, authors must identify this special issue in the submission system dropdown question “Is this submission for a special issue?” The closing submission date is 31 August 2027.
Keywords
biodiversity; ecosystem responses; global change; ecosystem functioning; ecosystem stability; ecosystem resilience; ecological restoration; nature‑based solutions; adaptive management; ecosystem services
About the Journal
Biological Diversity (ISSN: 2994-4139) is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal sponsored by the South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SCBG, CAS), and published in partnership with John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. It is dedicated to advancing biodiversity conservation, safeguarding ecosystem functions and services, and promoting the sustainable utilization of biological resources under global environmental change. The journal welcomes original research, reviews, commentaries, and short communications across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including botany, zoology, microbiology, taxonomy, phylogenetics, genomics, cytology, ecology, climatology, economics, sociology, and real-time policy theory. The journal is indexed in Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).