About Ecosystems

The term ecosystem was first suggested by botanist Roy Clapham to describe the biological and physical elements of an environment. Plants, animals and other organisms constitute the living things, whereas the landscape and local atmosphere represent the non-living components.

Ecosystems are responsible for the cycling of nutrients and the flow of energy. They are dynamic, and their composition and structure change when a disturbance occurs, either natural or anthropogenic.

The aim of this Collection is to gather research on understanding how ecosystems are formed, maintained, and how they adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Terrestrial ecosystems: forest, grassland, tundra, and desert ecosystems.
• Freshwater and marine ecosystems.
• Artificial ecosystems.
• Ecological energetics.
• Biodiversity and Biogeography.
• Nutrient cycling.
• Community dynamics.
• Conservation Science.

All article processing charges will be covered centrally by the European Commission.

Open Research Europe requires open access to research data supporting articles under the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. All articles should include citations to repositories that host the data underlying the results, together with any information needed to replicate, validate, and/or reuse the results/your study and analysis of the data. We recognise there may be exceptions due to ethical, data protection, or confidentiality considerations, or because the data have been obtained from a third party and access restrictions apply.