We would like to invite you to contribute to an upcoming special issue of Environmental Research Letters (erl.iop.org) entitled:
‘Tropical Dry Forest Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services in the Face of Global Change’’ Tropical dry forests (TDFs) are characterized by a long dry season with little rainfall. Although they once accounted for over 40% of all tropical forests, they are highly threatened by climate change and agricultural pressures. In this focus issue, we highlight recent progress and current limitations in our understanding of TDF ecosystems and ecosystem services. Studies including empirical research and/or modelling are encouraged. We welcome contributions on all topics related to TDF environmental issues, especially including: plant physiological mechanisms for coping with seasonal and long-term drought, biogeochemical cycling, phenology, climate change-driven changes in the ecosystem and ecosystem services, degradation of TDFs and implications for the ecosystem and ecosystem services, drivers of agricultural change, and policy options for conservation.The full scope of the issue, including key questions that we would like to address, as well as information on article submission is available at: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/focus/Tropical%20Dry%20Forest This focus issue targets the wider audience of earth / environmental scientists and socio-economic researchers, in part due to the broad scope of ERL, but also because the journal is fully open access. This will allow your research to be widely disseminated amongst peers, diverse research communities and policy makers. Because of its open access, broad scope and additional coverage on our sister community website, environmentalresearchweb.org, published ERL articles have outstandingly high visibility – the journal receives over 180,000 downloads per month and the latest ISI Impact Factor is 3.906. Deadline for submissions The nominal dates for submissions are from now until 1 June 2016. ERL is able to publish focus issues incrementally, which means that accepted articles can be published as soon as they have gone through the publication process. In this way, no delay will be incurred in the publication of individual contributions. All contributions will be collected via the dedicated webpage above and on an on-going basis future contributions to the issue will be added as and when they have also been through the publication process. ERL is completely free to read and is funded solely by article publication charges, and authors should therefore be aware of the publication costs per article (details available here: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/page/Article%20charge). Discounts on the article charges are available, 25% off of the charge if you sign up (for free) to environmentalresearchweb.org, and 10% for each article you have refereed for the journal in the last year. If you believe you have may have a suitable article to contribute to the issue, please contact either the ERL journal team ([email protected]) or the one of the Guest Editors listed below with details of your proposed article. Best wishes Guillaume Wright Executive Editor Environmental Research Letters Sent on behalf of: David Medvigy (Princeton University) Jennifer Powers (University of Minnesota) G Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa (University of Alberta) Xue Feng (University of California, Berkeley) (Guest Editors)
