Call for papers - Biological Invasions in The Context of Global Environmental Change

Submitted by editor on 21 March 2025.

Special issue in Oikos: Call for paper

Deadline for abstracts: 31 July

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to contribute to a special issue of Oikos on Biological invasions in the context of global environmental change.

Biological invasion has transformed ecosystems around the world, becoming a significant aspect of global environmental change. As animals, plants, and microbes spread and establish in new places, their success is heavily influenced by other changes in the environment, from climate change to pollution to land-use alterations. Considerable research has explored such effects piece by piece, looking at how an invasion is boosted or hindered by rising temperatures, atmospheric C0₂ concentration, nitrogen deposition, or other particular factors. What we lack is the bigger picture of their combined and interactive impacts on invasion.
Seeing that big picture is challenging. For one thing, global environmental changes are not just shifting in one direction or another, they’re becoming more variable. For another, emerging factors like light and plastic pollution present new challenges (and new research opportunities) as we race to understand their effects on invasions. To compound matters even more, many environmental factors occur at the same time and interact in complex ways, with both direct and indirect effects on the success of invasive species. To address these challenges, we need a more comprehensive and integrative approach to research on biological invasions and global change.

This special issue aims to address key research fronts:

- Effects of changes in environmental mean conditions and variability on biological invasions

- Impacts of multiple interacting global change factors on invasive species

- Evolutionary responses of non-native species to global environmental changes

- Mechanisms underlying invasive species' responses to these changes at gene-, physiological-, population-, and/or community-levels.

- Broader ecological and economic consequences of biological invasions under global changes

We welcome submissions exploring these questions across taxa, ecosystems, and scales, providing insights to predict and mitigate invasive species impacts in a changing world.

To contribute, submit an abstract to liuyanjie [at] iga [dot] ac [dot] cn and Pedro Peres-Neto pedro [dot] peres-neto [at] concordia [dot] ca by July 31st, 2025. Forum article proposals should be submitted through https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/oikos by the same date. Approved submissions can be submitted to Oikos via https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/oikos by November 1, 2025. All articles will undergo standard review procedures and must meet Oikos quality criteria.

For additional information, please contact one of the Guest Editors:

Dr. Yanjie Liu, a professor leading the Biological Invasion Ecology group at the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After completing his postdoctoral and doctoral research at the University of Konstanz, Germany, he joined the institute in 2019. His research in plant ecology emphasizes biological invasions and global change biology, utilizing an integrated methodology of greenhouse experiments, field studies, and data analysis to examine plant ecology processes across diverse spatial and temporal scales. E-mail: liuyanjie [at] iga [dot] ac [dot] cn

Dr. Xuan Liu, a professor leading the Animal Invasion Ecology group at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He focuses on scientific questions of general interest on invasion success, invasion impact, and invasion risk across spatial and temporal scales by integrating field surveys, mesocosm studies, and ecological models. His research is mainly based on amphibians but may also work on other vertebrate taxa when necessary. E-mail: liuxuan [at] ioz [dot] ac [dot] cn

Dr. Ayub M. O. Oduor is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi. His research examines how global environmental changes (such as climate change, light pollution, CO₂ enrichment, and ozone exposure) affect plant growth, distribution, and interactions with herbivores and soil microbes. He also investigates plant-driven soil modifications and their impact on plant communities, as well as local adaptation in plants. Additionally, he utilizes ecological niche modeling to predict the potential distribution of plant species under various environmental conditions, contributing to conservation efforts and ecological management. E-mail: Ayub [dot] Oduor [at] tukenya [dot] ac [dot] ke

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