CALL FOR PAPERS: Pandemics and landscape ecology in a post-COVID world
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 31, 2022
Theme & Objective
The COVID-19 pandemic has had dramatic effects on many aspects of our lives. The most acute effects have been on individual health, with over 4.6 million deaths globally. Global and regional maps of COVID hotspots and total deaths display variation in both space and time that reflect a combination of demographics, differences in public health policies, along with other attributes of location that are familiar to landscape ecologists. Assessing COVID spread, as well as the impacts of various mitigation strategies (vaccinations, public health guidelines) can also help epidemiologists understand the efficacy of these strategies that can inform future pandemics.
In addition to health and mortality impacts, COVID has changed the way we go about our daily lives, affecting how we work, learn and recreate. Impacts on global supply chains have been evident in retail stores and food security. Increases in work-from home, and in home delivery of everything from food to goods and services have impacted transportation networks, and closures of recreational facilities have highlighted the importance of (and sometime uneven access to) public parks and green spaces.
What can landscape ecology bring to our understanding of the impact of this pandemic as well as past and future pandemics? As a zoonotic, COVID represent an intersection of the human and natural world. Human-landscape interactions is a topic that occupies this discipline as well. This special issues will bring together many of the interdisciplinary strands that constitute landscape ecology to various dimensions of the post-pandemic world.
We welcome submissions on a wide range of topics, including:
- landscape epidemiology
- spatial modelling of pandemic spread
- landscape ecology of zoonoses
- analyses of impacts of COVID on urban landscapes and greenspaces
- opportunities that the “anthropause” created by COVID create for research
- the impact that COVID, and limited human movement may have had on ecological systems, spaces, and species in different parts of the world.
Finally, we welcome papers about the impact of COVID on professional dimensions of our discipline, including how it may have changed our approach to teaching, networking and conference participation as well as gaps in research data owing to lockdowns.
Landscape Ecology publishes a range of article types, and we welcome articles for this Special Issue that fit any of the journal’s format (research article, short communications, review articles, perspectives, editorials, and book reviews). Please see the descriptions and length limits for the different article types here. Students and Early Career Researchers are also encouraged to submit their research to this special issue.
Pre-submission inquiries are welcome.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 31, 2022
- Please follow the submission guidelines.
- Please submit online via Editorial Manager and select article type “SI – Pandemics and landscape ecology post-COVID”.
EXPECTED PUBLICATION: Late 2022
(Accepted articles will be made available Online First on an ongoing basis.)
About the Guest Editor
Dr. Yolanda F. Wiersma researches landscape ecology in the boreal forest. Her current foci are ecological stoichiometry, lichens as models systems for landscape ecology. She is author of the forthcoming book “Experimental Landscape Ecology” (Springer’s Landscape Series) due out in February 2022. Dr. Wiersma’s research activities can be viewed here.
Dr. Yolanda Wiersma, PhD (she/her)
Professor and Acting Deputy Head (Undergraduate)
Department of Biology, Memorial University
St. John’s, NL, Canada
Ph. 709.864.7499
Fax. 709.864.3068
(9/29/2021)