European grassland ecosystems: threatened hotspots of biodiversity

Biodiversity is not homogenously distributed over the globe, and ecosystems differ strongly in the number of species they provide. With this special issue we highlight the ecology and endangerment of one of the most diverse ecosystem of Europe: the European grassland ecosystems. The selected 16 contributions describe interactions from below-ground to the atmosphere and focus on (1) effects of abiotic and biotic on species diversity, (2) the...