About this Research Topic

Background

Living on a tree, far from the ground, is not for everyone. Yet, a considerable range of organisms, including lichens, fungi, bryophytes and vascular plants, are growing as epiphytes. They have developed unique strategies to cope with these special conditions. While the obvious advantage is to escape competition within the undergrowth, without ground contact the supply of water and nutrients is a critical issue that needs managing. Due to the breadth of organisms and variety of microhabitats they live in, a variety of strategies to cope with their living conditions can be found. For instance, many strategies are related to water availability, such as water scarcity and intermittent supply in the upper canopy of tropical lowland forests or dry Mediterranean forests, or constant water supply in constantly wet cloud forests.

The structural dependence of obligate epiphytes on their host influences the ability of epiphytes to grow, reproduce, and propagate. In turn, epiphytes may also influence the development dynamics of their host tree and the forest ecosystem in which they are living. This balance is very fragile and increasingly threatened by old and new disturbances, such as forest exploitation and fragmentation, air pollution, and climate change.

Epiphytes have long attracted the attention of researchers, but many aspects of their ecology and ecophysiology are still not fully understood. For example, little is known about their role in determining the functionality of micro-scale ecosystems, such as regulating the water cycle or their interactions with microfauna. Furthermore, rules that govern the community assembly and diversity patterns of terrestrial plants may not apply to epiphyte communities living in a dynamic three-dimensional space. However, it is necessary to understand such rules in order to better comprehend the challenges epiphytes face due to the changes of their natural habitat.

This Research Topic aims to collect a series of outstanding articles focusing on the ecology and ecophysiology of epiphytic organisms in different forest ecosystems worldwide. We would be pleased to consider Original Research, Opinion, and Review papers focused on epiphytes within this framework. We welcome a wide range of contributions on epiphytes but, in particular, we would be interested in studies investigating:

• Functional traits and ecosystem functions of epiphytes

• Interactions between species and their substrate

• Competition and facilitation processes at the community level

• Ecophysiological strategies for water and light management

• Community shifts following disturbance factors

• Conservation actions to safeguard epiphytic communities

Keywords: Epiphytes, Ecology, Ecophysiology, Functional Traits, Epiphytic Communities, Conservation, Competition

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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