Outline:

Asia is the largest continent on Earth, but also the continent with the most extensive grasslands. Enigmatic are the huge and diverse steppes in the interior of the continent, but there are also arctic grass tundras, alpine grasslands, alpine steppes, desertic steppes, subtropical savannas and a multitude of semi-natural grasslands created by millennia of human land use. Classification is an essential approach to make the huge diversity of different grassland types better accessible and comparable, both for basic research and applied sciences such as management and conservation. However, only few countries in Asia have a strong tradition in grassland classification. Moreover, the classification approaches vary strongly between and even within countries. Thus, it is currently hard to achieve a consistent scientific overview on the grassland types of Asia.

Thus on the occasion of the first Asian Grassland Conference 19-21 April 2022 (AGC; https://edgg.org/AGC), the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG; https://edgg.org/) and the gold open access journal Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS; https://vcs.pensoft.net/) would like to launch a Special Collection of articles dealing with “Grasslands of Asia” with a typological view. In agreement with the scope of the journal, papers should develop, test or apply vegetation typologies or present vegetation-plot databases or tools in ecoinformatics. Typological approaches at any spatial scale from synusiae via phytocoenoses and landscapes to biomes are welcome. We are open to any approach to classify vegetation, including but not limited to the Braun-Blanquet approach and the EcoVeg approach. We particularly encourage studies based on extensive original data, but accept also regional and even local studies if they come from underrepresented regions or methodologically innovative. Contributions presented at the AGC are particularly welcome, but also papers not related to the AGC are possible.

Procedure and updated deadlines:

• 31/10/2021: Publication of the call
• 23/12/2022: Publication of deadline extension
• Until 31/01/2023: Submission of (preliminary) abstracts (maximum 300 words, structured into “Question(s)”, “Study area”, “Methods”, “Results” and “Conclusions”) to dr.juergen.dengler@gmail.com  
• Until 15/02/2023: submitted abstracts will be evaluated continuously and manuscripts either invited or declined
• Until 30/09/2024: submission of papers (with prevalence to invited papers, while also non-invited manuscripts might be considered on a one-by-one basis)
• Manuscripts will undergo peer-review and be published on a one-by-one basis once accepted
• We anticipate that we will conclude the whole Special Collection by the end of 2024

Please note that “Vegetation Classification and Survey” is a gold open access journal, which normally requests article processing charges (APCs) from authors. Thanks to the generous support of the IAVS (www.iavs.org), articles submitted until June 2023 are exempt from APCs, provided that the first author is an IAVS member, while membership is free of charge for scientists from many Asian countries.