There is ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments (Gian-Reto Walther et al., 2002). These observed ecological changes are heavily biased in the directions predicted from global warming and have been linked to local or regional climate change through correlations between climate and biological variation, field and laboratory experiments, and physiological research (Camille Parmesan, 2006). Monitoring spatiotemporal dynamics of ecosystems’ response to climate change has drawn much attention in recent years.

This special issue aims to summarize the most recent developments and ideas in monitoring and modeling terrestrial ecosystems’ response to climate change. We encourage papers on original research articles as well as review articles on data observation, fusion and assimilation, simulation of ecological changes in the phenology, and distribution of terrestrial groups. Data acquisition: surface energy and water balance monitoring, including remote sensing and in situ observations; ecological factors acquisition at both regional and global scale.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Data assimilation: the state-of-the-art methods of multiple source data fusion and assimilation; long time series data reconstruction; typical applications
• Land surface process modeling: simulating the structure and dynamic of terrestrial ecosystems
• Evaluation of ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change
• Impact of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems, carbon cycle, and water resource