The modern concept of plant communities is still debated, both from a theoretical and an applied point of view. The Special Issue (SI) “Plant community ecology: from theory to practice” is dedicated to this discussion, basing the selected papers on the concept that if practice is not backed up by theory, erroneous results can be produced. Heterogeneous in terms of approaches and topics, in this SI, papers share cross-cutting issues dealing with the importance of the community approach and the variation that we observe in changing the scale of observation. The SI includes eight papers, ranging from local applications to national assessments, and is articulated in three main topics: methods, conservation, and global threats and challenges.
