Reproductive strategies of plants, ecology of invasive species, flora of habitats transformed by human economic activity, development of soils in saline areas, and relationships between the structure of plant communities, landscape and modern pollen rain are important problems of the contemporary ecology. Highly intriguing and extensively discussed issues include also the controversial metabolic theory and the assessment of the functioning of ecological systems with the use of Network analysis. The aforementioned issues are discussed in papers included in the 16th volume of Ecolo gical Questions, especially in its first part. Three papers at the end of the volume deal with the cartographic methods and GIS technology applied in inventories and analysis of spatial structures and ecological processes. The latter issues are frequently discussed in papers published in our journal, which strongly affects its profile. They will be discussed more extensively in the next issue of Ecological Questions.