The winner of the best paper award for PhD or PhD candidate, selected as oral presentation, is Claudia Pisuttu (Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Agro-ambientali – Università di Pisa) with the contribution titled: “The rapid decline of the invasive species Ailanthus altissima under the challenge of Verticillium dahliae: a physiochemical study”, authors Pisuttu C., Scimone G., Ricci G.P., Cotrozzi L., Nali C., Pellegrini E., Lorenzini G. The prize a the opportuunity to publish a paper free of charge on a MDPI journal (Agriculture, Agronomy, Forests, Gastronomy, Grasses, Horticulturae, and Sustainability under the Topic “Mediterranean Biodiversity”)