“The pursuit of significance is no longer just a technical issue, but a psychological burden that shapes behaviour, distorts judgement, and affects mental well-being.”
A new paper published in European Science Editing highlights the growing psychological strain on researchers driven by pressure to obtain statistically significant results in academic publishing.
Drawing on a decade of experience as an editor and statistical reviewer, Michał Ordak, an Assistant Professor at the Medical University of Warsaw, reveals how institutional, supervisory, and editorial expectations contribute to emotional distress, especially among young scholars striving to meet perceived standards of publishability.
“Between 2015 and 2025, concerns about statistical significance became a recurring theme in author responses during peer review and presubmission communication,” said Ordak. “Authors increasingly expressed fear that using appropriate statistical methods would lead to non-significant findings and reduce their chances of publication.”
This anxiety persists despite a general understanding of statistical principles among researchers. Indeed, the pressure is not due to ignorance, but to visible institutional demands and a belief that publication relies on statistically significant results.
“Requests to adjust methods purely to obtain significant outcomes have become more frequent and emotionally charged, even when such changes compromise analytical rigour,” Ordak notes. “The pursuit of significance is no longer just a technical issue, but a psychological burden that shapes behaviour, distorts judgement, and affects mental well-being.”
The pressure is particularly pronounced among PhD students and early-career researchers, who often rely on statistically significant outcomes to secure publications, funding, and careers.
Ordak describes how editorial feedback is sometimes perceived as a threat rather than an opportunity for scientific rigour, leading some researchers to justify flawed analytical choices based solely on whether the results are statistically significant.
Critical reforms are needed to counter the problem, he suggests: “Editorial teams can help mitigate this anxiety by providing guidance on sound statistical reasoning… and by reassuring authors that rigorous methods are valued regardless of outcome.”
He urges widespread adoption of standards such as the SAMPL (Statistical Analyses and Methods in the Published Literature) guidelines, which remain underused in practice.
Original source
Ordak M (2025) The psychological burden of statistical significance: editorial reflections from 2015 to 2025. European Science Editing 51: e164741. https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2025.e164741
About European Science Editing
European Science Editing is a diamond open-access journal that publishes original contributions related to scientific and scholarly editing and publishing. The official journal of the European Association of Science Editors, it is published on the ARPHA platform.
A team of international herpetologists has described a new gecko species that has managed to hide in plain sight among the granite boulders around the western flanks of the Andringitra Massif, in south-eastern Madagascar. “Paragehyra tsaranoro is named after the Tsaranoro valley, where it was first observed,” explains first author Francesco Belluardo from the Department of Bioscience and Territory at the University of Molise (Italy). “It is not only endemic to Madagascar, but also what we describe as a microendemic species—restricted to an extremely small range.”
In this case, P. tsaranoro has only been found in three small forest fragments, all located within approximately 15 kilometers of one another. These patches are remnants of a once-larger and continuous forest that has been destroyed by the widespread deforestation that continues to impact Madagascar’s biodiversity.
“The findings emphasise the importance of conducting research on small forest fragments, as they are essential for completing the inventory of Malagasy herpetofauna,” the researchers write in their study, which was published in the journal ZooKeys.
Given its very limited range and the ongoing threats to its habitat, the authors recommend listing this new gecko as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Like many endemic species in Madagascar, its existence might be threatened by deforestation, which means destruction and fragmentation of its already limited habitat. The research team, composed also of Angelica Crottini, Javier Lobón-Rovira, Gonçalo M. Rosa, Franco Andreone, Malalatiana Rasoazanany, Costanza Piccoli and Ivo Oliveira Alves call for stronger support for local communities in conserving the species. In fact, most of its known range lies outside Madagascar’s network of protected areas, and the only conservation measures come from reserves managed by local communities—areas created to support sustainable livelihoods and protect local biodiversity.
“Building on previous research in the region, it appears that this landscape is full of hidden biodiversity gems, including other microendemic reptile species found nowhere else in the country. These community-managed reserves act as important refuges for local wildlife,” says Belluardo. “Interestingly, many of these small forest fragments are known locally as ‘Forêts sacrées’, or sacred forests, because they host boulders that serve as ancestral tombs for the local Betsileo people. Protecting this cultural heritage has also helped safeguard local species, suggesting once again that conserving biodiversity often goes hand-in-hand with preserving cultural traditions.”
Belluardo F, Piccoli C, Lobón-Rovira J, Oliveira Alves I, Rasoazanany M, Andreone F, Rosa GM, Crottini A (2025) A new microendemic gecko from the small forest fragments of south-eastern Madagascar (Squamata, Gekkonidae, Paragehyra). ZooKeys 1240: 1-38. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1240.151016
So, when researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) discovered a new limpet species deep below the northwestern Pacific Ocean, it should come as no surprise that they looked to a nautical manga series for inspiration.
Photograph of the new species with a clear feeding trail behind. Credit: Chen et al.
Published as a new species in the open-access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution (follow the journal on Bluesky here), the deep-sea limpet was found on hard volcanic rock 500 kilometres southeast of Tokyo at a depth of almost 6 km, the deepest known habitat for any true limpet (subclass Patellogastropoda).
The gastropod measures up to 40.5 mm in shell length, which is a remarkably large size for a true limpet from such depths and another source of inspiration for the species’ name.
So, what is that name?
The research team named the new species Bathylepeta wadatsumi, which is both a reference to Wadatsumi, the god of the sea in Japanese mythology, and the character “Large Monk” Wadatsumi, from the manga series ONE PIECE.
“Large Monk” Wadatsumi. Credit: One Piece Wiki.
In ONE PIECE,”Large Monk” Wadatsumi is a giant fish-man and a member of the Sun Pirates. To avoid spoilers, that’s all we will say about the character, but as far as the reference goes: Wadatsumi is big, the limpet is big, and the authors love ONE PIECE.
So much so, that they paid further homage to the world’s most popular manga series in the acknowledgements section of their paper, writing:
“We also take this opportunity to salute Eiichiro Oda for continuing to chart the epic voyage of ONE PIECE (1997–), which reminds us that the greatest voyages are driven by freedom, camaraderie, and an insatiable thirst for discovery.”
Their own discovery was made possible by access to sophisticated submersible technology.
The new species was collected using the crewed submersible DSV Shinkai 6500, making it the first time a member of the genus Bathylepeta has been observed and photographed live on its natural rocky substrate, rather than being dredged using a net. The use of submersibles is instrumental in accessing these habitats, allowing for direct observation and collection of previously overlooked organisms.
JAMSTEC’s DSV Shinkai 6500 submersible.
“Even in an age of sophisticated remotely operated vehicles, there’s often an edge to the human eye on the seafloor. Crewed submersibles like Shinkai 6500 let us explore with intention and nuance—spotting lifeforms like Bathylepeta wadatsumi that might otherwise be missed entirely.”
Dr Chong Chen, lead author.
Beyond its taxonomic significance, the study has broader ecological implications as B. wadatsumi appears to graze on sediment layers over rock, indicating a specialised role in processing organic matter in deep-sea ecosystems.
The findings underscore the need for more comprehensive explorations of rocky abyssal habitats using submersibles to reveal the true diversity and distribution of Bathylepeta and other animals relying on such habitats.
While it remains to be seen whether Luffy and co. will ever find the “One Piece,” we can be sure that their adventures will continue to inspire researchers in their own journies of discovery.
Original source
Chen C, Tsuda M, Ishitani Y (2025) A new large-sized lepetid limpet from the abyssal northwestern Pacific is the deepest known patellogastropod. Zoosystematics and Evolution 101(3): 1249-1058. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.101.156207
Cover image credit: Limpet photograph: Chen et al.; Illustration: ONE PIECE (TV series) Toei Animation.
Five women scientists from Germany, Indonesia, and Wales have discovered two new species of wart sea slugs from North Sulawesi, Indonesia — Phyllidia ovata and Phyllidia fontjei.
Wart sea slugs in the family Phyllidiidae are common inhabitants of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, preying on sponges and stealing toxins from their prey for their own defence. To scientists and nature enthusiasts alike, they are renowned for their warning coloration and their chemical defence mechanisms. Approximately 350 species of sea slugs have been documented in North Sulawesi, and some 100 of these are new to science and still need to be formally identified, but now, two colourful species, much rarer than most of their relatives, have been named and described.
Phyllidia schupporum. Photo by Rafi Amar
Phyllidiopsis sinaiensis. Photo by Nathalie Yonow
Phyllidiopsis cardinalis. Photo by Sven Kahlbrock
Paradoris hypocrita. Photo by Sven Kahlbrock
Phyllidiella zeylanica. Photo by Sven Kahlbrock
Phyllidia varicosa. Photo by Hsini Lin
Phyllidia ovata was named in reference to its unique appearance that resembles an egg, both in its shape and its pattern. It has been photographed several times by enthusiastic underwater photographers in Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Australia during the past 23 years, but was only recognised as a new-to-science species now. This medium-sized, up to 5 cm long, wart sea slug has finally been given a name based on an animal collected by a scuba diver in North Sulawesi.
Phyllida Ovata. Photo by Heike Wägele
Phyllidia fontjei was named in honour of the late Dr. Fontje Kaligis, an Indonesian researcher who was instrumental in opening new avenues of international cooperation for the advancement of our knowledge of the — sometimes hidden — biodiversity in North Sulawesi. With a maximum documented size of 16 mm, this small species of wart sea slug is difficult to find. Nevertheless, Phyllidia fontjei has been photographed during the past 15 years – in Indonesia and Malaysia, but is more common in the Andaman Sea in the Indian Ocean. This species has been described based on a single reference animal, which scientists refer to as a holotype. The holotype has been histologically examined, allowing for a very detailed analysis of its anatomy.
Phyllidia fontjei. Photo by Heike Wägele
To a large extent, these discoveries were made possible thanks to people who do not have formal scientific education but are passionate about documenting and protecting Earth’s diversity. Photographs and data posted on citizen science platforms like iNaturalist, social media sites like Facebook, and dedicated sea slug communities such as NudiPixel and the now defunct Sea Slug Forum, provided the researchers with vital information for identifying these nudibranchs as new to science and establishing a more realistic geographical distribution when only few specimens are available for study.
“We all use these platforms in many different fields of taxonomy as they provide useful records when the species are distinctive, and have done so for more than two decades,” says Dr Nathalie Yonow of Swansea University, one of the authors of the study.
The discovery has been published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.
Research article:
Wägele H, Raubold LM, Papu A, Undap N, Yonow N (2025) On two new Phyllidia species (Gastropoda, Nudibranchia, Doridina) and some histology from the Coral Triangle. ZooKeys 1245: 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1245.153046
We attended the International Congress for Conservation Biology to present the REST-COAST and SELINA Horizon-funded projects, as well as our scholarly journals and books portfolio.
Over 1,200 people from more than 90 countries, including conservation and social science researchers, students, practitioners, government and NGO professionals, policy specialists and leaders from indigenous groups attended the 32nd International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2025), hosted by the SCB Oceania Region from 15th to 19th June 2025 in Brisbane/Meanjin, Australia.
The Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre (BCEC) welcomed over 1,200 participants for the 32nd International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2025) hosted by the SCB Oceania Region. Photo credit: BCEC.
A special focus seen across the talks and overall rhetoric of the event was on indigenous peoples, culture and knowledge, and how they can be recognised and further engaged in the study and protection of the environment in a sustainable and culturally appropriate manner. Other topics popular during the week included biocultural diversity and wildlife trade and traffic.
Throughout the week, the delegates enjoyed three sets of plenary talks, and got to choose from upwards of ten parallel sessions taking place three times each day. Multiple workshops and business meetings would also take place every day around lunch time. Then, each day of the congress would conclude with a poster session at the Exhibition hall. Additionally, multiple social events scheduled throughout the week – such as a nature documentary movie night, a science comedy night, and a closing reception, held amongst the exhibits of the Queensland Museum Kurilpa – would take care of the attendees’ entertainment after long days of talks and presentations.
Our team at Pensoft was proud to join this amazing event as one of the 14 exhibitors at ICCB 2025. At our stand, Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva would invite delegates to elaborate on their scientific interests and latest research endeavours, as well as wants and needs concerning the publication, communication and outreach of their work.
Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva at the ICCB2025 (Brisbane, Australia).
Then, visitors would leave the Pensoft stand with helpful advice concerning scholarly publishing and multiple recommended titles from the Pensoft open-access journal portfolio fitting the scope of their research. If you have met us at any event in the past couple of years, you would also know that it is next to impossible for a visitor of ours to leave without at least one of our signature stickers featuring captioned scientific illustrations of species studied in papers from across our journals.
At every event in the past two years, Pensoft has been handing out stickers featuring detailed scientific illustrations of species studied in papers published in Pensoft’s scholarly portfolio. This is our ‘thank you’ to the authors who have trusted our journals with their work.
Many would also become intrigued to know more about the latest activities and results of the two European Union-funded projects that enjoyed prominent visibility at the Pensoft stand, namely: SELINA (an acronym for Science for Evidence-based and Sustainable Decisions about Natural Capital) and REST-COAST (Large scale RESToration of COASTal ecosystems through rivers to sea connectivity). At both projects, our team takes pride in leading work packages dedicated to the communication and dissemination of the projects’ outputs.
Having started in 2022 and set to run until 2027, SELINA comprises 50 partner organisations coordinated by the Leibniz University Hannover. This transdisciplinary project provides smart, cost-effective, and nature-based solutions to historic societal challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security. A main objective is to identify biodiversity, ecosystem condition, and ecosystem service factors that can be successfully integrated into decision-making processes in both the public and private sectors.
Most recently, the consortium launched SELINA’s Communities of Practice initiative to promote collaborative learning and knowledge integration across Europe. This digital platform provides a forum for scientists, policymakers, practitioners, and business representatives to exchange knowledge and further engage with its real-life application. On the Communities of Practice webpage, visitors may explore how SELINA is driving change across Europe.
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Meanwhile, the mission of the EU Horizon’s Green Deal-funded REST-COAST is to address today’s challenges to coastal ecosystems caused by a long history of environmental degradation of rivers and coasts. Bringing together 38 European institutions, led by the Catalonia University of Technology UPC-BarcelonaTech (Spain), the project is set to demonstrate to key stakeholders and decision-makers that large-scale restoration of river deltas, estuaries and coastal lagoons is necessary to sustain the delivery of vital ecosystem services.
A prominent output by the REST-COAST project is a policy brief addressing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, and serving to provide scientifically-informed policy recommendations and targets.
At the Pensoft stand, ICCB2025 participants had the opportunity to browse through nine fact sheets produced within the project. Each provides a neat snapshot of the story of one of the pilot sites selected by REST-COAST as representatives of particularly vulnerable hotspots for the main EU regional seas (Baltic, Black, North Atlantic and the Mediterranean). On display was also a recent policy brief addressing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. It serves to provide a concise summary of the issues and challenges at hand, in addition to scientifically-backed policy recommendations and targets.
Both the pilot site factsheets and the policy briefs produced by the consortium are made public in the Media Center on the project website. Further project outputs, including research articles, data papers and project reports, are permanently available from the REST-COAST’s open-science project collection in the Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal.
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On the final day, the ICCB 2025 did not disappoint either. The day started with a touching plenary talk by Amy Van Nice of the Wildlife Alliance, where she shared a lot of her own experience as a wildlife rescuer, but also as a human with her own personal battles along the way. Throughout her talk she remained fully transparent about the current situation in wildlife trafficking, which remains, sadly, a crisis yet to be tackled.
The day continued with a full programme of parallel sessions before everyone gathered for the closing session and the closing ceremony, where delegates could look back at the last year in conservation, and learn about what is to come. The closing ceremony also announced and celebrated the SCB 2025 Global Service Awards and the ICCB awards.
Following the ICCB tradition, the organisers also waited until the end of the event to announce the location of the next international congress. It will take place in 2027 some 12,000 km (7,500 miles) away from Brisbane: in Mexico, where it will be jointly hosted by the North American (SCBNA) and the Latin America and Caribbean (SCB-LACA) regions of the Society for Conservation Biology.
The conference facilitated valuable networking opportunities, meeting us with old friends but also giving us a chance to discuss potential future collaborations.
Between 30 June and 3 July, Pensoft’s team attended the LifeWatch ERIC Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience Conference (BEeS) in Heraklion, Greece. The event was organized by the LifeWatch ERIC Infrastructure with the aim of tackling the Triple Planetary Crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution) through eScience and European Research Infrastructures (RIs). With almost 200 registered participants, the conference discussed “how cutting-edge eScience and European Research Infrastructures can work together to develop innovative solutions for a sustainable future.”
Hosted by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, BEeS convened 193 registrants, featured 59 presentations, 36 posters, and provided 12 training sessions, highlighting the vital role of technology, data, and collaborative efforts in confronting global environmental challenges.
On the first day, a closed-door meeting was held with the aim of adopting a Declaration of Intent (the Crete Declaration) between the involved RIs, e-infrastructures, EU-relevant projects, and Pensoft, as a scientific publisher. The objective was to advance the One Health approach—a strategy that optimizes the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. The Declaration outlines four key strategic commitments:
strengthening strategic collaboration
advancing data integration and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles
supporting Open Science Ecosystems
informing policy and practice
Christos Arvanitidis, the president of LifeWatch ERIC, came to the Pensoft stand to meet with our staff and discuss our agenda.
Pensoft was also invited to present the outcomes of the BiCIKL project, on which we partnered with LifeWatch ERIC, as part of the Mapping Life on Planet Earth: Biogeography in a Changing World session.
The indexing is one of the major outcomes from the partnerships within the Horizon 2020-funded project Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge…
Teodor Georgiev, Chief Technology Officer of Pensoft, delivered the presentation, titled The BiCIKL project traverses obstacles to FAIR and linked biodiversity data usage.
The BiCIKL project, which concluded on 30 April 2024, aims to catalyse the culture change in the way biodiversity data are identified, linked, integrated and re-used across the research lifecycle. Key outcomesinclude the creation of uni- and bi-directional links between biodiversity RIs, the establishment of best practices for Persistent Identifiers (PIDs), recommendations for interoperability between RIs, and the development of automated tools and workflows for published data liberation and FAIR-isation. The presentation also introduced the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub, a one-stop portal for understanding the complex, but increasingly interconnected landscape of biodiversity RIs.
Georgiev also delivered a poster presentation, discussing SOLO: a collaborative open-review and publishing platform supporting the EU Soil Mission.
SOLO, a Horizon Europe project in which Pensoft is involved, aims to identify current knowledge gaps, drivers, bottlenecks, and novel research and innovation approaches to be considered in the European Soil Mission research and innovation roadmap. Hosted on Pensoft’s ARPHA publishing platform and integrating the ARPHA Writing Tool, SOLO engages researchers, practitioners, citizens and other stakeholders in the development and review of ‘living’ open-access documents supporting the EU Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe.” Pensoft’s contribution to SOLO encompasses communication, dissemination, data management, and the crucial development of the platform itself.
Fifteen research infrastructures and 15 projects were officially represented at BEes, including two other Horizon Europe projects where Pensoft is a partner: ANERIS, which focuses on scientific tools and methods for marine life-sensing and monitoring, and BMD, which offers a single access point to high-throughput biodiversity monitoring tools.
Pensoft joins the ANERIS consortium as an expert in science communication with the goal to engage stakeholders and build an active community…
Berta Companys of the Spanish National Research Council introduced ANERIS with an insightful presentation on the project’s innovative technologies, workflow, and overall approach. Her talk highlighted the key challenges connected to marine biodiversity and monitoring sea and ocean ecosystems that ANERIS is tackling and outlined the solutions the project is developing to address them, such as the implementation of Operational Marine Biology (OMB) data products.
The conference facilitated valuable networking opportunities, meeting us with old friends but also giving us a chance to discuss potential future collaborations. Pensoft engaged with partners from other European Research Infrastructures, sharing a dedication to collaborative research and the development of open-access resources addressing global environmental challenges.
Official group photo of the delegates at ESP11 (Darwin, Australia). Courtesy of the Ecosystem Services Partnership.
Between 22nd and 26th June, the 11th Ecosystem Services Partnership World Conference (ESP11) brought about 250 international delegates from diverse backgrounds: professional and demographic alike, to the Darwin Convention Centre in the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia.
Amongst the central topics of the event were the integrations of local and indigenous values and knowledge into the understanding of ecosystem services and their sustainable management; the implementation of nature-based solutions into practice; and the collaboration of scientists with policymakers, practitioners and other stakeholders.
Cultural diversity was specially celebrated at both the opening and the closing ceremonies, as well as the special conference dinner. Attendees enjoyed multiple traditional performances from the region, but also from other parts of the world. They also had the chance to hear directly from members of Darwin’s indigenous communities about their own perspectives on ecosystem services and their sustainable management.
Indigenous Australian performance at the opening ceremony at ESP11 (Darwin, Australia).
During the week, each day would open with keynote speeches by renowned scientists from around the world. The programme would then continue with a set of six parallel sessions. The conference also included poster sessions, a conference dinner and field trips meant to provide the conference participants with a face-to-face encounter with Australian natural phenomena, including close-up encounters with the signature Northern Territory fauna, such as crocodiles, birds and sea turtles.
One of the field trips took participants to the uninhabited Bare Sand Island where they got the chance to see up close a Flatback sea turtle coming out of the water, making her nest and laying her eggs before making her way back to the waves under the cover of the night.
At the Pensoft stand, delegates met Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva, who would answer their questions about the various publishing opportunities and scholarly resources by the publisher, but also about the latest activities and results of the Horizon Europe-funded project SELINA (an acronym for Science for Evidence-based and Sustainable Decisions about Natural Capital).
Pensoft’s stand at the ESP11 conference in Darwin, Australia.
Having started in 2022 and set to run until 2027, SELINA comprises 50 partner organisations coordinated by the Leibniz University Hannover and Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard (Leibniz University Hannover, Germany), who is also co-Chair of the ESP and Editor-in-Chief of the One Ecosystem journal. As an experienced science communicator and open-science publisher, at SELINA, Pensoft has been assigned to lead the project’s communication and dissemination activities.
The transdisciplinary project aims to provide smart, cost-effective, and nature-based solutions to historic societal challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security. One of the consortium’s main objectives is to identify biodiversity, ecosystem condition, and ecosystem service factors that can be successfully integrated into decision-making processes in both the public and private sectors.
Most recently, the consortium launched SELINA’s Communities of Practice initiative to promote collaborative learning and knowledge integration across Europe. This digital platform provides a forum for scientists, policymakers, practitioners, and business representatives to exchange knowledge and further engage with its real-life application. On the Communities of Practice, visitors may explore how SELINA is driving change across Europe.
Once again, all around the venue one could easily catch a glimpse of both local and exotic biodiversity that had taken cover on the laptops of the participants. The vivid stickers have become a signature Pensoft freebies that feature scientific illustration of species discussed in publications from across the publisher’s scholarly portfolio in a nod to the authors who have chosen a journal from the Pensoft scholarly portfolio.
Those who have missed the opportunity to sign up for those journals’ newsletters at the stand, can do this by filling in their email address from the homepage of the journal they fancy or by updating their profiles in the Pensoft system.
Understandably, the highlight in the Pensoft’s journal portfolio for ESP11 delegates was One Ecosystem, which was once born in a collaboration between Pensoft, the predecessor of SELINA: ESMERALDA, and the ESP community itself.
Since its launch in 2016, the open-access peer-reviewed journal has published about 200 research papers, including field-specific research outputs typically falling outside of what traditional scientific journals would see as a publication. These include Software description, Methods, Ecosystem Services Mapping, Ecosystem Accounting Table amongst others. You can find about the origins of One Ecosystem in the 2016 launching editorial. A few years ago, the journal became part of the scholarly literature databases of both Scopus and Web of Science. In fact, the latest Scopus CiteScore of One Ecosystem places the journal in Q1 in all five categories it has been assigned to.
At a special session within the ESP11 programme, Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard welcomed various questions concerning the One Ecosystem journal.
As part of the ESP11 programme, a session dedicated on the open-science approach of One Ecosystem that relies on opening up diverse research outputs and data, in order to prompt transparency, reusability and interdisciplinary in ecological research. Together, Pensoft’s Iva Boyadzhieva, Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard and subject editor Dr. Paulo Pereira talked about the journal and addressed the questions of the audience, while also providing general advice on scholarly publishing and editorial work to early career researchers at the session.
The session also presented the announcement that in 2025, ESP members are eligible for a 10% discount on the APC at One Ecosystem.
As usual, the conference closed with an engaging and heart-warming ceremony, where the organisers paid another tribute to local communities and volunteers who made the event an unforgettable experience for everyone. The ceremony finished with the awards for the three best posters presented at ESP11.
Hamid Arrum Harahap was awarded first place for his poster “Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EbA) to Climate Change for Indigenous Women in the Mentawai Islands and Aceh Singkil, Sumatra (Indonesia)”.
Hamid Arrum Harahap (Universitas Andalas, Indonesia), Nicole Boyd (Charles Darwin University) and Gail Sucharitakul (Imperial College of London, United Kingdom) were recognised for their research posters.
“My poster highlights the climate knowledge of Indigenous women in the Mentawai Islands and Aceh Singkil. Their voices are often underrepresented in climate discourse, despite contributing the least to climate change and being among the most affected by its impacts”
said first-place sitter Hamid Arrum Harahap about his poster, titled “Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EbA) to Climate Change for Indigenous Women in the Mentawai Islands and Aceh Singkil, Sumatra (Indonesia)”.
“In regions where downscaling climate models is difficult, intergenerational knowledge passed through indigenous women is critical. Our study highlights that while our climate models from modern science are built on numbers and projections, Indigenous women’s climate memories are rooted in stories and emotions—together, they offer complementary insights for understanding and adapting to climate change.”
In addition to the prizes handed by the ESP, he received a waiver for a free publication at One Ecosystem from the journal’s publisher Pensoft.
“I plan to use this opportunity to publish my research on Indigenous knowledge and ecosystem services. I am currently working on two studies: one on the relational values of ecosystem services governance with Indigenous Batak communities, and the other on ecosystem-based adaptation and the vulnerability of ecosystem services to climate change, focusing on Indigenous women in Sumatra and Far North Queensland, Australia. I believe One Ecosystem is an ideal platform for this work, as it offers an innovative and accessible forum for multidisciplinary studies like mine and focusing on sustainability of the ecosystem.
he added.
Third-placed Gail Sucharitakul received a copy of “Mapping Ecosystem Service”: a best-seller in Pensoft’s scientific book portfolio, edited by Prof. Dr. Benjamin Burkhard and Dr. Joachim Maes (European Commission DG Environment): both well-renowned in the field and the ESP community scientists. Maes is also a Deputy Editor-in-Chief at One Ecosystem.
Now that the ESP11 World Conference has turned into a wonderful memory, we set our sights on the 2016 European conference, which will be taking place in historic Prague, Czech Republic. See you there!
A new paper published in the open-access journal Herpetozoa records a rarely documented event in the world of snake predation: an adult female Common European Adder (Vipera berus) attempting to kill and swallow a young European Hare (Lepus europaeus) nearly ten times its own mass.
Watch below (warning: contains footage some may find distressing):
Aadult female adder, Viperaberus, examining a young hare or leveret, Lepuseuropaeus and biting its left hind leg. The adder was disturbed by the observer’s presence and escaped into the tall grass. Credit: Klaus Birch.
The incident, observed on the Danish island of Læsø in August 2022, saw the adder, which was likely in a state of nutritional deficit after giving birth, attack a young hare (a leveret) in open grassland. Researchers Henrik Bringsøe, Daniel Jablonski, and Klaus Birch document the interaction in their research paper.
The snake was seen biting and examining the hare’s limbs and head, which is how adders assess whether prey can be swallowed. Despite the adder’s determined efforts, intervention from the observer prevented the snake from attempting ingestion, and the hare succumbed to its injuries shortly after. The research paper’s authors suggest it is likely that, without intervention, the snake would have abandoned its excessively large prey after careful examination anyway.
The adder returned from the grass vegetation to the hare and continued examining it, especially the front legs and the head. Credit: Klaus Birch.
The sheer size difference between predator and prey makes the observation noteworthy. The adder, estimated at 60 cm in length and weighing around 110 grams, was facing a hare of about 30 cm and 1,000 grams.
Such attempts at oversized prey are not unknown among snakes, but they are poorly represented in scientific literature and may be more common than previously thought. Snakes often abandon prey that proves impossible to consume, but these events are seldom reported.
The authors contextualise this event with similar cases from around the world, including rattlesnakes and other vipers attacking animals too large to swallow. Sometimes, these ambitious meals can even prove fatal for the snakes themselves. The paper suggests that the drive for a high-energy meal, particularly after energetically costly events like giving birth, may push snakes to take such risks.
Male Crotaluslutosus having killed a young Sylvilagusaudubonii (Desert Cottontail) which it tried to swallow, however, it was unable to finish the job. Likely its first meal attempt during the spring. St. George, southwestern Utah, USA, 29 April 2023 at 09:15 h. Photo by Cameron Rognan.
This remarkable observation highlights the need for more documentation of such underreported phenomena in snake ecology, and serves as a reminder that in the wild, even the most experienced predators can be a little too optimistic.
Original source
Bringsøe H, Jablonski D, Birch K (2025) Overly optimistic adder, Vipera berus (Linnaeus, 1758), killing and intending to swallow an oversized young hare, Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778. Herpetozoa 38: 155-159. https://doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.38.e143850
Frontiers of Biogeography, the official journal of The International Biogeography Society (TIBS), has received its first Journal Impact Factor (JIF) from Clarivate’s Web of Science. Its 2024 JIF stands at 2.5, highlighting the journal’s impact and relevance to the academic community.
This milestone places Frontiers of Biogeography in the Q2 category in both of its assigned Web of Science categories, Ecology and Geography, Physical.
A key metric released by Clarivate, the 2024 Journal Impact Factor reflects the number of times content published in a specific journal during 2022 and 2023 was cited in the subsequent 2024. This total citation count is then divided by the number of “citable” articles (i.e., research and review articles) to estimate the JIF.
Prior to this inaugural JIF, Frontiers of Biogeography had already achieved notable recognition, including a Scopus CiteScore of 5.5, an all-time high for the journal and the latest rise in an upwards trend that dates from its inclusion in Scopus back in 2016. It is placed in the 79th percentile for Ecology and the 73rd percentile for Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, ranking in Q1 for both categories.
Established in 2009, Frontiers of Biogeography was recently relaunched on the ARPHA Platform, where it is co-published with Pensoft Publishers. The journal publishes studies on all geographical variations of life at all levels of organisation, adhering to rigorous academic standards and aiming to advance public understanding of biogeographical sciences. It is led by Editor-in-Chief Prof. Robert J. Whittaker and Deputy Editors-in-Chief Dr. Janet Franklin and Prof. Mark J. Costello.
Professor Robert J. Whittaker, Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers of Biogeography, expressed his enthusiasm for this achievement, stating, “When The International Biogeography Society launched Frontiers of Biogeography under the editorship of Joaquín Hortal in 2009, we had a vision of it becoming an adaptable, independent, society-owned journal with a distinctive place in the journal publishing landscape. The attainment of our first Clarivate Journal Impact Factor is testimony to the hard work by our past and present editors and reviewers, and to the quality and interest level of the work that our community has entrusted to the journal for publication.”
“Working together with the team at Pensoft we are confident that we can continue to grow the journal as a favoured venue for Open Access publication of cutting-edge biogeographical research,” he added.
High in the cloud-wrapped peaks of the Cordillera de Huancabamba, where the Andes dip and twist into isolated ridges, a team of Peruvian scientists has brought three secretive frogs out of obscurity and into the scientific record. The study, led by herpetologist Germán Chávez and published in Evolutionary Systematics, describes Pristimantis chinguelas, P. nunezcortezi, and P. yonke—three new species discovered in the rugged, misty highlands of northwestern Peru.
“They’re small and unassuming,” Chávez says, “but these frogs are powerful reminders of how much we still don’t know about the Andes.”
Between 2021 and 2024, the team carried out a series of tough expeditions, hiking steep trails and combing mossy forests and wet páramo for signs of amphibian life. It was in this setting—both harsh and enchanting—that they encountered the new species.
Each frog tells a different story:
P. chinguelas, discovered on a cliffside of Cerro Chinguelas, has a body dotted with prominent large tubercles on both sides. Its high-pitched “peep” can be heard on humid nights.
P. nunezcortezi lives near a cool mountain stream in a regenerating forest. With large black blotches on axillae and groins, it was named in honour of ornithologist Elio Nuñez-Cortez, a conservation trailblazer in the region.
P. yonke, the smallest of the three, was found nestled in bromeliads at nearly 3,000 meters. Its name nods to “yonque,” a sugarcane spirit consumed by locals to brave the highland chill.
“Exploring this area is more than fieldwork—it’s an immersion into wilderness, culture, and resilience,” says co-author Karen Victoriano-Cigüeñas.
“Many of these mountain ridges are isolated, with no roads and extreme terrain,” adds Ivan Wong. “The weather shifts within minutes, and the steep cliffs make every step a challenge. It’s no wonder so few scientists have worked here before. But that’s exactly why there’s still so much to find.”
Despite the thrill of discovery, the frogs’ future is uncertain. The team observed signs of habitat degradation, fire damage, and expanding farmland. For now, the species are listed as Data Deficient under IUCN criteria, but the call to action is clear.
“The Cordillera de Huancabamba is not just a remote range—it’s a living archive of biodiversity and cultural legacy,” says co-author Wilmar Aznaran. “And we’ve barely scratched the surface.”
Research article:
Chávez G, Aznaran W, Wong I, Victoriano-Cigüeñas KY, García-Ayachi LA, Valencia-Málaga JD, Ormeño JR, Gulman M, Sumiano-Mejía R, Thompson ME, Catenazzi A (2025) Over the top: Three new species of terrestrial breeding frogs (Anura, Terrarana, Pristimantis) from the highlands of the Cordillera de Huancabamba, northwestern Peru. Evolutionary Systematics 9(1): 145-166. https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.9.148522
