Author: Pensoft Editorial Team

Exploring arctic plants and lichens: An important conservation baseline for Nunavut’s newest and largest territorial park

A comprehensive study of the floristic diversity of Agguttinni Territorial Park has documented 141 vascular plant, 69 bryophyte, and 93 lichen species from this unique protected area.

Encompassing over 16 000 km2 of towering mountains, long fiords, lush valleys, and massive ice caps, Agguttinni Territorial Park is a protected area on northern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. This park, and all of Nunavut, is Inuit Nunangat – Inuit homeland in Canada – and the park protects sites and biodiversity stewarded by Inuit since time immemorial.

Lapland Diapensia (Diapensia lapponica). Photo credit Lynn J. Gillespie © Canadian Museum of Nature

Agguttinni means “where the prevailing wind occurs” in the Inuktitut local dialect. The park includes important bird areas, key habitats for polar bears and caribou, and numerous important Inuit cultural sites. It is very remote: no roads lead to it, and access is only by helicopter, boat in the summer, or snowmobile in the winter.

A field camp in Atagulisaktalik, Agguttinni Territorial Park. Photo credit Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

During the development of the park’s management plan, a team from the Canadian Museum of Nature, led by Dr. Lynn Gillespie, inventoried the park’s plants and lichens in partnership with Nunavut Parks and Special Places, with the support of Polar Knowledge Canada. 

Arctic poppy
Mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)
Photo credit Geoffrey A. Levin © Canadian Museum of Nature

Over five weeks in the summer of 2021, Dr. Gillespie’s team traveled across Agguttinni, exploring the vicinity of four base camps in the park on foot and further afield by helicopter. Across this large area, they studied many different habitats from the interior Barnes Ice Cap to the coast of Baffin Bay.

Stewart Valley. Photo credit Lynn J. Gillespie © Canadian Museum of Nature

The heads of the long fiords, sheltered far inland, hosted the greatest plant diversity in the park, including numerous species rare on Baffin Island and two species previously only known from farther south in Canada: Lapland Diapensia (Diapensia lapponica) and Flame-tipped Lousewort (Pedicularis flammea). Conversely, the interior plateau near the ice cap was less diverse, but still held new records for Nunavut, such as Powdered Matchstick Lichen (Pilophorus caerulus), Starke’s Fork Moss (Kiaeria starkei) and Sprig Moss (Aongstroemia longipes).

Wooly lousewort (Pedicularis lanata). Photo credit Lynn J. Gillespie © Canadian Museum of Nature

This intensive fieldwork resulted in over a thousand new specimens deposited at the National Herbarium of Canada at the Canadian Museum of Nature and other herbaria worldwide. These pressed and preserved plants and lichens serve as proof that these species were found at this specific place and time and are the foundation for our knowledge of botanical diversity in the park.

Dr. Gillespie and her team also examined over 300 existing herbarium specimens from the park area, most of which were collected in 1950, the last time botanists intensively studied this part of Baffin Island. Combining data from these old and new specimens has resulted in an annotated checklist of the park’s plant and lichen diversity, describing the 141 vascular plant, 69 bryophyte, and 93 lichen species documented in Agguttinni, all native to the Arctic. 

Concentric-ring lichen
Arctic mushroom scales lichen
Rugged dung moss
Photo credit Paul Sokoloff © Canadian Museum of Nature

This checklist, immensely valuable to park managers and botanists, is filled with descriptions and photos useful to anyone interested in Arctic botany and is out now in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Check List. With information on which species are present, where they are distributed, and which ones are rare, it will help the conservation and management of the protected area.

Research article:

Gillespie LJ, Sokoloff PC, Levin GA, Doubt J, McMullin RT (2024) Vascular plant, bryophyte, and lichen biodiversity of Agguttinni Territorial Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada: an annotated species checklist of a new Arctic protected area. Check List 20(2): 279-443. https://doi.org/10.15560/20.2.279

Moving towards a systems-based Environmental Risk Assessment for wild bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies: Pensoft joins PollinERA

Pensoft will lead the communication, dissemination and exploitation activities of the Horizon Europe project, which aims to reverse pollinator population declines and reduce impacts of pesticides.

The European Green Deal, the EU biodiversity strategy, the EU zero pollution action plan, and the revised EU pollinators initiative all indicate the need to protect pollinators and address insect and pollinator declines.

Plant protection products (PPP), also known as pesticides, have been identified as one of the primary triggers of pollinator decline. However, significant knowledge gaps and critical procedural limitations to current pesticide risk assessment require attention before meaningful improvements can be realised. The functional group is currently represented by only one species, the honey bee, which does not necessarily share other species’ biological and ecological traits.

Coordinated by The Social-Ecological Systems Simulation (SESS) Centre, Aarhus University and Prof. Christopher J. Topping, PollinERA (Understanding pesticide-Pollinator interactions to support EU Environmental Risk Assessment and policy) aims to move the evaluation of the risk and impacts of pesticides and suggestions for mitigation beyond the current situation of assessing single pesticides in isolation on honey bees to an ecologically consistent assessment of effects on insect pollinators.

This will be achieved through the development of a new systems-based environmental risk assessment (ERA) scheme, tools and protocols for a broad range of toxicological testing, feeding to in silico models (QSARS, toxicokinetic/toxicodynamic, and ALMaSS agent-based population simulations). 

Using a strong stakeholder co-development approach, these models will be combined in a One System framework for risk assessment and policy evaluation including an international long-term monitoring scheme for pollinators and pesticides. 

The One System framework builds on the recent roadmap for action on the ERA of chemicals for insect pollinators, developed within the IPol‐ERA project, funded by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The framework will expand the ERA tools currently used for honey bees to include wild bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies.

With an overall goal of reversing pollinator population declines and reducing the harmful impacts of pesticides, for the next four years, PollinERA will follow four specific objectives:

  1. Fill ecotoxicological data gaps to enable realistic prediction of the source and routes of exposure and the impact of pesticides on pollinators and their sensitivity to individual pesticides and mixtures.
  2. Develop and test a co-monitoring scheme for pesticides and pollinators across European cropping systems and landscapes, developing risk indicators and exposure information.
  3. Develop models for predicting pesticide toxicological effects on pollinators for chemicals and organisms, improve toxicokinetic/toxicodynamic (TKTD) and population models, and predict environment fate.
  4. Develop a population-level systems-based approach to risk and policy assessment considering multiple stressors and long-term spatiotemporal dynamics at a landscape scale and generate an open database for pollinator/pesticide data and tools.
Between 17 and 18 January 2024, experts from various realms of knowledge – from pollinator ecology, pesticide exposure and toxicological testing, to stakeholder engagement and communications – gathered in Aarhus, Denmark, to officially launch PollinERA. The two-day event seeded fruitful discussions on the project’s specific objectives, mission, methodology, outcomes and expected results.

With more than 20 years of experience in science communication, Pensoft is leading Work Package 6: Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation, that will ensure the effective outreach of PollinERA to its multiple target audiences. Based on the tailor-made communication, dissemination, exploitation and engagement strategies, Pensoft will provide a recognisable visual identity of the project, along with a user-friendly website, social media profiles, promotional materials, newsletters, infographics and videos. Pensoft will also contribute to the stakeholder mapping process and the organisation of various workshops and events.

To support the proactive, open-science transfer of results and scientific achievements, two PollinERA topical collections of articles will be established in Pensoft’s Food and Ecological Systems Modelling Journal (FESMJ) and the Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal.

PollinERA’s coordinator Prof. Christopher J. Topping (The Social-Ecological Systems Simulation Centre, Aarhus University) gave a warm welcome during the kick-off meeting of the project in Aarhus, Denmark.

In a joint effort to maximise impact and ensure sustainability of results, PollinERA will unfold in close collaboration with the sister Horizon Europe-funded project WildPosh, where Pensoft is also leading the Communication, dissemination and exploitation work package. 

Coordinated by Prof. Denis Michez (University of Mons), WildPosh aims to significantly improve the evaluation of risk to pesticide exposure of wild pollinators, and enhance the sustainable health of pollinators and pollination services in Europe.

Collaboration mechanisms between the PollinERA and the WildPosh projects include joint communication activities and events, joint data management strategy and alignment of activities to solidify the quality of final outputs.

Prof. Denis Michez (University of Mons), the coordinator of PollinERA’s sister-project WildPosh, presented the missions, objectives and methods, as well as the similarities, differences and collaboration potential between the two projects at PollinERA’s kick-off meeting in Aarhus, Denmark.

“It is fantastic that the European Commission puts so much effort into preserving wild pollinators and the countless benefits they bring to our society! The One System framework will hopefully become a fundamental part for the environmental risk assessment of chemicals for insect pollinators. I am really looking forward to implementing this insightful project, in close collaboration with its sister project WildPosh, where Pensoft is leading the dissemination efforts as well.”

says Teodor Metodiev, Principal Investigator for Pensoft at both PollinERA and WildPosh.

The PollinERA consortium comprises partners from eight European countries that represent a diverse range of scientific disciplines spanning from pollinator ecology, pesticide exposure and toxicological testing, to stakeholder engagement and communications.

Consortium:
  1. Aarhus University
  2. Jagiellonian University
  3. Lund University
  4. University of Bologna
  5. Osnabrück University
  6. Institute of Nature Conservation of the Polish Academy of Sciences
  7. Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
  8. BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination
  9. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
  10. Pensoft Publishers
  11. Zip Solutions

Stay up to date with the PollinERA project’s progress on X/Twitter (@pollinERA_eu) and LinkedIn (/pollinera-eu).

Assessment, monitoring, and mitigation of chemical stressors on the health of wild pollinators: Pensoft joins WildPosh

  

From Texas to Tennessee: Burrowing owl makes odd migration

A burrowing owl is overwintering on a Tennessee River peninsula near New Johnsonville, Tennessee, marking the first sighting of the species in the state.

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Birds migrating from north to south are a given but migrating from the southwest to the southeast is a little rarer. A burrowing owl is overwintering on a Tennessee River peninsula near New Johnsonville, Tennessee, marking the first sighting of the species in the state, and a Mississippi State wildlife ecologist is researching the fascinating oddity.

As the burrowing owl made its first home on a former Tennessee Valley Authority fossil fuel plant in 2020, Scott Rush, a scientist in the MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center, was called in by TVA to study the bird of prey found hundreds of miles outside of its range.

“Burrowing owls are found west of Central Texas and Oklahoma, all the way up into Canada. There is also a non-migratory population in Florida, so you’ll occasionally see them in Alabama but never in Tennessee,” Rush said, explaining a continuing struggle for the birds is a loss of habitat.

Burrowing Owl, Athene cunicularia, observed overwintering in New Johnsonville, Tennessee, USA. Photograph taken on 19 November 2022 by T. Ross.

“They live inside burrows created by prairie dogs and other animals,” he said. “They’re declining across the range in part because we’re losing some of those historic systems like undisturbed prairie dog colonies as more grasslands are being developed.”

Rush, an associate professor in MSU’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, and his research team have studied the bird and its diet to learn more about where the novel creature came from and why he makes his winter home in the Volunteer State.

Burrowing owl on the former TVA fossil fuel plant near New Johnsonville, Tennessee. Photo via MSU

The team collected plumage from the owl’s feathers and determined it was a male belonging to the subspecies A.c. hypugaea. They studied pellets to determine its diet, identifying six different species including insect, mammalian and plant remnants. They also conducted an isotopic analysis of its feathers to determine the bird’s home range. Details from the sightings were recently published in Check List, a journal of biodiversity data.

“We could see from various kinds of elemental components that the bird is probably from Texas, relatively near Dallas, according to our analysis,” said Rush, who noted the bird has been banded and this year, scientists hope to outfit it with a GPS tracker. “If we can put a GPS tracker on the owl, we can confirm its home range.”

The owl, which again has overwintered this season in the same location, was first spotted by a TVA employee, and Liz Hamrick, a terrestrial zoologist with TVA reached out to Rush.

A burrowing owl. Photo by Moisés Silva Lima shared under a CC BY 2.0 license

“A security guard at the site who happened to be an amateur birder came across it. Once I was alerted of its presence, I connected with our natural resources team who had already been working with Dr. Rush studying ospreys and vultures,” Hamrick said. “My role is to review TVA’s actions and ensure potential impacts to common wildlife and rare animals are avoided or minimized, and that includes protecting this owl. We need to make sure we follow all the state and federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the Executive Order for Migratory Birds.”

Hamrick said that as species assemblages change geographies, her team must be vigilant in identifying new species moving to the area like the burrowing owl and doing their best to protect them on TVA sites.

“It’s been exciting to learn about a whole new species and try to solve a mystery of why on earth this bird is repeatedly selecting to come to this industrial site out of its normal range,” she said.

Research article:

Rush SA, Naveda-Rodríguez A, Hamrick EB (2023) New overwintering location of Burrowing Owl, Athene cunicularia hypugaea (Molina, 1782) (Strigidae) in Tennessee, USA, with diet assessed through pellets. Check List 19(6): 863-868. https://doi.org/10.15560/19.6.863

This news piece was originally published by Mississippi State University. It is republished here with permission.

Five new plant species with striking flowers discovered in China

The discoveries are photographed and assessed, contributing to knowledge of China’s rich flora.

With more than 30,000 native plant species, including thousands found nowhere else on Earth, China is known for its abundant flora.  New species are frequently discovered in the country due to its size and variety of ecosystems.

These five new species with distinct flowers were recently published in Pensoft’s open-access journal PhytoKeys.

Melanoseris penghuana

Melanoseris penghuana
Melanoseris penghuana
Melanoseris penghuana habitat
Melanoseris penghuana flower

Belonging to the daisy family (Asteraceae), Melanoseris penghuana was observed growing on steep grassy slopes along the valley edge of Jiulonggou, Mt. Jiaozi Xueshan, at an elevation of approximately 3,200 m.

Through data analysis from two field surveys, the conservation status of this species was classified as Vulnerable. However, located within the Jiaozi Xueshan National Nature Reserve where human disturbance is minimal, its habitat is relatively well protected.

Research paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.238.116343

Hydrangea xinfeniae

Hydrangea xinfeniae
Hydrangea xinfeniae flowers

Hydrangea xinfeniae belongs to the family Hydrangeaceae and was discovered in the Huagaoxi National Nature Reserve in Shuiwei Town, Sichuan Province. It grows on moist soils under the broadleaved forest at an elevation of 1,200–1,300 m.

Currently known from only three relatively small populations of the type locality, its conservation status is assessed as Data Deficient.

Research paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.238.114289

Prunus tongmuensis

Prunus tongmuensis
Prunus tongmuensis illustration

This new species of cherry blossom belongs to the rose family (Rosaceae). It is currently known only from Wuyishan National Park, Fujian and Jiangxi Province, where it grows in various habitats such as the margins of evergreen broad-leaved forests, valleys, or roadsides, at an altitude of 600–1,000 m.

Research paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.237.115098

Ophiorrhiza reflexa

Ophiorrhiza reflexa

Belonging to the madder family (Rubiaceae), Ophiorrhiza reflexa grows in moist areas under evergreen broad-leaved forests in the limestone region of Napo County, Guangxi.

Researchers found three populations of the species with more than 1,000 individuals at each site during field investigations. The three sites all belong to Laohutiao Provincial Nature Reserve, which is well-protected and not under threat. Ophiorrhiza reflexa is preliminarily assessed as Least Concern.

Research paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.238.116767

Ligularia lushuiensis

Ligularia lushuiensis
Ligularia lushuiensis habitat
Ligularia lushuiensis

Ligularia lushuiensis belongs to the daisy family (Asteraceae). It is currently known only from its type locality, Lushui, northwestern Yunnan, where it grows in alpine meadows at an elevation of 3,322 m.

Currently known only from a small population at its type locality, the single population researchers discovered consists of no more than 200 mature individuals. Overgrazing may threaten the habitat of this species, and it has been preliminarily categorised as Critically Endangered.

Research paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.238.117340

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BiCIKL project sums up outcomes and future prospects at a Final GA in Cambridge

On multiple occasions, the participants agreed that the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub must be the flagship outcome of BiCIKL. 

The city of Cambridge and the Wellcome Campus hosted the Final General Assembly of the EU-funded project BiCIKL (acronym for Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library): a 36-month endeavour that saw 14 member institutions and 15 research infrastructures representing diverse actors from the biodiversity data realm come together to improve bi-directional links between different platforms, standards, formats and scientific fields. Consortium members who could not attend the meeting in Cambridge joined the meeting remotely.

The 3-day meeting was organised by local hosts European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and ELIXIR in collaboration with Pensoft Publishers.

After a welcome cocktail reception on Monday evening at Hilton Cambridge City Centre, on Tuesday, the consortium made an early start with a recap of BiCIKL’s key milestones and outputs from the last three years. All Work Package leaders had their own timeslot to discuss the results of their collaborations.  

They all agreed that the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub – the one-stop portal for understanding the complex – yet increasingly interconnected landscape of biodiversity research infrastructures – is likely the flagship outcome of BiCIKL. 

Prof. Lyubomir Penev, project coordinator of BiCIKL and founder/CEO of Pensoft Publishers at the BiCIKL’s third and final General Assembly in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

In the afternoon, the participants focused on the services developed under BiCIKL. Amongst the many services resulting from the project some were not originally planned. Rather those were the ‘natural’ products of the dialogue and collaboration that flourished within the consortium throughout the project. “A symptom of passion,” said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, project coordinator of BiCIKL and founder/CEO of Pensoft Publishers.

An excellent example of one such service is what the partners call the “Biodiversity PMC”, which brings together biodiversity literature from thousands of scholarly journals and over 500,000 taxonomic treatments, in addition to the biomedical content available from NIH’s PubMed Central, into the SIB Literature Services (SIBiLS) database. What’s more, users at SIBiLS – be it human or AI – can now use advanced text- and data-mining tools, including AI-powered factoid question-answering capacities, to query all this full-text indexed content and seek out, for example, species traits and biotic interactions. Read more about the “Biodiversity PMC” in its recent official announcement.

Far from being the only one, the “Biodiversity PMC” is in good company: from the blockchain-based technology of LifeBlock to the curation of the DNA sequences by PlutoF, the BiCIKL project consortium takes pride in having developed twelve services dedicated to FAIR and linked ready-to-use biodiversity data. 

All those services are already listed in the FAIR Data Place within the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub, where each is presented with its own video. For many services, from the same page, visitors can also download factsheets meant to serve as user guidelines. All will also be featured in the EOSC catalogue.

All services developed under BiCIKL with links to their explanatory videos:

On Wednesday, the consortium focused on BiCIKL’s activities from the Transnational and Virtual Access Pillar, which included both presentations by each open call leader and VA leader, as well as open discussions and a recap of what the teams have learnt from these experiences. 

A panel discussion took place on Thursday as part of an open event, where BiCIKL partners and ELIXIR Biodiversity and Plant Communities came together to discuss the Future of Biodiversity and Genomics data integration at the EMBL Wellcome Genome Campus.

Thursday was dedicated to an open event where BiCIKL partners and ELIXIR Biodiversity and Plant Communities came together to discuss the Future of Biodiversity and Genomics data integration at the EMBL Wellcome Genome Campus. You can find the agenda on BiCIKL’s website.

After 36 months of action, the BiCIKL project will officially end in April 2024, but does it mean that all will be done and dusted come May 2024? Certainly not, point out the partners. 

To ensure that the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub will not only continue to exist but will not cease to grow in both use and participation, the one-stop portal will remain under the maintenance of LifeWatch ERIC. 

In conclusion, we could say that an appropriate payoff for the project is “Stick together!” as put by BiCIKL’s Joint Research Activity Leader Dr. Quentin Groom.

Final words at the third and last General Assembly of the BiCIKL project.

You can find highlights from the BiCIKL General Assembly meeting on X via the #BiCIKL_H2020 hashtag (in association with #Cambridge and #finalGA)

BiCIKL keeps on adding project outcomes in own collection in RIO Journal
All research outputs, including the approved grant proposal, policy briefs, guidelines papers and research articles associated with the project, remain openly accessible from the BiCIKL project outcomes collection in RIO Journal: https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.coll.105.

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All BiCIKL project partners:

Eaten to extinction: breeding programmes begin for endangered turtles in Vietnam

Considered a delicacy in China and Vietnam, the spotted softshell turtle faces threats from overconsumption and habitat loss.

Conservationists have initiated breeding programmes in Vietnam to recover spotted softshell turtle populations threatened by overconsumption and habitat loss.

Based on a literature study, field surveys across Vietnam, and genetic screenings of collected samples, researchers estimated the range and conservation status of Pelodiscus variegatus, the spotted softshell turtle. The data were then used to model the species’ potential range in Vietnam.

Alarmingly, although several protected areas in Vietnam appear to harbour suitable habitats for the species, no populations were identified in any of the sites, indicating it is especially susceptible to extinction.

The research team releasing juvenile turtles into water.
Release of juveile turtles in Vietnaam. Credit: C. T. Pham and T. Ziegler

To recover natural populations of the species, the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources and Cologne Zoo, Germany, initiated an in-country breeding programme. In late 2023, they released 50 young and healthy turtles to a site with suitable climate and habitat in northern Vietnam.

It is hoped that additional individuals will be reintroduced to protected areas in north-central Vietnam, the sanctuary of spotted softshell turtles, to reverse its declining trend and further contribute to the global Reverse the Red movement, a target best accomplished by applying the IUCN’s One Plan Approach to Conservation.

Softshell turtles of the genus Pelodiscus are broadly distributed from southeastern Siberia through China to Vietnam. However, their range is currently extended to Indonesia, northern Australia, western Europe, North America, Hawaii, and Mauritius as a result of human transportation and breeding activities.

The turtles are considered a delicacy in China and some Southeast Asian countries. In China alone, each year hundreds of million turtles are traded, making them the most widely consumed turtles in the world.

Traditionally, this genus had been considered monotypic with only one recognised species, the Chinese softshell turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis). However, recent research has shown that the genus is much more diverse with at least seven species known to science.

Due to their morphological similarity, widespread farming activities, overharvesting, and their aquatic lifestyle, it is often difficult to study them in their natural habitat to better understand their distribution as well as their population and conservation status.

Like other congeners, the spotted softshell turtle is facing tremendous threats, from habitat loss to overharvesting for food and genetic pollution because the Chinese softshell turtle has been farmed across the country, imperilling the native genetic sources.

As the result, the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group, the global authority on taxonomic and conservation status of turtles worldwide, provisionally classifies the species as Critically Endangered, the highest ranking for taxa most vulnerable to extinction.

Original post:

Le MD, Rödder D, Nguyen TT, The Pham C, Nguyen TQ, Ong AV, McCormack TEM, Nguyen TT, Le MH, Ngo HT, Ziegler T (2024) Climatic niche modelling and genetic analyses highlight conservation priorities for the Spotted Softshell Turtle (Pelodiscus variegatus). Nature Conservation 55: 67-82. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.55.114746

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Gardeners on the front line: the key to early invasive plant detection?

A study from the United Kingdom suggests gardeners could partner with researchers to play a crucial role in preventing plant invasions.

The critical role of gardeners in identifying ‘future invaders’ – ornamental plants that could become invasive species – has been revealed by researchers from the University of Reading and the Royal Horticultural Society.

Looking to draw from the experience of Britain’s millions of gardeners, the team created an online survey where gardeners reported ornamentals that showed ‘invasive behaviour’ in their gardens.

Based on reports from 558 gardeners, 251 different plants were identified as potential invaders, reflecting the extensive variety and potential risks in domestic gardens. The team analysed the results, considering both domestic and global invasive status, and prioritised ornamental plants of concern. The result was a shortlist of plants which need their invasive potential in Britain and Ireland assessed.

The shortlisted plants include, for example: Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus); cypress spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias); chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata); Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa); and purple top (Verbena bonariensis).

Mexican fleabane. Credit: KENPEI via Wikimedia Commons
Cypress spurge. Credit: Bogdan via Wikimedia Commons
Chameleon plant. Credit: Mariko GODA via Wikimedia Commons
Purple top. Credit: Karelj via Wikimedia Commons.
Himalayan honeysuckle. Credit: H. Zell via Wikimedia Commons.

The results, published in the open-access journal NeoBiota, highlight the role of gardeners in the early detection of invasive species, a key factor in the global nature crisis. Such proactive identification could prove invaluable for future risk assessments and prevention strategies.

“The simple yet structured scheme we developed was used to prioritise which of the around 70,000 ornamental plants available to buy in the UK could be future invaders. This is crucial for focusing research efforts and resources, such as conducting formal risk assessments to explore the invasive potential of those shortlisted.”

Tomos Jones, lead author

John David, RHS Head of Horticultural Taxonomy, said: “It’s important to remember that these shortlisted plants are not yet officially invasive, and that many non-native plants that occur in the wild present no threat to our native biodiversity.”

The research team encourages gardeners to get involved in helping identify future invaders. They can report ornamental plants showing ‘invasive behaviour’ through an ongoing project called Plant Alert, run by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland and Coventry University.

Original source:

Jones TS, Culham A, Pickles BJ, David J (2024) Can gardeners identify ‘future invaders’? NeoBiota 91: 125–144. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.91.110560

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Why two prehistoric sharks found in Ohio got new names

Research leads to rediscovery of forgotten fossils.

Until recently, Orthacanthus gracilis could have been considered the “John Smith” of prehistoric shark names, given how common it was.

Three different species of sharks from the late Paleozoic Era – about 310 million years ago – were mistakenly given that same name, causing lots of grief to paleontologists who studied and wrote about the sharks through the years and had trouble keeping them apart.

But now Loren Babcock, a professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University, has finished the arduous task of renaming two of the three sharks – and in the process rediscovered a wealth of fossil fishes that had been stored at an Ohio State museum for years but had been largely forgotten.

Loren Babcock with a collection of Orton Museum’s fossil fishes, including several from John Newberry. Photo by The Ohio State University

In order to change the names, Babcock had to go through a process governed by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). He had to document the need to change the names, propose new names and submit them to an ICZN-recognized journal for peer review and then have the ICZN officially accept the names.

Tooth of the shark Orthacanthus lintonensis. The tooth is about 13 mm long.

“It was one of the most complex naming problems we have had in paleontology, which is probably one reason no one attempted to fix it until now,” Babcock said.

“A lot of scientists in the field have written, thanking me for doing this. We are all happy it is finally done,” he said.

One measure of the impact the renaming has had on the field: Babcock’s paper announcing the new names was just published in the journal ZooKeys on Jan. 8, but it has already been referenced on seven different Wikipedia pages.

The original Orthacanthus gracilis fossil was found in Germany and named in 1848. That species gets to keep the name.

The remaining two fossils were found in Ohio and named by the famous American paleontologist John Strong Newberry in 1857 and 1875.

Portrait of John Strong Newberry

Babcock renamed the Ohio sharks Orthacanthus lintonensis and Orthacanthus adamas, both based on the name of the place where they were originally found.

Why did Newberry give the two Ohio sharks the same name?

“He probably just forgot. It was nearly 20 years between the time the two species were named,” Babcock said.

And as far as giving it the same name as a German species: “In those days, it was really difficult to search for names that were already in existence – they did not have the internet.”

The sharks themselves were fascinating creatures, Babcock said.  They were large and creepy, nearly 10 feet long, and looked more like eels than present-day sharks, with long dorsal fins extending the length of their backs and a peculiar spine extending backward from their heads.

They lived in the fresh or brackish water of what are known as “coal swamps” of the late Carboniferous Period (323-299 million years ago) during the late Paleozoic Era. They belong to an extinct group of chondrichthyans (which includes sharks, skates and rays) called the xenacanthiforms.

Dorsal spine of Orthacanthus adamas. The spine is about 71 mm long.

Newberry was for a time the chief geologist at the Geological Survey of Ohio. He played an important role in the early growth of what is now the Orton Geological Museum at Ohio State.

Babcock, who is the current director of the Orton Museum, decided to begin the renaming process after reviewing the museum’s collection. He was surprised to see how many fossils the museum had that had been collected by Newberry, including the two prehistoric sharks.

Babcock wrote about Orton’s Newberry collection in a new article published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Through the years, scientists have written about how various Newberry specimens had been lost. It turns out many had been at the Orton Museum.

“No museum has a larger collection of Newberry’s fossils except for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City,” Babcock said.

“Not a lot of people are aware of that – I did not even know the extent of our collection. If you’re looking for part of the Newberry collection and can’t find it in the American Museum of Natural History, it is probably going to be here.”

Research article:

Babcock LE (2024) Replacement names for two species of Orthacanthus Agassiz, 1843 (Chondrichthyes, Xenacanthiformes), and discussion of Giebelodus Whitley, 1940, replacement name for Chilodus Giebel, 1848 (Chondrichthyes, Xenacanthiformes), preoccupied by Chilodus Müller & Troschel, 1844 (Actinopterygii, Characiformes). ZooKeys 1188: 219-226. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1188.108571

News piece originally published by the Ohio State University. Republished with permission.

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A new species of rare pseudoscorpion named after the Slovak president

Olpium caputi, named after Zuzana Čaputová, was discovered on the island Tahiti in French Polynesia

There are about 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The most remote of them are in North and East Polynesia, the Hawaiian Islands, and French Polynesia. Biologists have been attracted to these regions since the 18th century, but French Polynesia has received much less attention compared to the Hawaiian Islands.

A view of the area where Olpium caputi was found. Photo by Frédéric A. Jacq

Contributions to our knowledge of the pseudoscorpions of French Polynesia date from the 1930s and are associated with the Pacific Entomological Survey. Since then, the French Polynesian pseudoscorpion fauna has consisted of only four known species.

A female individual of Olpium caputi.

Thanks to international cooperation, a team of enthusiastic scientists has published the first discovery of a new species of pseudoscorpion from French Polynesia. Between 2017 and 2020, they studied French Polynesia’s fauna and environment for the French Polynesian Agricultural Service and as a part of a large-scale survey of arthropods. During their research work, they collected a few pseudoscorpion specimens on Huahine and Tahiti in the Society Islands.

Among them is a new species named Olpium caputi, collected by sieving moss at 1,450 m about sea level on the Mont Marau Summit, Tahiti, one of the Society Islands archipelago. Its scientific name honours Zuzana Čaputová, the President of Slovakia.

Zuzana Čaputová. Photo by Jindřich Nosek (NoJin) under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

“As a female leader, she takes a strong stance and supports women and scientists. Even in the 21st century, women in science or top positions are rare. The rarity of the research in French Polynesia, the uniqueness of the discovery, and the fact that the new species is a female, led us to name it after this inspiring woman who can be a role model of courage and perseverance for many women,” says Jana Christophoryová, who led the study.

The paper is published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys.

The team:

Katarína Krajčovičová of Bratislavské regionálne ochranárske združenie – BROZ, Bratislava, and Jana Christophoryová of Comenius University, Bratislava, are both zoologists, who specialize in the taxonomy, distribution, and ecology of pseudoscorpions. Frédéric Jacq, botanist, and Thibault Ramage, entomologist, are independent naturalists who have been working on improving the faunistic and taxonomic knowledge of French Polynesia for over 15 years.

Research article:

Krajčovičová K, Ramage T, Jacq FA, Christophoryová J (2024) Pseudoscorpions (Arachnida, Pseudoscorpiones) from French Polynesia with first species records and description of new species. ZooKeys 1192: 29-43. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1192.111308

Earth Observation meets in-situ biodiversity monitoring: Pensoft joins the OBSGESSION project

As a leader of the Work Package 6: “Dissemination, Multi-stakeholder outreach and synergies,” Pensoft is tasked to build an involved community around OBSGESSION.

Pensoft is to contribute to the OBSGESSION consortium with expertise in science communication by taking care of stakeholders engagement, thereby supporting its goal of improved terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity monitoring. As a leader of the Work Package 6: “Dissemination, Multi-stakeholder outreach and synergies,” Pensoft is tasked to build an involved community around OBSGESSION.

Terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity has been declining at an alarming rate due various factors such as intensification of anthropogenic activities and climate change.

To help protect and preserve precious ecosystems, the new research project OBSGESSION (Observation of Ecosystem Changes for Action) launched, jointly funded under the EU programme Horizon Europe, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the University of Zurich (UZH). 

Coordinated by the Finnish Environmental Institute (Syke), OBSGESSION aims to reveal the drivers of biodiversity loss, pinpoint important indicators of ecosystem health and inform sustainability policy.

The project

OBSGESSION launched in January 2024 and will wrap up in December 2027 with the support of ~7.3 million EUR of funding, provided by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program, The UK Research and Innovation program (UKRI), and the University of Zurich (UZH).

The OBSGESSION consortium at the kick-off meeting in January 2024 (Tuusula, Finland).

The project officially kicked off with the first consortium meeting in Tuusula, Finland, between 30th January and 2nd February.

For the coming four years, the joint mission before the newly formed consortium is to integrate biodiversity data sources, such as Earth Observation, with in-situ research, and also cutting-edge ecological models. These will all be made into a comprehensive product for biodiversity management in both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. 

The project will also spearhead an innovative approach for assessing Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and their resilience to errors. Through purposely propagating error into biodiversity estimates and comparing the resulting models with ones using correct estimates, the EBV case studies aim to investigate model uncertainties and identify approaches that are more sensitive. Thus, they will inform policy and management about the optimal EBVs, and their key thresholds for conservation.

To demonstrate the implementation of the techniques and methodologies they are to develop within the project; and to respond to the needs of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the consortium will focus on six distinct pilot activities:

  1. Investigating and predicting biodiversity change in the European Alps: multi-scale, multi-modal and multi-temporal investigation using remote and in-situ data integration.
  2. Improving habitat classification models: going beyond state-of-the-art in terms of accurate high-resolution mapping of Europe’s habitats, powered by machine learning.
  3. Forecasting ecosystem productivity under disturbances & climate change: incorporating remote sensing EBVs to assess metrics of ecosystem structure and health.
  4. Supporting temperate and boreal forest protection & restoration: through assessing ecosystem conditions via eDNA & image spectroscopy.
  5. Monitoring freshwater ecosystems under disturbances & climate change: utilizing the novel Thematic Ecosystem Change Indices (TECIs).
  6. Ecosystem functioning of the Kokemäenjoki estuary – assessing freshwater & transitional water quality incorporating both in-situ and Earth Observation data.

Through its pilot studies, methodological assessments, data stream integration, and investigating land use cover changes across Europe, OBSGESSION will help improve our understanding of ecosystem vulnerability across a range of specific habitat types, identify drivers and pressures to ecosystem change and improve planning and prioritization of restoration measures.

“At Pensoft, we are eager to be part of the bright OBSGESSION consortium and look forward to offering our expertise and experience in raising awareness towards the project and contributing to the high impact of the resulting outputs, methodologies and policy recommendations that aim to strengthen our understanding of biodiversity change,”

says Gabriela Popova, science communicator at Pensoft and leader of the Work Package #6: “Dissemination, Multi-stakeholder outreach and synergies” at OBSGESSION.

International Consortium

The interdisciplinary OBSGESSION consortium consists of 11 partnering organisations from seven European countries, who bring diverse expertise spanning from remote sensing and Earth observation, to freshwater ecosystems, programming and science communication. Many partners represent acclaimed scientific institutions with rich experience in collaborative EU projects.

Full list of partners:

Find more on the OBSGESSION website: https://obsgession.eu, and follow the project on X/Twitter (@obsgession_) and Linkedin (/obsgession-horizoneurope).