Pensoft Editorial Team

Fighting the spread of the spotted lanternfly with a new data science tool

“The lydemapr package will aid researchers, managers and the public in their understanding, modelling and managing of the spread of this invasive pest,” says Dr. De Bona, the lead author of the study.

“Stomp, squash, smash” has been the accompanying soundtrack to the expansion of an odd-looking bug through the Eastern US. The spotted lanternfly, a large planthopper native to Asia, has been popularized in media outlets as the most recent enemy one ought to kill on sight.

Spotted lanternflies. Photo by Matthew Helmus

This charismatic insect was first discovered in the US in Berks county, Pennsylvania, in 2014, likely the result of an accidental introduction alongside shipments of landscaping materials. Since then, the invasive pest has spread throughout the country, fueled by its ability to hitch rides undetected on cargo and passenger vehicles, and aided by the widespread presence of one of its favorite food sources, the tree of heaven, another invasive in North America. As of 2023, it has been found in 14 US states.

Unfortunately, this species is not picky when it comes to the plants it consumes, favoring both crops and ornamentals, and showing a particular preference for cultivated grape. This dietary choice has impacted several wine-making areas throughout Pennsylvania and New York state, and is threatening important wine hubs on the Western coast of the US.

When it comes to controlling the spread of this pest, two of the main challenges for researchers and field managers alike are to 1) know where this species is today so that eradication campaigns can be targeted and 2) predict where it will be tomorrow, to invest in prevention practices. Both efforts rely on accurate and extensive knowledge of its past and present distribution.

Many state and federal agencies, as well as individual research institutions, have been involved in conducting surveys to detect this bug in the field. In addition, a campaign to raise public awareness has fostered the development of self-reporting tools citizens can use to track sightings of this insect. Unfortunately, given the different practices adopted by these parties, the data on the presence of spotted lanternfly are scattered and hard to access, which makes it harder to assess and manage its spread.

The need to put together a current, comprehensive, consistent and openly available dataset pushed researchers at Temple University to take action. A research group led by Dr. Matthew Helmus has been closely monitoring the spread of this invasive pest since its inception, contacting institutions and collecting data. In a recent work published in the journal NeoBiota, Dr. Helmus and Dr. Sebastiano De Bona, together with collaborators across several agencies, put together an anonymized and comprehensive dataset that collected all records of spotted lanternfly in the US to date. These records come from a plethora of sources, from control actions, citizen-science projects, and research efforts. The resulting dataset contains highly detailed data (at 1 km² resolution) with yearly information on the presence or absence of spotted lanternflies, the establishment status of this pest, and estimated population density, across over 650,000 observations.

“The lydemapr package will aid researchers, managers and the public in their understanding, modelling and managing of the spread of this invasive pest,” says Dr. De Bona, the lead author of the study.

The scientists hope that this package will make forecasting the spread of the spotted lanternfly easier and foster more effective collaboration between agencies and researchers.

Research article:

De Bona S, Barringer L, Kurtz P, Losiewicz J, Parra GR, Helmus MR. 2023. lydemapr: an R package to track the spread of the invasive Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula, White 1845)(Hemiptera, Fulgoridae) in the United States. NeoBiota 85: 151–168, DOI: 10.3897/neobiota.86.101471

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Alternative host-searching strategy reported for the ant parasitoid wasp Ghilaromma orientalis

“In our ten years of frantic observation, we were fortunate enough to observe the parasitic behavior of G. orientalis a single time.”

Guest blog post by Yu Hisasue, Kazuhiko Konishi, and Kenji Takashino

Parasitoid wasps have developed behaviors to adapt to the ecology of various hosts and overcome their means of avoiding parasitism. Host searching behavior is a crucial stage for parasitoids, not only for efficient host search, but also for competing with other parasitoids that exploit the same host as a resource. A variety of such behaviors has been reported, including utilizing chemical or sonic cues. Parasitoid wasps select their strategies based on their own morphology, their host, and the host’s habitat.

Parasitoid wasps that challenge the ant society are known to have highly specialized morphologies and behaviors.

Female of Ghilaromma orientalis hanging from the grass above the ant trail with her head facing the trail.

All members of the subfamily Hybrizontinae are ant parasitoids, and specialize to the ant society, representing the third most diverse group of ant parasitoid wasps after Eucharitidae and Neoneurini. The oviposition behavior has been reported for three species belonging to three different genera in Hybrizontinae: Ogkosoma cremieri, Neohybrizon mutus, and Hybrizon buccatus. In these species, the females hover over an ant trail, and when they come across ant larvae carried by workers, they attack and lay eggs on the ant larvae.

No reports have been made for oviposition behavior in the genus Ghilaromma. G. orientalis was suggested to be a specialist of Lasius nipponensis, but its oviposition behavior was unknown.

Female *Ghilaromma orientalis* using her front legs to contact an ant larva and directing her abdomen towards it, while maintaining a firm grip on the grass with her hind legs.

In our ten years of frantic observation, we were fortunate enough to observe the parasitic behavior of G. orientalis a single time. On 20 October 2015, Kenji Takashino observed the oviposition and took pictures of it on his phone.

He noticed that the female, hung on the grass growing along the ants’ trail on its hind legs with its head down, and when workers with larvae pass by, stretched its abdomen toward the larvae with its hind legs remaining on the grass.

We published these first observations of the oviposition behavior of G. orientalis in a research article in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research.

Female Ghilaromma orientalis maintaining a firm grip on the grass with her hind legs while adjusting her body position to oviposition onto a larva being carried away by an ant.

There are different merits and demerits of the two strategies in Hybrizontinae. The active type has the advantage of covering a wider search area and enabling the movement of the parasitoid to areas where the ants carrying larvae are located. However, this strategy has the drawback that hovering of parasitoid wasps over an ant trail alerts the ants and prevents larva-carrying ants from exiting the nest entrance or covered area. In addition, ants have been observed to open their mandibles to threaten hovering wasps, which then occasionally fail to fly or get captured by worker ants.

Workers of *Lasius nipponensis* with their mandibles open, alerted to the hovering *Ogkosoma cremieri*.

The ambush type has the limitation of a narrow search area. As ant larvae are not always conveniently transported by workers close to the wasp, narrowing the search area directly leads to a decrease in parasitic opportunities. However, the ambush type strategy affords G. orientalis the advantage of laying eggs without being noticed by ants and in a narrow environment where wasps cannot fly in active type.

In addition, we report a new host ant (Lasius cf. fuliginosus) for G. orientalis. Some members of this species group are known to transport their larvae outside the nest. Therefore, it is plausible that G. orientalis may use not only a single ant species, but multiple L. fuliginosus-group species that have a habit of transporting larvae outside the nest.

Although we made only one observation of the wasp, we compared and discussed the other ecological information and parasitic behavior of closely related species using observations, literature, and studies on the parasitic behavior of other well-studied parasitoid wasps.

Research article:

Hisasue Y, Konishi K, Takashino K (2023) An alternative host searching strategy found in the subfamily Hybrizontinae (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 96: 629-639. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.96.106836

Pensoft’s statement on the European Union’s Conclusions on OA scholarly publishing

We are firm supporters of healthy competition that drives innovation and revolutionary technologies, while supporting freedom of choice.

On behalf of Pensoft Publishers, we express our support for the Conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishing, recently published by the Council of the European Union. We do share all concerns articulated in the document that highlight major inequities and outstanding issues in the scholarly publishing environment.

In our opinion, it is of utmost importance to promptly address the existing issues in the publishing system, where healthy competition can thrive and contribute to a reality safe from potential mono-/oligopolies and corporate capture.

We firmly believe that only an industry that leaves room for variously-scaled pioneers and startups is capable of leading a long-awaited shift to a high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishing landscape aligning with the principles of FAIRness.

Yet, we shall acknowledge that the industry has so far failed to eradicate the most fundamental flaw of the past. In the beginning, the main aim of the Open Access (OA) movement was removing the barrier to access to publicly funded scientific knowledge and scrapping costly subscription fees.

Recently, however, the industry’s biggest players merely replaced it with a barrier to publication by introducing costly Article Processing Charges (APCs) and “big deals” signed between top commercial publishers and academic institutions or national library consortia.

As a result, small and middle-sized open-access publishers, which have, ironically, been the ones to lead the change and transition to OA by default and oppose the large commercial publishers’ agenda, were effectively pushed out of the scene. Further, we are currently witnessing a situation where OA funds are mostly going to the ones who used to oppose OA.

So, we strongly support measures that ensure an inclusive and FAIR competition, which could in turn prompt quality, sustainability and reasonable pricing in scholarly publishing. In our opinion, an environment like this would actually foster equality and equity amongst all publishers, either small, large, non-profit, commercial, institutional or society-based.

One of the main points of the conclusions is a recommendation for a general use of the Diamond OA model, where no charges apply to either researchers or readers. While we fully support the Diamond OA model, we wish to stress on the fact that considerable concerns about the sustainability of existing Diamond OA models remain.

On the one hand, there are OA agreements (also known as read-and-publish, publish-and-read, transformative agreements etc.), typically signed between top publishers and top research institutions/consortia. This OA model is often mistakenly referred to as “Diamond OA”, since authors affiliated with those institutions are not concerned with providing the APC payment – either by paying themselves or applying for funding. Instead, the APCs are paid centrally. Most often, however, journals published by those publishers are still directly charging authors who are not members of the signed institutions with, in our opinion, excessive APCs. Even if those APCs are covered by a signed institution, these are still considerable funds that are being navigated away from actual research work.

On the other hand, there are independent researchers, in addition to smaller or underfunded institutions, typically – yet far from exclusively – located in the developing world, who are effectively being discriminated against.

In conclusion, this type of contracts are shutting away smaller actors from across academia just like they used to be under the subscription-based model. Hereby, we wish to express our full agreement with the Council of the European Union’s conclusion, that “it is essential to avoid situations where researchers are limited in their choice of publication channels due to financial capacities rather than quality criteria”.

There are also several alternative OA models designed to lessen the burden of publication costs for both individual researchers, libraries and journal owners. However, each comes with its own drawbacks. Here – we believe – is where the freedom of choice is perhaps most needed, in order to keep researchers’ and publishers’ best interests at heart.

One of those alternatives is open-source publishing platforms, which – by design – are well-positioned to deliver actual Diamond OA for journals, while maintaining independence from commercial publishers. However, the operational model of this type of publishing and hosting platforms would most often only provide a basic infrastructure for editors to publish and preserve content. As a result, the model might require extra staff and know-how, while remaining prone to human errors. Additionally, a basic technological infrastructure could impede the FAIRness of the published output, which demands advanced and automated workflows to appropriately format, tag semantically and export scientific outputs promptly after publication.

Similarly, large funders and national consortia have put their own admirable efforts to step up and provide another option for authors of research and their institutions. Here, available funds are allocated to in-house Diamond OA publishing platforms that have originally been designed according to the policies and requirements of the respective funding programme or state. However, this type of support – while covering a large group of authors (e.g. based in a certain country, funded under a particular programme, and/or working in a specific research field) – still leaves many behind, including multinational or transdisciplinary teams. Additionally, due to the focus on ‘mass supply’, most of these OA publishing platforms have so far been unable to match their target user base with the appropriate scale of services and support.

What we have devised and developed at Pensoft with the aim to contribute to the pool of available choices is an OA publishing model, whose aim is to balance cost affordability, functionality, reliability, transparency and long-term sustainability.

To do so, we work with journal owners, institutions and societies to create their own business and operational model for their journals that matches two key demands of the community: (1) free to read and free to publish OA model, and, (2) services and infrastructure suited for Diamond OA at a much lower cost, compared to those offered by major commercial publishers.

In our opinion, independent small publishers differentiate from both large commercial publishers and publicly funded providers by relying to a greater extent on innovative technology and close employee collaboration.

As a result, they are capable of delivering significantly more customisable solutions – including complete packages of automated and human-provided services – and, ultimately, achieving considerably lower-cost publishing solutions. Likewise, they might be better suited to provide much more flexible business models, so that libraries and journal owners can easily support (subsets of or all) authors to the best of their capabilities.

While we realise that there is no faultless way to high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishing, we are firm supporters of an environment, where healthy competition prompts the continuous invention and evolution of tools and workflows.

Our own motivation to invest in scholarly publishing technology and its continuous refinement and advancement, coupled with a number of in-house and manually provided services, which is reflected in our APC policies, aligns with the Council’s statement that “scientific practices for ensuring reproducibility, transparency, sharing, rigour and collaboration are important means of achieving a publishing system responsive to the challenges of democratic, modern and digitalised societies.”

Our thinking is that – much like in any other industry – what drives innovation and revolutionary technologies is competition. To remain healthy and even self-policing, however, this competition needs to embrace transparency, equity and inclusivity.

Last, but not least, researchers need to have the freedom to choose from plenty of options when deciding where and how to publish their work!

Persian Gold Tarantula: a new species from Iran for Tarantula Appreciation Day 2023

Its “woolly, golden hairs” were one of the features so unique it was not necessary for additional individuals to be collected

Guest blog post by Dr Alireza Zamani (@Arachno_AZ)

In the latest issue (1174^th) of the scientific open-access journal ZooKeys, you can find our paper describing a new species of tarantula (family Theraphosidae) found in northwestern Iran.

This species belongs to Chaetopelma, a relatively small genus, distributed in Crete, Sudan, and the Middle East, and one of the only two tarantula genera inhabiting the Mediterranean region.

Our discovery is significant for several reasons. Firstly, it marks the first record of this genus in Iran and the third known species of tarantulas in this country. Additionally, it extends the known range of Chaetopelma spiders by almost 350 km eastwards.

We named this species Chaetopelma persianum, paying homage to its occurrence in Iran, which has historically been known as Persia. As a potential common name, we suggest “Persian Gold Tarantula”, where we are also making a reference to the “woolly, golden hairs’’ on its carapace.

The newly described tarantula species (*Chaetopelma persianum*) seen in a defensive posture.
Photo by Kari Kaunisto.

For the purpose of our study, we only had one specimen: a female with a leg span of almost 9 cm, available. Yet, its distinct characteristics allowed us to confidently differentiate it from other known Chaetopelma species.

This tarantula is an obligate burrower and inhabits high elevations in well-vegetated mountainous regions of the northern Zagros Mountains. The holotype specimen was collected from a self-made ground burrow on sloped rocky ground, amidst sparse low vegetation and grasses.

It all started with local nature enthusiast Mehdi Gavahyan, who photographed a wandering male and sent me the photo. When I figured it was most likely an undescribed species, I asked him to team up with Amir Hossein Aghaei, a nature enthusiast and a friend of mine, and send me specimens of these spiders for further examination. Unfortunately, they only managed to collect that one female. However, it turned out to be enough for us to describe the Persian Gold Tarantula!

Additionally, thanks to local citizen scientists and naturalists, we later also got hold of photos of another two males of the same genus, taken very close to the type locality of the new species: one in Sardasht in West Azerbaijan Province of Iran, and the other in the surroundings of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq. While it is highly probable that both these males belong to Ch. persianum, this cannot be confirmed until further examination of collected material from both sexes is conducted.

_{Burrow of Persian Gold Tarantulas in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. The arrow in the photo on the right indicates the location of the burrow. Photos by Amir Hossein Aghaei.}

During our research, we also noted that one species of Chaetopelma described from Cameroon is misclassified and should be transferred to another genus. However, this transfer is pending until the type material undergoes examination.

Looking ahead, we believe that more comprehensive investigations employing integrative methods would greatly benefit the taxonomy of Chaetopelma.

Habitat of the newly described Persian Gold Tarantula (*Chaetopelma persianum*) in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran.
Photo by Amir Hossein Aghaei.

For example, Ch. olivaceum, a species with seven junior synonyms and one of the broadest ranges within the entire family, covering an area of approximately 1,493,978 km², might potentially have cryptic species within its range. Moreover, the disjunct distribution of Ch. olivaceum in Turkey, where it occurs both in the southern regions and as far north as Istanbul, raises the possibility of distinct species status for the latter population, which is geographically isolated from the rest of the recorded occurrences. Integrative studies incorporating molecular data could offer insights into this.

Additionally, further collection efforts in lesser-sampled or completely unexplored regions, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, eastern Turkey and western Iran, could lead to the discovery of additional Chaetopelma species or records. These findings would be instrumental in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the taxonomy and distribution of this genus.

Research paper:

Zamani A, West RC (2023) A new species of Chaetopelma Ausserer, 1871 (Araneae, Theraphosidae) from Iran. ZooKeys 1174: 75-84. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1174.109135

***

Follow the work by Alireza @Arachno_AZ on Twitter.

Don’t forget to also keep up-to-date with the latest publications in ZooKeys by following the journal on Twitter and Facebook.

You can also sign up for the journal newsletter from the ZooKeys homepage.

Smithsonian Expedition Yields a New Species of Deep-Sea Coral

Collected from the deep waters off Puerto Rico, the species is a member of an enigmatic, and threatened, group of corals

When people think about corals, most picture the multi-hued reef-builders that reside in balmy waters off tropical beaches. But not all corals stick to the shallows. For example, most members of the order Antipatharia do not live within 160 feet of the surface. Some even reside at depths deeper than 26,000 feet. Commonly known as black corals due to their ink-colored skeletons, these corals are staples of deep-sea ecosystems around the world.

However, black corals remain enigmatic due to the challenges of studying them in the deep sea. This makes it difficult for scientists to assess how black corals, whose skeletons (which are made out of chitin, the same material that composes an insect’s exoskeleton) are prized components of jewelry, are responding to threats like poaching, ocean acidification and climate change.

“Describing these species is fundamental information to make conservation decisions,” said Jeremy Horowitz, a postdoctoral researcher at the National Museum of Natural History who specializes in studying black corals. “You have to know it before you can protect it.”

Jeremy Horowitz, a postdoctoral researcher in the museum’s invertebrate zoology department, examines a coral specimen during a subsequent expedition off Puerto Rico earlier this year. Credit: Jeremy Horowitz, NMNH

In a paper published this week in the journal ZooKeys, Horowitz and his colleagues at the museum and the University of Puerto Rico described Aphanipathes puertoricoensis, a new species of black coral that sports branching features found in multiple coral groups that diverged roughly 100 million years ago.

The new black coral species was discovered in April 2022 during a joint Smithsonian and National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) expedition to a stretch of the Caribbean Sea just south of Puerto Rico. Here, the seafloor bottoms out into a network of deep-sea canyons and seamounts that remain largely unexplored.

The expedition, led by research zoologist Andrea Quattrini, the museum’s curator of corals and one of Horowitz’s co-authors on the new paper, aimed to explore some of this abyssal terrain and catalog some of the creatures that reside there. Many of these animals live far deeper than human divers can go. So the researchers deployed a remotely operated unmanned vehicle (ROV) called the Global Explorer to depths as deep as 4,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.

Andrea Quattrini, the expedition’s lead researcher, aboard the *Nancy Foster* research vessel. Image courtesy of Illuminating Biodiversity in Deep Waters of Puerto Rico 2022

Over seven dives, the ROV mapped 180 square nautical miles of the deep-sea floor. It collected a suite of biological samples and hours of footage for the researchers to parse on the research vessel above. They observed ghostly, blob-like predators called tunicates, gangly bristle stars, vibrant comb jellies and tiny crustaceans with fused eyes that live inside glass sponges. They even collected a colony of small invertebrates called bryozoa that had not been collected since a Smithsonian expedition to the Puerto Rico Trench in 1933.

One of the deep-sea anemones observed during the expedition. Image courtesy of Illuminating Biodiversity in Deep Waters of Puerto Rico 2022

They also found a multitude of species new to science. While exploring a canyon nearly 1,200 feet below the surface, the ROV came across a scraggly patch of black coral reminiscent of a deep-sea tumbleweed. As the ROV snipped off one of the coral’s spindly branches, Quattrini sent Horowitz, who was back in Washington, a picture of the coral on the ROV’s live feed. “She shared a picture of this coral and I immediately had no idea what it was,” Horowitz said.

When the expedition’s trove of specimens arrived in Washington, Horowitz could finally take a closer look at the puzzling coral. With long, coiled branches emanating from a short stalk like a tiny tree, the coral sported features found in multiple genera, or groups, of black coral that diverged long ago.

A microscopic close-up of the black coral’s spines taken with the help of the museum’s scanning electron microscope. Credit: Jeremy Horowitz, NMNH

To assign the new species in the right group, Horowitz placed a fragment of the coral specimen underneath a high-powered scanning electron microscope at the museum. That gave him a microscopic view of the miniscule spines that line the coral skeleton. Like a fingerprint, a coral species’ spines have their own distinct shape. Comparing these spines to known black coral species allowed Horowitz to get a better idea of where this new species may slot into the black coral family tree. To be sure, the researchers also used cutting edge techniques to compare the new species’ genetic code with other corals.

All this work allowed the researchers to find a taxonomic home for the new species in the genus Aphanipathes. They christened the black coral with the species name puertoricoensis in homage to the island near where it was found.

Discarded fishing gear sits on a thicket of black coral in the deep sea off of Puerto Rico. Image courtesy of Illuminating Biodiversity in Deep Waters of Puerto Rico 2022

Horowitz believes its resemblance to other groups of black coral reveals how helpful a simple body type is for survival in the deep-sea. “This simple morphological structure is evolving over and over again, probably because the conditions are the same in these different areas,” he said. “This simple structure is what works.”

The team is still examining the specimens collected and expects to name additional new species in the near future. There are also plans to go back and conduct further field research in the deep-sea canyons and ridges off Puerto Rico. “Every time we go back to this region, we find new species,” Horowitz said.

But there is also plenty to uncover closer to home. The piece of black coral from Puerto Rico recently joined the museum’s 4,000 other black coral specimens — the largest such collection in the world. Many of these black coral specimens likely represent undescribed species hiding in plain sight. According to Horowitz, “we don’t even have to go offshore to find new species.”

Reference:

Horowitz J, Opresko DM, González-García MP, Quattrini AM (2023) Description of a new species of black coral in the family Aphanipathidae (Anthozoa, Antipatharia) from Puerto Rico. ZooKeys 1173: 97-110. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1173.104141

Story originally published by the Smithsonian Magazine. Republished with permission.

Beware of scientific scams! Tips to avoid predatory publishing in biological journals

Predatory publishing has been growing exponentially, with severe consequences for society and the environment.

Guest blog post by Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Gabriela França Fernandes, and Walisson Kenedy Siqueira

We are bombarded day and night with slot-machine invitations from journals, books, and events such as congresses and lectures. Predatory publishing has reached alarming levels in biology, which is why we published an editorial in the journal Neotropical Biology and Conservation to alert the community, show the modus operandi of these publishers, and pass on good practices so that researchers, especially beginners, can escape this trap.

Piggybacking on the open access movement, numerous predatory publishers have emerged in search of easy profits. These cybercriminals take advantage of the publish-or-perish culture without providing any information about their peer-review protocols, concerned not with the scientific, bibliographic, or ethical aspects of publishing, but with the money received from authors.

The number of predatory publishers has grown exponentially in recent years and spread across all areas of knowledge, including biology. It is a common practice of these journals, often with an equally fake editorial staff, to send electronic invitations to potential authors to publish articles. These invitations are often facilitated by initial screenings of the emails of corresponding authors available on the internet. The emailed invitations from the supposed editors often stress that the author’s work is sound and, since it has already gone through the scrutiny of the editorial board, requires only the payment of a fee to publish it, with no need for further peer review.

Invitations to join the editorial board of these journals are also frequent, mostly intended to take advantage of the scientists’ prestige. Instead of editing articles, these invited editors are used as poster boys, i.e., they have their names published on the journal’s website, thus attracting unsuspecting authors to submit their manuscripts.

These journals are generally not included in the directory of open access journals (DOAJ) and are not indexed in the main bibliometric databases, such as Google Scholar, SciELO, Scopus, and Web of Science, for the simple reason that they do not meet their inclusion criteria. The websites of these journals often have little information about the editorial board, have a fake International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), lack transparency regarding their scope, provide no indication of a policy of retraction, have no transparency regarding copyright transfer, and provide very vague contact information, often omitting the address of the journal’s office.

In addition to papers, there are also invitations to publish books and book chapters with fake International Standard Book Numbers and dubious editorial boards. There is also a flood of invitations to predatory meetings, such as online conferences, symposia, workshops, and lectures. These often have websites that are equally confusing and never linked to a university or a postgraduate program. Above all, one should consult advisors, supervisors, or senior colleagues about the invitation and the sender’s academic reputation. In any case, one must pay attention not only to the citation metrics but also, mainly, to their editorial board, ISSN, ISBN, contact information, and relationships with recognized institutions.

When we analyze the impacts of predatory publishing on the scientific community, the worst problems are:

the dissemination of erroneous information about scientific problems of interest
the facilitation of plagiarism
the waste of public resources intended for publication
the appointment of researchers at universities and research institutes based on curricula full of doubtful publications, generating negative cascading effects that undermine higher education as a whole.

The damage done to society can be even worse. Governments, large companies, and decision-makers can be misled by false information, resulting in attitudes that undermine responses to major human problems such as climate change, biodiversity, and pandemics.

Efforts to fight predatory publishers require collaboration and support at higher levels. Governments need to create regulatory agencies that carefully and systematically evaluate the activities carried out by scientific journals. Science funding agencies should require that publication fees be paid only to publishers that adhere to an internationally recognized set of transparency and ethical rules. We need to discuss our values and incentives in the academic community, so we can start prioritizing quality over quantity. This would provide a reference point for research, help design coherent interventions, and improve information and public policy in favor of society and the environment.

Reference:

Pereira CC, Mello MAR, Negreiros D, Figueiredo JCG, Kenedy-Siqueira W, Maia LR, Fernandes S, Fernandes GFC, Ponce de Leon A, Ashworth L, Oki Y, de Castro GC, Aguilar R, Fearnside PM, Fernandes GW (2023) Beware of scientific scams! Hints to avoid predatory publishing in biological journals. Neotropical Biology and Conservation 18(2): 97-105. https://doi.org/10.3897/neotropical.18.e108887

Uncovering the hidden value of urban rivers: Study reveals community perceptions of ecosystem services

The case of the Zamora and Malacatos rivers in Loja, Ecuador

Guest blog post by Natalia Alvarado-Arias, Vinicio Moya-Almeida, Francisco Cabrera-Torres, and Andrea Medina-Enríquez

Urban rivers play a crucial role in providing ecosystem services that contribute to the social well-being and quality of life of urban inhabitants. However, rapid urbanization has led to the progressive degradation of these rivers, affecting their capacity to deliver these services and generating significant socioecological impacts. A groundbreaking study conducted in the Zamora and Malacatos Rivers in Loja, Ecuador, performed a participatory mapping of the non-monetary social values (both positive and negative) and their associated ecosystem services. This research, published in the journal One Ecosystem, aimed to understand community perceptions and preferences in the context of degraded landscapes, using a complementary analysis approach to traditional methods.

The methodology employed in this study involved data collection and analysis using ArcGIS Survey123 Connect (ESRI 2020), a digital survey tool that facilitated easy data collection from participants. Additionally, The Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES 4.0) tool was utilized, integrating participatory survey data and environmental data to assess and map the social values associated with ecosystem services. This combination of technological tools allowed for comprehensive analysis and visual representation of the results.

The study findings revealed that the most relevant social values encompassed learning, aesthetics, therapy, displeasure, deficient and inaccessible infrastructure, and the threat of flooding. Different spatial patterns were identified for each of these social values, with the horizontal distance to green areas emerging as a significant environmental variable contributing to these patterns.

Spatial distribution of positive social values.

These findings enhance our understanding of the social values and preferences associated with ecosystem services in urban river contexts. Furthermore, they provide valuable insights for identifying areas of opportunity and conflict, informing community planning, and enabling effective management of the urban landscape. The significance of this study lies in its novel approach, considering non-monetary social values, and its application in a city in the Global South, where previous research has predominantly focused on the Global North.

The degradation of urban rivers and the resulting socioecological impacts are a growing concern worldwide. Rivers play a vital role in providing natural resources, species habitats, freshwater supply, and flood control, while also satisfying the social, spiritual, and recreational needs of local communities. However, the processes of rapid urbanization have transformed river ecosystems into monofunctional channels and open sewers, negatively impacting the quality of life of residents.

Spatial distribution of negative social values.

This study emphasizes the importance of considering social values and community preferences when assessing and managing urban rivers. By doing so, opportunities and conflicts can be identified, and management strategies can be developed that are socially accepted and supported. Active community participation is crucial in this process as it allows for the addressing of traditional viewpoints and power asymmetries in planning.

The study employed a participatory and community-based approach, utilizing surveys and digital mapping tools such as ArcGIS Survey123 Connect (ESRI 2020) and The Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES 4.0) to collect and analyze data from multiple social actors. This integration of technological tools and participatory methods allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of the social values and ecosystem services associated with urban rivers.

An urban river. Photo by alcides OTA used under a CC BY-NC 2.0 license.

In summary, this groundbreaking study highlights the importance of urban rivers as providers of ecosystem services and their role in the quality of life of urban communities. By understanding and valuing the social and cultural aspects of river ecosystems, effective management strategies can be developed to promote the restoration and conservation of these critical natural resources. Active community participation is essential in achieving sustainable management of urban rivers and ensuring a prosperous future for future generations.

Research article:

Alvarado-Arias N, Moya-Almeida V, Cabrera-Torres F, Medina-Enríquez A (2023) Evaluation and mapping of the positive and negative social values for the urban river ecosystem. One Ecosystem 8: e101122. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.8.e101122

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From Down Under to Underground: surprising daddy long-legs spiders discovered in Australia and Réunion

Both spiders were named after mythical underground creatures. The study was published in the journal Subterranean Biology.

Australia’s rich and diverse fauna never fails to surprise us, as a new spider species has been documented from the continent.

The novel species, a blind daddy long-legs, was found in boreholes in the arid Pilbara of Western Australia. It is the first cave-adapted daddy long-legs spider reported from the continent, with other blind species of its genus so far only found in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.

“It represents a subfamily that was previously thought to be restricted to the tropical north and east of the continent,” says Bernhard Huber, one of the authors of a recent study published in the journal Subterranean Biology.

“The new species suggests that these spiders were widely distributed in Australia before the continent’s aridification in the last tens of millions of years,” he adds.

Together with it, another extraordinary daddy long-legs species was described as new-to-science from Réunion island. It was collected in the Grotte de La Tortue, a 300,000-year-old lava tube. Its closest known relatives are in eastern Africa, which begs the question how the species reached the island.

Grotte de La Tortue. Photos by Credit T. Percheron

The researchers believe its ground-dwelling ancestor arrived to Réunion “relatively recently and by highly accidental means (such as rafts or storms)” but adapted quickly to subterranean life.

“If our generic assignment is correct, then the ancestor of Buitinga ifrit must have reached Réunion from East Africa within the last few million years,” they write in their paper.

Curiously, both spiders were named after mythical underground dwellers: Belisana coblynau,after “the mythical gnome-like creatures that are said to haunt mines and quarries,” and Buitinga ifrit, after “a demon in Islamic mythology that is often associated with the underworld.”

Original source:

Huber BA, Meng G, Clark HL, Cazanove G (2023) First blind daddy long-legs spiders from Australia and Réunion (Araneae, Pholcidae). Subterranean Biology 46: 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.46.105798

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Genetic study reveals that a captive-bred population could save endangered crocodile from extinction

Since this species is almost extinct in the wild, the news brings hope for the recovery of populations.

The Orinoco crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius) is a critically endangered species native to the Orinoco River basin in Colombia and Venezuela. It is one of the largest crocodilian species in the world, reaching lengths of up to seven meters. Despite its impressive size, it is also the most endangered and least-studied of the New World crocodilians.

Female Orinoco crocodile from the Roberto Franco Tropical Biological Station´s ex-situ population.

The species has faced a severe population decline due to commercial overexploitation of its skin, which was highly sought after by the fashion industry of Europe, the USA and Japan in the 20^th century. As a result, the current estimated global population stands at less than 250 adult individuals.

Recognizing the critical status of the species, herpetologist Federico Medem established a captive breeding program for the Orinoco crocodile in 1971 at the Roberto Franco Tropical Biological Station (RFTBS) in Villavicencio. Currently, the RFTBS houses over 600 individuals, making it the largest stock of this species and the only one in Colombia. Remarkably, there might be more adult crocodiles kept there than in the wild.

Despite the success of the captive breeding program, reintroduction of animals into the wild has been challenging. This is primarily due to the lack of a comprehensive genetic characterization that can determine whether the population is genetically viable and has no signs of inbreeding, which can result in reduced fitness at the individual and population level. To ensure the successful reintroduction of the species, it was crucial to have a robust and conclusive genetic assessment that confirms the population’s genetic health and viability.

“We felt a sense of urgency to determine the genetic viability of the population in order to proceed with the reintroduction of animals and establish new populations of the species in Colombia. Therefore, we conducted a comprehensive genetic characterization using fast-evolving molecular markers on a sample of 551 crocodiles,” explains Ana María Saldarriaga, a former researcher at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Fordham University.

“Our findings showed that the individuals within the population possess sufficient genetic diversity and are suitable for reintroduction efforts, as well as for maintaining and enhancing the genetic variability of the ex-situ population.”

“We demonstrated that molecular data could be used to improve the management of ex-situ conservation programs well beyond what could be achieved with pedigree information alone,” she and her colleagues write in a study just published in the journal Nature Conservation.

Based on the findings of this study, the Colombian government, along with other public and private conservation institutions and agencies, can use the individuals identified in this research to initiate the establishment of new populations in regions where the species has been completely depleted.

“Today, it is widely recognized that top predators, such as crocodiles, play fundamental roles in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They have a significant impact on the nutrient cycle, regulate fish populations, and contribute to important cross-ecosystem engineering processes,” stated Mario Vargas-Ramírez, professor at the Genetics Institute of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and director of the RFTBS.

“Therefore, the reintroduction of the Orinoco crocodile to the Orinoco region is an urgent priority. Additionally, as the Orinoco crocodile is considered an umbrella species, its recovery and conservation efforts will have a positive cascading effect, protecting a large number of species that coexist in the same environment.”

Research article:

Saldarriaga-Gómez AM, Ardila-Robayo MC, Medem F, Vargas-Ramírez M (2023) Hope is the last thing lost: Colombian captive-bred population of the critically endangered Orinoco crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius) is a genetic reservoir that could help to save the species from extinction. Nature Conservation 53: 85-103. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.53.104000

Photos by Mario Vargas-Ramírez.

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Forgotten tropical plants rediscovered after 100+ years with the help of community science

Through the collaborative efforts of botanists and citizen scientists, these plants have been rediscovered after decades, some even after more than a century.

Deep in the tropical Andes are hiding plants that were discovered and then forgotten; plants that we knew almost nothing about. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of botanists from Germany, Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica and amateur plant enthusiasts, these plants have been rediscovered, some of them after more than 100 years. The findings were described in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.

The plants belong to Nasa, a genus from the Blazing Star family (Loasaceae) that has long caused headaches to scientists as its delicate but painfully urticant leaves make it difficult to collect. Most of them are rare, highly endemic, and only around for short periods, which makes them even more unlikely to end up in a herbarium collection.

Luckily, today’s scientists don’t have to rely on herbaria as their sole source of material and clues. Thanks to the advent of global networking and the increasing use of free data repositories, there is a lot more biodiversity data now that is available to use and easily accessible, for example as geo-referenced occurrence records and photos. Citizen science platform iNaturalist, where users can, among others, post photographic occurrence records, has turned into a valuable tool for biodiversity scientists, and plays a significant role in the rediscovery of these Andean plants.

One notable species, Nasa colanii, had only been recorded once, in 1978, until the research team came upon a photograph from 2019. This scarcity in records might have to do with the fact that the plant grows in a highly inaccessible region: in a cloud forest in the buffer zone of Peru’s Cordillera de Colán National Sanctuary, at an elevation of 2605 m.

A flowering branch of Nasa colanii. Photo by A. A. Wong Sato

Another species hadn’t been reported for approximately 130 years when iNaturalist users confirmed its existence in 2022 by uploading photographs. Nasa ferox had been known for centuries, but it didn’t get its scientific description until 2000. “Given the location of the park close to the [Ecuadorian] city of Cuenca, and the fact that the important road 582 goes through the park makes it particularly surprising that the species has not been reported in such a long time, even more so if we consider the numerous botanical expeditions that have been carried out in the general region,” the researchers write in their paper. In fact, only a small population of about ten fertile plants of N. ferox has been found, with the plants always growing in sheltered places such as in rock crevices or at the base of shrubs.

Remarkably, the typical form of Nasa humboldtiana called Nasa humboldtiana subspecies humboldtiana was rediscovered after 162 years, when the research team found a specimen in a conserved remnant of montane Andean forest in the province of Chimborazo, Ecuador.

Flower of Nasa humboldtiana subspecies humboldtiana. Photo by X. Cornejo

But probably the most exciting discoveries happened when the team found species that have been considered extinct in the wild. Two species of Nasa, namely N. hastata and N. solaria, were believed to share this fate, both from the Peruvian Department of Lima, a comparably well sampled area, given the proximity to the national capital. Until very recently, both species “remained unknown (or almost so) in the wild.” Earlier attempts to recollect these species near their type localities where they have been found some 100 years ago failed and it needed the help of iNaturalist to reveal that they are still present in the area.

Nasa hastata was recently rediscovered, after, for the first time, photos of living plants showed up taken by the sister of one of the authors. Only a handful of plants have since been reported from two sites, some 7 km apart. Similarly, a few dozens of plants have been found so far from N. solaria occurring in four small relict populations in remnants of forest that once covered larger areas in this region.

Flower of Nasa hastata. Photo by P. Gonzáles

Observations uploaded to iNaturalist also revealed important information on another species, Nasa ramirezii,providing the first photographs of living plants from Ecuador and the first data on its exact location.

“All these discoveries serve as a reminder that even well-studied regions harbor diversity that can so easily remain overlooked and unexplored, and point to the role of botanists in documenting biodiversity which is an essential prerequisite for any conservation effort.” leading author Tilo Henning from the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) says.

“Hopefully, as more scientists and members of the public contribute to the database, and more professionals get involved in the curation, more undescribed or ‘long lost’ taxa will be found. Our examples of the rediscovery of Nasa ferox after 130 years and Nasa hastata after 100 years, both ‘found’ on iNaturalist underscore this point,” the researchers say in their study.

Original source:

Henning T, Acuña-Castillo R, Cornejo X, Gonzáles P, Segovia E, Wong Sato AA, Weigend M (2023) When the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence: Nasa (Loasaceae) rediscoveries from Peru and Ecuador, and the contribution of community science networks. PhytoKeys 229: 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.229.100082