Author: Pensoft Editorial Team

When life gives you zebra mussels

The ease with which this Ponto-Caspian bivalve is being spread by the pet trade on both sides of the Atlantic is a major concern.

Guest blog post by James Dickey

The role played by the global pet trade in the spread of invasive alien species is increasingly gaining attention. Media outlets have excitedly picked up on stories of released goldfish growing to the size of rugby balls, Amazonian catfish appearing in Scottish rivers, and North American crayfish terrorising Tiergarten tourists in Berlin. In recent years I’ve been drawn to these stories, despite the simplistic, repetitive plot: well-meaning but feckless owners can no longer give pets the care they deserve, they struggle to rehome the pets, they release the pets into the wild, chaos ensues.

Pets or threats? Goldfish might be harmful for biodiversity

This happens more than you might think, with pet releases deemed responsible for 53% of invasive vertebrate species and one third of all aquatic invasive species. It has been shown that the more readily available a species is in the pet trade, the greater the risk of it being released, or escaping, into the wild.

Somewhat fascinatingly, this also puts the trade at the mercy of pop culture influences. 1970s animated series “Rascal the Raccoon” is commonly blamed for Japan’s invasive racoon population, and demand for Trachemys scripta pets is said to have boomed in the 1990s due to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Side note: the influence of movies highlighting the challenges of pet ownership, such as “Gremlins” or “Little Shop of Horrors”, warrants further study.

Hitchhikers

While invasion ecology has typically focused on these released species and the impacts that they cause, many species are sold with commensal organisms attached. These incidentally carried fauna are commonly known as “hitchhikers”.

Recent studies have found the protozoan Vorticella sp. and a species of bdelloid rotifer associated with two species of atyid shrimps, digenean larvae with the carnivorous snail Anentome helena, and an epibiont, Diceratocephala boschmai, on New Guinean ornamental Cherax crayfish.

Temnocephalid eggs located on thorax carapace (white arrow) of adult Cherax monticola. From Ložek F, Patoka J, Bláha M. 2021. Another hitchhiker exposed: Diceratocephala boschmai (Platyhelminthes: Temnocephalida) found associated with ornamental crayfish Cherax spp. Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst., 422, 25.

A high-profile example emerged in 2021 when zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) were detected in 21 US states on aquarium moss balls that had been imported from Ukraine, and subsequent searches revealed the species in 600 locations in Canada. Similar findings have since emerged from Europe. Having colonised both European and North American waters, the ease with which this Ponto-Caspian bivalve is being spread by the pet trade on both sides of the Atlantic is a major concern. Zebra mussels have been listed as one of the IUCN’s “100 of the Worst Invasive Species”, and their myriad ecological and economic impacts range from habitat alteration, to competition with native unionids, to disruption of food-web structure, to blocking industrial water intake pipes. They are also able to attach to boat hulls and other organisms, facilitating further spread.

The discovery

Zebra mussels, Dreissena polymorpha, found amongst ordered European pond snail, Viviparus viviparus

I remember the moment clearly. I had ordered seventy-five Viviparus viviparus – a common European pond snail species – for behavioural studies at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel where I was based for lab work in the group of Elizabeta Briski. After some stress over posting delays and an increasingly fraught relationship developing with the GEOMAR receptionist, the snails arrived. Over the next day, watching them go about their lives in our climate chamber in their new tanks became a favourite way to spend working breaks. With obvious dimorphism you could clearly tell males from females, which added to the developing snail soap operas. However, just before packing up to leave the lab, I noticed a huge lump on one snail. What on earth is that? Soon I noticed a second. I called Elizabeta with my suspicions, which she confirmed the next day. Photos were taken, measurements made, and our go-to ecological geneticist Reid Brennan was begged to work his DNA sequencing magic. Before long, it was all confirmed: we had zebra mussels.

Potential implications

The biggest takeaway message here is that even native species in the pet trade can facilitate the spread of non-native hitchhikers. In a parallel universe, those snails did not go to an invasion ecology lab but rather to someone keen to stock their garden pond. Escape from ponds is a major pathway for freshwater species introductions, and even if the impact of a native species escaping might be limited, its potential for the zoochorous dispersal of a non-native should not be ignored.

Zebra mussels, Dreissena polymorpha, found amongst ordered European pond snail, Viviparus viviparus.

Of course, questions surround the conditions under which the pond snails were held before selling. Were they stocked in zebra mussel infested outdoor ponds? Which other species are held in a similar way? How prevalent are these practices within the trade? One way of combating this risk of non-native species spread is via legislation. Calls have been made for white lists of low-risk species that can be sold in the trade in place of risky species, but in our study, the issue stems from the selling of a native species within its native range, which would surely be deemed low-risk.

We propose that should a white-list system be adopted, the potential for a “low-risk” species to transport invasive species must be accounted for. We also call for stricter biosecurity practices to be enforced, including regular checking and disinfecting of outdoor stock ponds where appropriate. Tools such as environmental DNA surveillance could be used to effectively detect the presence of targeted invasive species, as part of biosecurity “audits”. However, for the time being, a desperate, final line of defence is to raise awareness amongst consumers and for them to be wary of unwanted hitchhikers.

References:

Dickey JWE, Brennan RS, Chung SS, Jeschke JM, Steffen GT, Briski E (2023) More than we bargained for: Zebra mussels transported amongst European native freshwater snails. NeoBiota 10: 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.83.97647

DeRoy EM, Scott R, Hussey NE, MacIsaac HJ (2020) Density dependence mediates the ecological impact of an invasive fish. Diversity and Distributions 26: 867–880. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13063

Gippet JMW, Bertelsmeier C (2021) Invasiveness is linked to greater commercial success in the global pet trade. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016337118

Lozek F, Patoka J, Bláha M (2021) Another hitchhiker exposed: Diceratocephala boschmai (Platyhelminthes: Temnocephalida) found associated with ornamental crayfish Cherax spp. Knowledge and Management of Aquatic Ecosystems 2020-Janua. https://doi.org/10.1051/kmae/2021023

Militz TA, Foale S (2017) The “Nemo Effect”: Perception and reality of Finding Nemo’s impact on marine aquarium fisheries. Fish and Fisheries 18: 596–606. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12202

Padilla DK, Williams SL (2004) Beyond ballast water: Aquarium and ornamental trades as sources of invasive species in aquatic ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2: 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295(2004)002[0131:BBWAAO]2.0.CO;2

Patoka J, Patoková B (2021) Hitchhiking Exotic Clam: Dreissena polymorpha (Pallas, 1771) Transported via the Ornamental Plant Trade. Diversity 13: 1–5.

Patoka J, Magalhães ALB, Kouba A, Faulkes Z, Jerikho R, Vitule JRS (2018) Invasive aquatic pets: Failed policies increase risks of harmful invasions. Biodiversity and Conservation 27: 3037–3046. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1581-3

Richardson MJ, Whoriskey FG, Roy LH (1995) Turbidity generation and biological impacts of an exotic fish Carassius auratus, introduced into shallow seasonally anoxic ponds. Journal of Fish Biology: 576–585.

Saul WC, Roy HE, Booy O, Carnevali L, Chen HJ, Genovesi P, Harrower CA, Hulme PE, Pagad S, Pergl J, Jeschke JM (2017) Assessing patterns in introduction pathways of alien species by linking major invasion data bases. Journal of Applied Ecology 54: 657–669. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12819

Simberloff D (2006) Risk assessments, blacklists, and white lists for introduced species: Are predictions good enough to be useful? Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 35: 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1068280500010005

Stanicka A, Maciaszek R, Cichy A, Templin J, Świderek W, Żbikowska E, Labecka AM (2022) Unwanted ‘hitchhikers’ of ornamental snails: A case report of digeneans transported via the international pet trade. The European Zoological Journal 89: 601–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/24750263.2022.2065039

Zeng Y, Shakir KK, Yeo DCJ (2019) Competition between a native freshwater crab and an invasive crayfish in tropical Southeast Asia. Biological Invasions 21: 2653–2663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-019-02009-6

The most beautiful Vanilla: an unusual new species from Brazil’s Campos Rupestre

Brazilian Campos Rupestres have many endemic species, and a new study published in the journal PhytoKeys has just added one more.

One of the most beautiful vanilla orchid species in the Neotropical region grows in one of the most hostile environments in the Brazilian Cerrado, the Brazilian Campos Rupestres of the Espinhaço Range. “The Espinhaço refuges evolved between the Atlantic Forest and Amazonia Biomes as a consequence of extreme environmental conditions and climatic fluctuations during the Tertiary and Quaternary periods,” explains Emerson Ricardo Pansarin, one of the researchers behind the discovery of a new vanilla orchid.

Vanilla rupicola.

Brazilian Campos Rupestres have many endemic species, and a new study published in the journal PhytoKeys has just added one more.

What makes Vanilla rupicola remarkable is the fact that it grows on rock outcrops. “In this locality, Vanilla rupicola shows a reptant habit on rock outcrops and rooting in rock clefts. The elevation is from 800 to 1300 m a.s.l.,” the researchers write in their paper. Its flowers produce a sweet fragrance that can be noticed during the hottest hours of the day.

Habit of Vanilla rupicola on the rock outcrops of the Espinhaço Range, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Note the creeping stem on the rock.

“For years we traveled through the mountains of the Espinhaço Range until we found the flowering population,” says Emerson Ricardo Pansarin.

Vanilla rupicola.

“Vanilla rupicola emerges in an essentially Amazonian clade. It seems plausible that the ancestor of this new taxon derived from an Amazonian taxon adapted to the environmental conditions of the Espinhaço Range and evolved in this particular environment,” he adds.

Vanilla rupicola is a rare species currently known to grow in a mountain-chain of Diamantina, in the ERMG Espinhaço Range, and the researchers tentatively classify it as Endangered.

Research article:

Pansarin ER, Menezes ELF (2023) A new remarkable Vanilla Mill. (Orchidaceae) species endemic to the Espinhaço Range, Brazil: its phylogenetic position and evolutionary relationships among Neotropical congeners. PhytoKeys 227: 151-165. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.227.101963

Pensoft’s science illustrator Denitsa Peneva wins first place at a prestigious international contest

“Dormice of Europe (Gliridae)” – an illustration combining watercolour and pencil – and Denitsa Peneva won at the Illustraciencia competition in the “Nature Illustration” category.

“Dormice of Europe (Gliridae)” – an illustration combining watercolour and pencil – and its author Denitsa Peneva won at the Illustraciencia competition in the “Nature Illustration” category. This year, the contest saw over 500 works.

Since 2009, the annual international event convened by the Spanish National Research Council and the Catalan Association of Scientific Communication has been recognising scientific illustrations with the aim to popularise science within the wider society. 

Denitsa’s illustration depicts five dormouse species known from Europe: the Roach’s mouse-tailed or ground dormouse (Myomimus roachi), the forest dormouse (Dryomys nitedula), the European edible dormouse (Glis glis), the hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) and the garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus). Each of the rodents is seen on a plant that is typical either for its habitat or diet. Respectively, one of the species – which is a carnivore – is shown next to a snail.

Curiously, “Dormice of Europe (Gliridae)” was inspired by last year’s 11th International Dormouse Conference, which took place in Svilengrad, Bulgaria. The locality was not chosen at random. It had just recently been found to house a large population of the rarest dormouse species for Europe. At the time, the Roach’s mouse-tailed or ground dormouse (Myomimus roachi), a species endemic to the Balkans, had not been encountered for almost 40 years.


You can follow the work by Denitsa on her Facebook page.

Eye for Detail: Papers in Pensoft journals sport a new look

As behaviours and needs of readers change, we strive to keep up with the times. Let’s run through what & why has changed to the PDF format.

Readers at some of the journals published by Pensoft, who have downloaded/printed a publication or ordered a physical copy of a journal issue over the last few weeks, might be in for a surprise concerning the layout of the PDF format of the articles. 

Research papers published in ZooKeys demonstrating the former (left) and the current (right) article layout seen in the PDF format. 

Even though it’s been years since online publishing has become the norm in how we are consuming information – including scientific publications – we understand that academia is still very much fond of traditional, often paper-based, article layout format: the one you use when accessing a PDF file or a print copy, rather than directly scrolling down through the HTML version of the article. 

Even if today large orders of printed volumes from overseas are the exception, rather than the rule, we know we have readers of ours who regularly print manuscripts at home or savе them on their devices. Trends like this have already led to many journals first abandoning the physical- for digital-first, then transitioning to digital-only publication format.

Meanwhile, it is true that needs and demands have fundamentally changed in recent times. 

As we speak, readers are accessing PDF files from much higher-quality desktops, in order to skim through as much content as possible. 

In the meantime, authors are relying on greater-quality cameras to document their discoveries, while using advanced computational tools capable of generating and analysing extra layers of precise data. While producing more exhaustive research, however, it is also of key importance that their manuscripts are processed and published as rapidly as possible.

So, let’s run through the updates and give you our reasoning for their added value to readers and authors.

Revised opening page

One of the major changes is the one to the format of the first page. By leaving some blank space on the left, we found a dedicated place for important article metadata, i.e. academic editor, date of manuscript submission / acceptance / publication, citation details and licence. As a result, we “cleaned up” the upper part of the page, so that it can better highlight the authors and their affiliations. 

Bottom line: The new layout provides a better structure to the opening page to let readers find key article metadata at a glance. 

Expand as much – or as little – as comfortable

As you might know, journals published by Pensoft have been coming in different formats and sizes. Now, we have introduced the standard A4 page size, where the text is laid in a single column that has been slightly indented to the right, as seen above. Whenever a figure or a table is used in a manuscript, however, it is expanded onto the whole width of the page.

Before giving our reasons why, let’s see what were the specific problems that we address.

Case study 1

Some of our signature journals, including ZooKeys, PhytoKeys and MycoKeys, have become quite recognisable with their smaller-than-average B5 format, widely appreciated by people who would often be seen carrying around a copy during a conference or an international flight.

However, in recent times, authors began to embrace good practices in research like open sharing of data and code, which resulted in larger and more complex tables. Similarly, their pocket-sized cameras would capture much higher-resolution photos capable of revealing otherwise minute morphological characters. Smaller page size would also mean that often there would be pages between an in-text reference of a figure or a table and the visual itself.

So, here we faced an obvious question: shall we deprive their readers from all those detailed insights into the published studies?

Case study 2

Meanwhile, other journals, such as Herpetozoa, Zoosystematics and Evolution and Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, had long been operating in A4 size, thereby providing their readers with a full view of the figures in their publications. 

Yet, the A4 format brought up another issue: the lines were too long for the eye comfort of their readers. 

What they did was organise their pages into two-column format. While this sounds like a good and quite obvious decision, the format – best known from print newspapers – is pretty inconvenient when accessed digitally. Since the readers would like to zoom in on the PDF page or simply access the article on mobile, they will need to scroll up and down several times per page. 

In addition, the production of a two-column text is technologically more challenging, which results in extra production time.

Bottom line: The new layout allows journals to not sacrifice image quality for text readability and vice versa. As a bonus, authors enjoy faster publication for their papers.

Simplified font

If you have a closer look at the PDF file, you would notice that print-ready papers have also switched to a more simplistic – yet easier to the eye – font. Again, the update corresponds to today’s digital-native user behaviour, where readers often access PDF files from devices of various resolutions and skim through the text, as opposed to studying its content in detail.

In fact, the change is hardly new, since the same font has long been utilised for the webpages (HTML format) of the publications across all journals.

Bottom line: The slightly rounder and simplified font prompts readability, thereby allowing for faster and increased consumption of content. 

What’s the catch? How about characters and APCs?

While we have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from editors, authors and readers, there has been a concern that the updates would increase the publication charges, wherever these are estimated based on page numbers.

Having calculated the lines and characters in the new layout format, we would like to assure you that there is no increase in the numbers of characters or words between the former and current layout formats. In fact, due to the additional number of lines fitting in an A4 page as opposed to B5, authors might be even up for a deal.

________

* At the time of the writing, the new paper layout has not been rolled out at all journals published by Pensoft. However, most of the editorial boards have already confirmed they would like to incorporate the update.

________

For news from & about Pensoft and our journal portfolio, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

The “Sooty Bark Disease”, harmful for maples and humans, can be monitored by pollen sampling stations

The hyper-allergenic spores of the fungus causing Sooty bark disease in maples were detected in six European countries.

Sycamore maples destroyed by the Sooty bark disease. Photo by Dr Miloň Dvořák

Especially after the last few COVID-affected years, nobody doubts that emerging infectious diseases can threaten the whole world. But humans are not the only ones at risk! With intensive global trade, many tree parasites are accidently introduced to Europe in packaging or directly on goods. Traveling in the wood, on plants or in the soil of their pots, they can remain undetected for a long time.

“Forms of life of parasitic fungi are extremely diverse and very often practically invisible,” says Dr Miloň Dvořák of the Department of Forest Protection and Wildlife Management at Mendel University in Brno, Czechia. “An infected tree may look completely healthy for some time, which complicates the control of the disease enormously. It reminds me of the ancient Trojan Horse, where European trees are so surprised, defenceless, and later defeated, like the Trojan warriors.”

How can an infected tree look healthy and then suddenly get sick? “Like in the human body, in trees too, the trigger can be stress,” explains Dr Dvořák. The tolerance of trees to a pathogenic fungus turns lower under the conditions of changing climate and so the tree starts to die of the disease.

One typical example of such a disease is the Sooty Bark Disease (SBD) on maples, caused by a microscopic fungus called Cryptostroma corticale. “The fungus was probably introduced to Europe during the Second World War and for the rest of the 20th century we did not hear much about it,” says Dr Dvořák.  

Sooty Bark Disease (Cryptostroma corticale) on Sycamore. Photo by gailhampshire used under a CC BY 2.0 license

The situation has changed and over the last twenty years the fungus has been reported more and more often. After dry and hot periods, the trees start to die of the infection, which is accompanied by the creation of brown-black masses of “soot” under the peeling bark of the maples.

The “soot” is in fact spores, which help the fungus spread and infect other trees. It is harmful for wounded trees, but it can also cause hypersensitivity pneumonitis in humans.

So, the species became a target for a group of phytopathologists gathered by an European HORIZON 2020 project entitled “Holistic management for emerging forest pests and diseases (HOMED)”. Scientists from six countries (Czechia, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland), including Dr Dvořák, decided to develop a precise, DNA based (real-time PCR) diagnostic method to detect and monitor the pathogen in air samples. They published their method, the outcomes of its use, and their new findings about SBD epidemiology in the open-access journal NeoBiota.

Volumetric air sampler installed in Brno, Czech Republic, sampling pollen for allergen forecast. Photo by Aneta Lukačevičová

How to look for DNA in air samples? Simple devices called volumetric air samplers can suck the air against a piece of sticky tape, where every particle gets stuck and can be analyzed. “These devices are not really cheap, moreover, they demand regular maintenance,” explains Dr Dvořák. “But, actually, they are in common and regular use in the whole of Europe – remember the weather forecast, particularly that part about the “pollen report” for allergic people. This forecast is based on data of more than 600 stations united by the European Aeroallergen Network (EAN). Every station permanently maintains one volumetric air sampler and keeps an archive of the samples.”

The HOMED team got in contact with their national EAN collaborators and processed their samples with molecular techniques (real-time PCR).

Thanks to this sensitive detection method, the survey among samples was very successful. The “sooty” fungus was found in air samples from countries where the disease has been reported, and, in a more detailed study in France, the pathogen was found in the air 310km from currently diseased trees! This result suggests that the fungus can disperse long distances by wind.

Black stromata – source of billions of hyper-allergenic spores. Photo by Dr Miloň Dvořák

“Our results show that the SBD disease is at an exponentially increasing phase in France and Switzerland with an increase in the magnitude of the number of disease cases that peaks following a marked water deficit,” the researchers write in their study. They hope that early aerial detection of C. corticale in disease-free countries could help implement more efficient measures for SBD detection and eradication in the field.

“This European experiment fully confirmed the potential of this approach to monitor the pathogen’s outbreaks in early stages of its spread,” concludes Dr Dvořák. 

Research article:

Muller E, Dvořák M, Marçais B, Caeiro E, Clot B, Desprez-Loustau M-L, Gedda B, Lundén K, Migliorini D, Oliver G, Ramos AP, Rigling D, Rybníček O, Santini A, Schneider S, Stenlid J, Tedeschini E, Aguayo J, Gomez-Gallego M (2023) Conditions of emergence of the Sooty Bark Disease and aerobiology of Cryptostroma corticale in Europe. In: Jactel H, Orazio C, Robinet C, Douma JC, Santini A, Battisti A, Branco M, Seehausen L, Kenis M (Eds) Conceptual and technical innovations to better manage invasions of alien pests and pathogens in forests. NeoBiota 84: 319-347. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.84.90549

Follow NeoBiota on Facebook and Twitter. Follow the HOMED project on Twitter.

New grasshopper species from central Texas honor Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker

These findings highlight the rich biodiversity of the region, emphasizing the importance of conservation efforts in the area.

A group of researchers from the Mississippi Entomological Museum taking break after exploring a site in Texas for grasshoppers. Left to right: Brady Dunaway, JoVonn Hill, Matthew Thorn. Photo by JoVonn Hill

The central region of Texas is a known hotspot of biological wonders. For the last five years, Dr. JoVonn Hill, an Assistant Professor and Director of the Mississippi Entomological Museum (MEM) at Mississippi State University, and his colleagues have made scientific expeditions to the area that have now revealed an extraordinary find.

The team uncovered seven previously unknown flightless grasshopper species, six of them endemic to the Edwards Plateau, which underscores the region’s extraordinary biodiversity.

With this discovery, Dr. Hill is paying tribute to two iconic musicians. In recognition of the “immense contributions” of Texas legends Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker, he has named two of these flightless grasshopper species after them.

Melanoplus nelsoni held by Dr. JoVonn Hill. Photo by JoVonn Hill

“Melanoplus nelsoni and Melanoplus walkeri immortalize the enduring contributions of these legendary musicians and their connection to Texas,” he says.

Melanoplus walkeri.

“After these last few summers [of field studies], just like Mr. Nelson, we too have a little Texas in our souls,” he writes in his study, which was just published in the journal ZooKeys.

On Melanoplus walkeri, he writes: “Walker’s songs such as Hill Country Rain, Leavin’ Texas, and Sangria Wine brought me and my field team joy while traveling between field sites and added to the amazing ambiance of the Edwards Plateau.” In fact, the artist recorded his most influential album not far away from the spot where the new species was discovered.

Additionally, the team acknowledges the cultural heritage and deep connection to the region of the Comanche and Tonkawa tribes, naming two species after them, Melanoplus commanche and Melanoplus tonkawa respectively.

“These designations recognize the profound historical and cultural significance of the tribes in the region,” Dr. Hill explains.

Melanoplus tonkawa.

“These seven newly described species, alongside two preexisting ones, form a cohesive species group, highlighting their shared characteristics and evolutionary relationships,” Dr. Hill says in conclusion. “The formation of this new species group presents a significant contribution to our understanding of the diverse ecosystems present in central Texas,” he adds.

Melanoplus commanche.

The discovery of these seven flightless grasshopper species and the formation of a new species group underscore the ecological uniqueness of central Texas, Dr. Hill says. He and the staff of the Mississippi Entomological Museum remain committed to scientific exploration and understanding, promoting the conservation of biodiversity, and inspiring a sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world.

Research article:

Hill JG (2023) Diversification deep in the heart of Texas: seven new grasshopper species and establishment of the Melanoplus discolor species group (Orthoptera, Acrididae, Melanoplinae). ZooKeys 1165: 101-136. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1165.104047

One Ecosystem selected for inclusion in the Web of Science

“Not only does it mean that content is persistent in merit and quality, but that innovative research outputs are already appreciated within academia,” says Editor-in-Chief Prof Dr Benjamin Burkhard

Seven years after its official launch in May 2016, the One Ecosystem journal has successfully completed the rigorous quality and integrity assessment at Web of Science.

Scientific papers published in One Ecosystem from 2021 onwards will be indexed at the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), revealed the Indexing team at ARPHA Platform.

The news means that One Ecosystem might see its very first Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as early as 2024, following the latest revision of the metric’s policies Clarivate announced last July. According to the update, all journals from the Web of Science Core Collection are now featured in the Journal Citation Reports, and thereby eligible for a JIF.

“Giving all quality journals a Journal Impact Factor will provide full transparency to articles and citations that have contributed to impact, and therefore will help them demonstrate their value to the research community. This decision is aligned to our position that publications in all quality journals, not just highly cited journals, should be eligible for inclusion in research assessment exercises,” said back then Dr Nandita Quaderi, Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Vice President at Web of Science.

“We are happy to learn that Web of Science has recognised the value and integrity of One Ecosystem in the scholarly landscape. Not only does it mean that the scientific content One Ecosystem has been publishing over the years is persistent in merit and quality, but that innovative research outputs are already widely accepted and appreciated within academia.

After all, one of the reasons why we launched One Ecosystem and why it has grown to be particularly distinguished in the field of ecology and sustainability is that it provides a scholarly publication venue for traditional research papers, as well as ‘unconventional’ scientific contributions,”

comments Prof Dr Benjamin Burkhard, Executive Director at the Institute of Physical Geography & Landscape Ecology, Leibniz University Hannover (Germany) and founding Editor-in-Chief of One Ecosystem.

“These ‘unconventional’ research outputs – like software descriptions, ecosystem inventories, ecosystem service mappings and monitoring schema – do not normally see the light of day, let alone the formal publication and efficient visibility. We believe that these outputs can be very useful to researchers, as well as practitioners and public bodies in charge of, for example, setting up indicator frameworks for environmental reporting,”

says Prof Davide Geneletti, Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of University of Trento, Italy, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of One Ecosystem.

“In fact, last year, we also launched a new article type: the Ecosystem Accounting table, which follows the standards set by the the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). This publication type provides scientists and statisticians with a platform to publish newly compiled accounting tables,” 

adds Dr Joachim Maes, Policy analyst at the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of One Ecosystem.

***

Previously, One Ecosystem has been accepted for indexing at over 60 major academic databases, including Scopus, DOAJ, Cabell’s Directory, CABI and ERIH PLUS. In June 2022, the journal received a Scopus CiteScore reading 7.0, which placed it in Q1 in five categories: Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Nature and Landscape Conservation; Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous); Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics.

***

You can follow One Ecosystem on Twitter and Facebook.

Beetles in a bottle: a message from aliens to schools

A citizen science project in Italy had high school students monitor the activities of ambrosia beetles, catching them with traps made from recycled plastic bottles.

While invasive alien species (IAS) represent a growing threat to global biodiversity and ecosystems, public awareness of them hasn’t seen a significant increase. Many researchers believe informing people about IAS is an essential long-term investment to counter biological invasions; in particular, “learning by doing” is an extremely effective method for involving new audiences, such as students.

Map of the study area (the Veneto Region) indicating the high school locations.

About 500 Italian students aged 11-18 took part in a citizen science project that led to new geographical records of two alien species of ambrosia beetles considered to be quarantine pests by the European Union. Dr. Fernanda Colombari and Prof. Andrea Battisti of the University of Padova have described the results in a paper in the open-access journal NeoBiota.

The project involved schools located in urban areas in north-eastern Italy and aimed to connect environmental education and experiential outdoor learning through lectures, videos, reports, and large-scale surveillance of ambrosia beetles. The students used plastic bottles and hand sanitizer to trap ambrosia beetles in their school grounds. They then assessed their abundance, looking at the different species. Before and after the educational activities, their knowledge and awareness of IAS were tested using simple anonymous questionnaires.

Schematic representation of a plastic bottle trap filled with hand sanitizer as attractant

“Our study aimed to both educate students and collect scientific data at sites such as schools where surveillance for potentially invasive ambrosia beetles is not usually conducted, or where it is sometimes misunderstood,” Dr. Colombari and Prof. Battisti write in their paper.

Identifying the specimens collected by the students, the authors found that IAS amounted to 35% of total catches. Remarkably, two out of the four alien species caught, Cnestus mutilatus and Anisandrus maiche, were recorded for the first time in Europe thanks to this study.

Furthermore, questionnaire results showed that the students acquired greater knowledge and increased their awareness and interest in IAS by more than 50%. After the experiment, most of them were interested in learning more about the negative effects of the introduction of IAS and practices to limit their spread.

Cnestus mutilatus. Photo by Durham Field Office – Forest Health Protection under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

This study shows that citizen science can successfully involve school students, giving them an opportunity to contribute in an effective early detection of IAS, as most first records occur in cities or suburban areas. The results also point to the primary role of education, which is as a major driver of change in tackling sustainability challenges. Moreover, as students bring home the message and share it with their relatives, the process supports intergenerational learning and enlarges public collaboration.

A plastic bottle trap filled with hand sanitizer as attractant. Photo by Dr Fernanda Colombari

“People are often unaware of the role they have in the entire invasive process,” the researchers write in their study. Citizen science projects like this one are more than a reliable tool for collecting scientific data; they also help engage the public and spread awareness of biological invasions, eventually contributing to the creation of more efficient management strategies.

The monitoring programme in this study was conducted in the context of the European project HOMED (Holistic management of emerging forest pests and diseases), which has developed a full panel of scientific knowledge and practical solutions for the management of emerging native and non-native pests and pathogens threatening European forests. The main results of HOMED’s research are publically available in a special issue in the open-access scholarly journal NeoBiota.

Original source:

Colombari F, Battisti A (2023) Citizen science at school increases awareness of biological invasions and contributes to the detection of exotic ambrosia beetles. In: Jactel H, Orazio C, Robinet C, Douma JC, Santini A, Battisti A, Branco M, Seehausen L, Kenis M (Eds) Conceptual and technical innovations to better manage invasions of alien pests and pathogens in forests. NeoBiota 84: 211-229. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.84.95177

Fighting off pests with deep learning and drones

In a new study, researchers tested different deep learning methods to detect the nests made by pine processionary moth larvae on pine and cedar trees.

The nest of a pine processionary moth.

Early detection of pest infestation is an important first step in the adoption of control measures that can be tailored to specific local conditions. Remote sensing technology can be a helpful tool, allowing the quick scanning of large areas, but it’s not universally applicable as sometimes items can be hard to detect. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, on the other hand, can help by getting closer to individual trees and detecting smaller atypical signals.

The pine processionary moth is an insect infesting trees in gardens and parks, threatening public health because of the hairs released by its larvae, which can cause a stinging or itching sensation. The pest is rapidly growing in numbers and conquering new territories, which makes it a species of concern.

In a new study, researchers tested different deep learning methods to detect the nests made by pine processionary moth larvae on pine and cedar trees. Drones flying over the trees took images, which were then analysed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and localise the nests.

Drone images from Portugal.

The use of AI on drone images proved effective to detect pine processing moth nests on trees of different species and sizes, even under variable densities. The method can be successfully used in both forest and urban settings to help detect moth nests. That way, tree health managers can be informed about where the nests are and take appropriate measures to contain the damage and the public health risks.

“The study proved the advantage of using UAVs to document the presence of at least one nest per tree,” the researchers write in their study, which was published in a special issue of the journal NeoBiota dedicated to forest pests in Europe. “It therefore represents a substantial step forward in the integration of the UAV survey with ground observations in the monitoring of the colonies of an important forest defoliating insect in the Mediterranean area.”

image from the ground in daylight
image from the ground in infrared light
image from drone

Furthermore, they suggest that the method can be extended to other pests.

“This technique can pave new avenues in the surveillance and management of emerging and non-native pests of trees, where early detection and early action should go together to achieve a satisfactory level of protection,” the study authors write in conclusion.

Research article:

Garcia A, Samalens J-C, Grillet A, Soares P, Branco M, van Halder I, Jactel H, Battisti A (2023) Testing early detection of pine processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa nests using UAV-based methods. In: Jactel H, Orazio C, Robinet C, Douma JC, Santini A, Battisti A, Branco M, Seehausen L, Kenis M (Eds) Conceptual and technical innovations to better manage invasions of alien pests and pathogens in forests. NeoBiota 84: 267-279. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.84.95692

New NeoBiota special issue: tackling invasive alien forest pests in Europe

The issue comprises 16 articles on various aspects of the ecology and management of invasive alien insects and fungal pathogens in Europe’s forests.

Every year, new alien species of insects and fungi invade European forests. Some of them are exotic pests and diseases that can affect the survival and growth of trees.

To help develop strategies for monitoring and managing these non-native forest pests, a consortium of over 50 scientists representing 23 research institutions and 15 countries from across the globe joined their skills in the Horizon 2020 project HOMED “Holistic management of emerging forest pests and diseases.”

Alex Stemmelen during his presentation at the XXVI ICE Congress 2022. He is the first author of a paper on the pests of Douglas fir in NeoBiota‘s special issue.

Between 2018 and 2022, the HOMED consortium developed a full panel of scientific knowledge and practical solutions to better deal with emerging native and alien invasive pests and diseases.

Fruiting bodies of Austropuccinia psidii on Myrtus communis (symptoms of myrtle rust). Photo by Alberto Santini

This includes targeting the successive phases of invasion, and developing innovative methods for each phase: risk analysis, prevention/detection, surveillance, eradication/containment, and control.

To share the results of this cooperation and help researchers further improve the management of emerging forest pests and pathogens, HOMED has made the main outcomes of its research publically available.

They are now published in a special issue in the open-access journal NeoBiota, called “Conceptual and technical innovations to better manage invasions of alien pests and pathogens in forests”. The issue comprises 16 articles on various aspects of the ecology and management of invasive alien insects and fungal pathogens in Europe’s forests.

The cover of NeoBiota’s new special issue.

“Because forests provide irreplaceable goods and materials for people and the European economy, because maintaining healthy forests is essential for their contribution to climate change mitigation through sequestration and storage of atmospheric carbon, it is urgent to develop more effective protective measures against the ever-increasing threat of invasive forest pests,” the editors of the special issue write in an editorial.

More tools are needed that can help identify, prevent and monitor invasive alien species and improve early warning methods, which makes the research in this issue so crucial and timely.

“The role of researchers is to develop, test and promote the most relevant methods and tools at each stage of the invasion framework, i.e., for the early detection of these invasive alien organisms, for the identification of the species and for the monitoring of their damage and spread, but also for new eradication and control solutions,” the editors continue.

Hervé Jactel, Lukas Seehausen and Martin Gossner at HOMED’s and Pensoft’s stand during the XXVI ICE Congress 2022.

One highlight in the published research is a study exploring how using the methods of citizen science at schools can increase invasive species awareness. Another explores the efficiency of artificial intelligence in pest detection.

“The publications collected in this special issue demonstrate that current conceptual, methodological, and technological advances allow a great progress in the anticipation, monitoring and management of invasive pest species in forests,” the editors conclude.

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