Category: Frontiers of Biogeography

Global insect science comes to Ohio: Pensoft joins the ECN2026 and Entomolgy 2026 conferences

Ohio’s capital hosted two conferences of global significance when it comes to the study of insects, with Pensoft enjoying a front-row seat.

Earlier this month, the city of Columbus became a focal point for knowledge exchange, groundbreaking innovation and meaningful dialogue on the past, present and future of entomology, with Pensoft enjoying a front-row seat.

Pensoft Publishers at the 2026 ECN annual meeting.

More specifically, Ohio’s capital hosted two conferences of global significance when it comes to the study of insects. First came the annual meeting of the Entomological Collections Network (ECN), which took place on the 6th and 7th of November. A comprehensive two-day agenda delved into the many facets of the organisation’s core focus – existing and emerging best practices in the management of and research into museum collections with insect specimens.

For its part, Pensoft Publishers reaffirmed its support for the community by co-sponsoring the event and exhibiting its publication outlets and tools, including the highly relevant Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM) journal. Attendees who stopped by the company’s booth thus had the opportunity to discover this relatively new arrival in the company’s portfolio as well as a variety of other Pensoft-affiliated avenues for bridging the gap between their work and its intended audience.

The publishing house also supported the annual meeting’s silent auction, donating the BioRisk issue “Climatic Risk and Distribution Atlas of European Bumblebees” in printed form. The winning bid was placed by Bill Clark from the Orma J. Smith Museum of Natural History, with this and all other proceeds going towards the future growth of ECN.

Bill Clark, winner of Pensoft’s contribution to ECN2026’s silent auction.

Numerous researchers who are actively shaping Pensoft’s journals were also present, with two among them delivering important research updates to the Network’s members:

  • Torsten Dikow, Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys, introduced a conveyor for entomological digitisation (developed by Picturae) and how this technology can help organise and optimise collections of pollinating insects
  • Davide Dal Pos, Subject Editor of ZooKeys and Deutsche Entomologishe Zeitschrift (DEZ), dived into his team’s vision for revitalising the Enns Entomology Museum and its extensive specimen collection, placing it “back on the map”
Pensoft also hosted a booth at Entomology 2026.

This year’s gathering of the Entomological Society of America, Entomology 2026, immediately followed ECN’s proceedings, lasting until 11 November. Yet again, it proved itself among the largest global meetings of insect experts, enthusiasts and businesses, attracting over 2,000 attendees. As in previous editions, Pensoft Publishers sported a booth on the exhibition floor, where a wide variety of journals that push open-access entomological studies forward were on display, including NeoBiota, the Journal of Orthoptera Research (JOR), Alpine Entomology, African Invertebrates, Nota Lepidopterologica, Bulletin of Insectology and the Journal of Hymenoptera Research (JHR).

  • Entomology 2026, ESA’s 74th Annual Meeting.

Notably, another recent addition to the list, Advances in Pollinator Research (APR), was in the spotlight at the stand, with its Editor-in-Chief Lars Straub and Subject Editor Priya Basu engaging with the conference’s participants on site to discuss how the journal could support pollination-centric research from various perspectives and at different scales.

APR editors Lars Straub and Priya Basu, ready to greet Entomology 2026’s attendees.

The wider selection of journals with relevance to insect-based studies was also featured in the display, represented by the long-established Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), One Ecosystem, Nature Conservation, Frontiers of Biogeography, Metabarcoding & Metagenomics (MBMG) and the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ).

  • Pensoft’s journal portfolio on display.

In terms of Pensoft’s project portfolio, numerous entomological EU-funded initiatives were also introduced to the booth’s visitors – those were namely the pollination-centric PollinERA, WildPosh, VALOR and AGRI4POL as well as FORSAID, an endeavour to combat the spread of forest pests. Last but not least, Pensoft also seized this opportunity to showcase its latest innovations in communicating and disseminating science – the ARPHA publishing platform, the collaborative workspace ORPHO and the research project portal Scientiana.

Turning to Entomology 2026’s programme and the presentations delivered by some of the experts behind the company’s journals, some of the notable featured topics included:

  • The management of biodiversity informatics via innovative resources and tools for entomological research and collections, explored by Deborah Paul, the Editor-in-Chief of NHCM:
New frontiers in entomological informatics with Deborah Paul.
  • TaxonWorks, an integrated web-based workbench for biodiversity scientists, and its promise in pollinator studies, delivered by Matthew Yoder, Subject Editor for BDJ and author in JHR and ZooKeys:
Matthew Yoder with a flash survey on participants’ awareness of TaxonWorks.
  • Revising the taxonomy of more than 300 species of clown beetles (Histeridae), an ambitious research endeavour laid out by Michael S. Caterino, Subject Editor for and author in ZooKeys:
Clown beetles in focus in a showcase by Michael S. Caterino.

All in all, Pensoft’s presence at conferences of the calibre boasted by ECN2026 and Entomology 2026 remains as crucial as ever at a time when champions of open-science research are needed to usher in this concept’s prevalence on a global level.

Repeated attendances over the years, including that in 2026, have made clear the appreciation entomologists of all sub-disciplines express towards the company’s persistent and evolving pursuits of a truly FAIR standard for academic publishing.


Pensoft at the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference: Integrating the Diversity of Ecology

Between 13-17 September 2026, Pensoft Publishers joined the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference in Odense, Denmark.

Between 13-17 September 2026, Pensoft Publishers joined the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference, jointly organised by the Nordic Society Oikos and the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ) in Odense, Denmark.

Themed “Integrating the Diversity of Ecology”, the event welcomed over 1,000 researchers in the field from across career stages, who had the opportunity to enjoy conference talks across 36 thematic sessions, as many as six keynote talks, two poster sessions, several open society meetings and quite a few social events, including excursions and a conference dinner. 

Conference delegates enjoying the musical clock installation mounted on an elevated balcony on the glass façade of the ODEON building, where the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ 2026 conference took place between 13 and 17 September 2026.

Throughout the scientific event, conference delegates had the opportunity to also explore the various publishing services offered by Pensoft to authors of research, journal managers, conference organisers; the diverse portfolio of almost 100 open-access peer-reviewed journals published on Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform.

Beyond publishing solutions, a key focus was given to OBSGESSION: a Horizon Europe-funded project where Pensoft is actively involved. To better understand and predict changes in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, the OBSGESSION consortium integrates multi-source Earth Observation data (such as high-resolution satellite imagery and drone monitoring) with ground-based in-situ research, including advanced environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling. By coupling these data streams with cutting-edge detection-attribution modelling and machine learning algorithms, the project generates scalable Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs). These ecological approaches and analytical frameworks are actively tested and validated through six biodiversity pilots across diverse European ecosystems. In the open-science Research Ideas and Outcomes journal, you can find a collection of project outputs, including research papers, project reports and deliverables, and guideline papers published across journals and platforms.

At the Pensoft-OBSGESSION-branded booth, conference participants would stop by to chat with Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva and Senior Communications Officer: Desislava Raykova.

As a leader of the “Dissemination, Multi-stakeholder outreach and synergies” work package at OBSGESSION, Pensoft is tasked with stakeholder engagement and community building, ultimately contributing to the high impact of the resulting outputs, methodologies and policy recommendations that aim to strengthen public understanding of biodiversity change.

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

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One of the six keynote talks was presented by Prof. Dr. Isabell Hensen (Martin Luther University Halle, Germany), who received the GfÖ Honorary Medal 2026 for her leading, forward-looking contributions to ecological research and the scientific community. Her work examines how genetic variation, environmental conditions, disturbance, and plant-animal interactions shape plant populations, with particular emphasis on rare species, biological invasions, and the regeneration of degraded forests.

In her talk, titled “One spark is enough: regeneration ecology of Andean forests under global change”, she reported on post-fire regeneration processes in tropical Andean forests, based on long-term field experiments and observational studies. 

Hensen focused on the well-studied endemic plant genus Polylepis, which forms the world’s highest-elevation forests and illustrates how fire has shaped ecosystem dynamics over millennia. Her talk also mentioned a 2022 monograph of the genus, published in the Pensoft journal PhytoKeys by Tatiana Erika Boza Espinoza (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and Michael Kessler (University of Zurich), which brought together results from 35 years of field and herbarium experience.

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On Wednesday, Pensoft’s Iva Boyadzhieva delivered a presentation titled “Scholarly Communication: Lessons from the Publisher’s Kitchen”. She highlighted the vital role publishers play in helping researchers communicate their insights not only to peers, but also to decision-makers and the public. Emphasizing the publisher’s responsibility to support authors with robust infrastructure and dedicated human expertise, she outlined how Pensoft works to FAIRify scholarly publishing and future-proof scientific knowledge in an era of rapid AI development and expanding research output.

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Pensoft’s team was delighted to meet up with dedicated readers, authors, reviewers, and editors from across Pensoft’s portfolio, as well as introduce Pensoft journals to attendees discovering them for the first time.

Unsurprisingly, well-established society journals published by Pensoft, such as Frontiers of Biogeography, NeoBiota, Vegetation Classification and Survey, Vegetation Ecology and Diversity and Italian Botanist drew plenty of attention, alongside long-standing Pensoft’s own titles like Nature Conservation, PhytoKeys, One Ecosystem and the Biodiversity Data Journal. 

Visitors were also particularly intrigued by several newly launched Pensoft journals. Developed in close collaboration with passionate researchers, these fresh outlets directly address key gaps in academic publishing. 

One of the newly launched journals in the spotlight was Agricultural and Environmental Modelling (AEM), which provides a unique scholarly outlet thanks to its modern approach to publishing by increasing transparency, giving credit to research objects across the entire modelling research lifecycle. This is achieved through publishing specialised article types, such as: Formal Model, Model Testing and Calibration, Model Implementation and Documentation, Data Papers and Software Descriptions. These new publishing formats are designed to keep pace with advances in Modelling research and to make it FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) by enabling scholarly credit for diverse research outputs, often created by different groups of authors. For the time being, AEM remains a Diamond Open Access journal, meaning that it will not charge authors for open-access publication. 

Other recently founded journals addressing emerging and fast-developing disciplines within the ecological field that took the spotlight were:

  • Individual-Based Ecology: launched to support understanding and predicting ecological systems’ response to rapidly changing and novel conditions by linking individual responses to responses at higher levels of organisation.
  • Advances in Pollinator Research: a multidisciplinary journal publishing research on pollination ecology, pollinator-plant interactions, pollinator health and drivers of pollinator declines, crop and wild flower pollination, pollinator conservation practices, molecular ecology of pollinators, pollinator and pollination monitoring, decision support for policy and socio-economics.
  • Journal of Regeneration: a multidisciplinary journal for the dissemination of research results on regeneration and tissue repair across phyla. These mechanisms can be framed within an evolutionary framework and integrate a variety of cellular processes involving stem cells, dedifferentiating or even transdifferentiating cells. 

All of these journals operate with no article fees for either authors, nor readers.

To receive updates on new publications and relevant news, sign up for Email Alerts on any journal’s homepage. Creating a Pensoft account also allows users to  easily customise their notification preferences, follow additional journals, or filter updates by research topic. You can also follow journals on social media, including BlueSky, Facebook and Linkedin.

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Supporting European Policy Through Priority Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs)

Delegates at the event showed strong interest in OBSGESSION’s first policy brief: “Prioritising Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) to support European Union (EU) policy needs based on the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.” To tackle a critical challenge in environmental monitoring, OBSGESSION focuses on prioritising key EBVs to directly support the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 – a roadmap designed to put Europe’s biodiversity on a path to recovery through 102 specific actions and sub-actions.

To align these policy needs with actionable data, the OBSGESSION team conducted an assessment to identify priority EBV candidates. By categorising EBV-applicable actions and indicators across different ecosystem realms and implementation stages, the project pinpointed the most essential variables needed to strengthen monitoring, reporting, and policy execution. The document is based on a deliverable by the project (D1.1 Policy Landscape and Needs Assessment).

This policy brief is part of a broader, ongoing effort within OBSGESSION to bridge the gap between biodiversity data and policy execution. To dive deeper into the science behind this topic, the project has hosted a dedicated seminar series exploring key aspects of the framework:

Bringing Methodologies to Life Across European Ecosystems

Beyond theoretical frameworks, OBSGESSION grounds its research in six biodiversity validation pilots across Europe. The case studies represent European biodiversity and ecosystem conservation challenges at scales varying from local to regional. Full details on each ecosystem pilot are now available in a collection of newly published pilot factsheets, which made their debut at the conference, where people could take a look at their digital versions. 

Reading those materials gives an insight into the practical testing environment to demonstrate how Earth observation, field research, and ecological modelling come together to deliver actionable biodiversity insights. You can also check out OBSGESSION’s biodiversity pilots on the project’s website.

The OBSGESSION in a Nutshell video presents a concise overview of the project’s overarching mission and components.

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To relive the conference by exploring the detailed programme alongside the full abstracts, visit the conference website.

Keep up with future updates and news from Pensoft by following us on Bluesky, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. 

Pensoft at the European Small Mammal Conservation Conference 2026

The inaugural conference took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, bringing together researchers, conservationists and practitioners to address gaps in small mammal research and monitoring. 

The inaugural European Small Mammal Conservation Conference (SMCC 2026) took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 21 to 25 September 2026, bringing together researchers, conservationists and practitioners from across Europe and beyond to address gaps in small mammal research and monitoring. 

Table of Contents

Organised jointly by the Habitat Foundation, the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Dutch Mammal Society and Mammal Conservation Europe, with support from the Faculty of Biology at Sofia University, the conference formed part of the Life for Falcons project, funded by the EU LIFE Programme.

This year’s conference was held jointly with the 33rd Hamster Working Group and the VIII European Ground Squirrel Meeting, making hamsters and sousliks the primary focus, alongside broader topics including renewable energy development, agricultural impacts, reintroductions, predator–prey interactions and innovative methodologies in small mammal research.

Pensoft’s Participation

We were delighted to participate in SMCC 2026 with an exhibition booth, showcasing the breadth of publishing services we offer to the biodiversity and conservation community. It was a pleasure to present our portfolio of journals dedicated to advancing research across ecology, biodiversity and conservation.

  • Pensoft’s booth at SMCC 2026.

We were particularly proud to present the following journals:

  • Pensoft’s journal portfolio exhibited at SMCC 2026.

Meeting delegates from across the small mammal research community was tremendously rewarding, and we thoroughly enjoyed discussing how our journals can support and amplify their work.

Beyond our academic offerings, we were particularly excited to showcase beautiful art prints illustrated by our in-house scientific illustrator, Denitsa Peneva. The collection featured stunning depictions of otters, olinguitos and hamsters.

Pensoft’s art prints at SMCC 2026.

Conference Highlights

The scientific programme was exceptional, and we were privileged to attend many outstanding presentations that demonstrated the importance of innovative monitoring approaches and conservation action.

Lessons from Citizen Science for Small Mammal Conservation Monitoring in Great Britain

We were delighted to attend a talk by Matt Larsen-Daw, Chief Executive of the Mammal Society (UK), which presented a portfolio of citizen science programmes designed to address distribution knowledge and population monitoring across Great Britain. The programmes, united by the Mammal Mapper smartphone app, included the National Harvest Mouse Survey, the Searching for Shrews initiative, and the University Mammal Challenge. 

The presentation highlighted the value of standardised effort data, the differing trade-offs between structured and opportunistic recording, and the potential for these approaches to be applied across European contexts.

Matt Larsen-Daw presenting “Lessons from citizen science for small mammal conservation monitoring in Great Britain” at SMCC 2026.

Strong Decline of Hamster Populations in Bulgaria

We were equally impressed by Nedko Nedyalkov’s presentation documenting the significant decline in distribution and abundance of both the common hamster (Cricetus cricetus) and the Romanian hamster (Mesocricetus newtoni) across Bulgaria. The research revealed that population reductions, detected through owl pellet analysis and trapping methods, likely began in the 1950s with agricultural intensification and continue today. 

Given that both species are strictly protected under the EU Habitats Directive yet lack active conservation projects, the presentation substantiated the urgent need for targeted conservation measures. We are also pleased to note that Nedko serves as a subject editor for two of our open-access journals, ZooKeys and the Biodiversity Data Journal.

Nedko Nedyalkov presenting “Strong decline of the distribution and abundance of Cricetus cricetus and Mesocricetus newtoni (Mammalia: Cricetinae) in Bulgaria” at SMCC 2026.

Reintroduced Saker Falcons and Their Dependence on European Ground Squirrels

Yana Andonova’s presentation on the diet of Bulgaria’s reintroduced saker falcon population provided compelling evidence of the breeding birds’ overwhelming dependence on the European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus) as a primary food source.

Through food-remain analysis, visual observations and camera-trap monitoring, the research documented that ground squirrels comprised over 80 per cent of identified prey items, with small rodents accounting for 89 per cent overall! It is also worth mentioning that Andonova is an author in our open-access Biodiversity Data Journal.

Yana Andonova presenting “Reintroduced Saker Falcons (Falco cherrug Gray, 1834) are dependent on European ground squirrels during the breeding period in Bulgaria” at SMCC 2026.

Looking Forward

Attending SMCC 2026 was a genuine pleasure and particularly meaningful given that the conference took place in Sofia, the city in which our company is based. Connecting with researchers and conservationists working at the forefront of small mammal conservation, and sharing our commitment to advancing biodiversity research through open-access publishing, reinforced our dedication to supporting this important field. 

We look very much forward to engaging with this community again at future events!

Follow us on Bluesky, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn for future conference updates.

Human-Driven Fires Have Shaped The Amazonian Forest For Over 10,000 Years

New pyrogeographic research indicates that over thousands of years, human-induced fires have contributed to vegetation change in parts of the Amazon.

New research is dismantling the long-standing myth of the “pristine” Amazon. A reconstruction of 10,000 years of Amazonian pyrogeography, based on 1,361 radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates across 303 sites – including soil charcoal and burned archaeological material – shows that fire in the rainforest is almost exclusively a human-driven phenomenon, not a natural one.

Over the last two millennia, human-ignited fire has driven vegetation change on a scale comparable to major climatic shifts, such as deglaciation or the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna.

Table of Contents

The research has been published in the open-access, peer-reviewed Frontiers of Biogeography journal.

The human spark

Amazonian fires rarely, if ever, ignite without human input. In the pre-human evolutionary history of these wet forests, fire was an exceptional rarity.

Forest fire in the Brazilian Amazon
Forest fire in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit to J Brarymi via Getty images.

Glacial-aged paleoecological reconstructions from sites like the Hill of Six Lakes in Brazil and the Serra Sul dos Carajás reveal that charcoal was either entirely absent or present in only minuscule amounts before human arrival. Even more striking, the Campo Libre sediment core on the Andean slopes of Ecuador showed a total absence of fire for 30,000 years, ending only when humans appeared on the landscape around 4,500 years ago.

Lead author Crystal N. H. McMichael of the University of Amsterdam describes the arrival of humans as the introduction of fire to a “naïve landscape.” Because Amazonian plants are evolutionarily fire-sensitive, the introduction of regular burning by a fire-using species fundamentally altered a system that had been stable since the late Pleistocene.

The ignition timeline

By compiling and analysing 1,361 (¹⁴C) radiocarbon-dated charcoal fragments and archaeological materials, researchers mapped a history of human-driven fire across Amazonia that unfolded over three phases of the Holocene. 

Map of Amazonian sites with 1329 14C AMS dated charcoal fragments or burned archaeological material used in the summed probability analyses. Sites are color coded by geographic region: central (CA), eastern (EA), northwestern (WAN), southwestern (WAS), southern (SA) Amazonia, and Guiana Shield (GS). Symbols denote new 14C dates from this study (squares inside dashed boxes), and previously published 14C dates from soil charcoal surveys (circles) and archaeological surveys (triangles). Symbol size indicates the number of 14C dates at each site. Tree cover is shown as the fractional tree cover in proportions ranging from 0 to 1 for the year 2020 (Liu et al. 2024); b. Frequencies of 14C dates over the last 12,000 years for this study (left), previously published dated soil charcoal fragments from paleoecological surveys (center), or previously published dated material from archaeological sites (right). Credit to McMichael et al., 2026.

Between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, fires were highly restricted, occurring primarily within the basin’s peripheral areas and along the main channel of the Amazon River. This localised footprint shifted dramatically between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, as the geographic spread of fire and occupation sites accelerated sharply across most regions – a development that coincided with the onset of early maize cultivation in northwestern and southwestern Amazonia. 

Finally, between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, fire reached the deep interior of the basin: though central Amazonia had remained a relatively fire-free refuge for thousands of years while the periphery burned, it was ultimately transformed as expanding human influence and fire-use reached the very heart of the forest. 

The dying fire

This human-driven fire history is marked by a dramatic, two-phase decline over the last 700 years. 

Summed probability distribution of 14C AMS dated charcoal fragments and burned archaeological material (N = 1329 dates over 303 sites) for the last 10,000 years (a) and a zoom-in of the last 2000 years (b). Panels (c) and (d) show the composite kernel density estimates based on 1000 iterations of randomly sampled ages for the last 10,000 years and 2000 years. The black dashed line in (c) and (d) is the mean probability of all 1000 iterations, and the green shaded areas are confidence intervals. Ship icon and vertical dashed line in (b) and (d) indicate the timing of the first expedition down the Amazon River in A.D. 1541. Credit to McMichael et al., 2026.

First, an initial decrease in fire frequency 600 to 700 years ago which supports the “early abandonment” of lands several centuries before European arrival. Physical evidence from lake sediments shows a significant “pollen surge” during this window, signaling massive reforestation and a major pre-Columbian shift in land use or site abandonment.

The second and larger decline followed the “Great Dying” after A.D. 1541, when disease, warfare, and enslavement killed an estimated 90-95% of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. As ignitions vanished with the population, the forest entered a second, more extensive phase of recovery. 

The ecological legacy of 10 000 years of fire

Burning fire
Burning fire. Credit to Keith Lowery via Pexels.

These changing fire patterns – particularly over the last two millennia – led to an increase in human-caused fires, which spread across all regions and accelerated changes in vegetation. Ultimately, this left a profound ecological imprint that has strongly shaped today’s plant communities by selectively favoring fire-tolerant species, such as palms, over fire-sensitive vegetation.

The restructuring of Amazonian pyrogeography over the last 2,000 years has likely played a large role in shaping modern forests. The intensification of fire during this period induced rates and magnitudes of vegetation change that are comparable to major climatic shifts. The impact was subtle,  favoring species that were already there but showed the most fire tolerance, such as some palms, but this pressure has undoubtedly changed the configuration of Amazonian plant communities.

the team explained in their research article

Citation:

McMichael CNH, Heijink BM, Witteveen NH, Zwarts A, Bush MB (2026) The pyrogeography of Amazonia: a Holocene perspective. Frontiers of Biogeography 19: e169863. https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.19.169863

Houseflies and Blowflies – Not Bees – Are Among South Africa’s Best Mango Pollinators, But Climate Change Threatens Future Harvests

Study introduces a new way to measure pollinator “effectiveness,” not just presence, revealing that climate change could shrink suitable habitat for key mango pollinators by more than 40% in coming decades

Some of the most important pollinators for South Africa’s mango industry aren’t bees at all – they’re houseflies and blowflies, according to a recently published study in Frontiers of Biogeography by scientists at University College London (UCL).

The study, led by Matthew Phillips Sánchez and Richard Pearson of UCL’s Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, set out to find not just which insects visit mango flowers, but which ones actually pollinate them effectively.

Table of Contents

Not all visitors are pollinators

Visiting vs. pollinating species of mango in South Africa. Insect visitors of mango in South Africa (61), composed of five orders and 15 families (‘Visitors’). Compiled from global studies describing visitors to mango flowers, which are also present in South Africa with at least 20 occurrence records on GBIF. Thirty-eight of these are pollinators (pollen deposition effectiveness > 0), belonging to two orders and eight families (‘Pollinators’). Credit to Sánchez and Pearson, 2026.

Mango flowers attract a huge range of insect visitors, but many never touch the flower’s reproductive parts and so transfer no pollen at all. To separate the true pollinators from the freeloaders, the researchers used a Pollen Deposition Effectiveness (PDE) metric, which combines how often a species visits mango flowers, how often those visits make contact with the flower’s reproductive organs, and how much pollen is deposited per visit.

illustrative graphic on mango pollination size
Graphic credit to Matthew Phillips Sánchez, 2026.

Applying this method to 61 known mango-visiting insect species found in South Africa, the team identified 38 true pollinators – and found that flies, not bees, were the amongst the more effective pollinators. Blowflies (family Calliphoridae), the housefly (Musca domestica), and a tiny stingless bee species, Liotrigona bottegoi, ranked as the most effective pollinators identified in the study. Larger insects such as honeybees and carpenter bees (Xylocopa) were generally less effective per visit, likely because their bigger bodies make less consistent contact with the small mango flower’s reproductive structures.

Insects from the orders Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Coleoptera (beetles) and Hemiptera (true bugs) were found not to contribute meaningfully to pollination, either because they don’t make contact with the flower’s reproductive parts or because there wasn’t enough data to assess them.

A shrinking future for mango pollinators

The researchers combined their pollinator effectiveness data with species distribution models, statistical tools that predict where a species can survive based on climate, to project how pollinator habitat in South Africa’s main mango-growing provinces (Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal) might change under future climate scenarios.

The results point to widespread declines. On average, pollinator species are projected to lose 42% (under a moderate-emissions scenario) to 43% (under a high-emissions scenario) of their currently suitable habitat by 2061-2080 or 66,663 km2 and 73,608 km2 respectively.

Mango pollinator species richness and potential pollination provision. Species richness and potential pollinator provision under present-day climate (left column) and SDM-predicted changes under two climate change scenarios (right columns). Credit to Sánchez and Pearson, 2026.

Flies were projected to be hit hardest, while some bee species were projected to gain ground in parts of the region. The study also found that pollinator communities are likely to undergo substantial species turnover, with many current pollinators potentially shifting toward the country’s south as the climate changes.

Encouragingly, the researchers found that potential pollination service didn’t decline much faster than pollinator numbers overall – a sign of what ecologists call “functional redundancy,” where many species contribute moderate pollination value rather than the community depending on one or two irreplaceable species. This suggests the loss of some species is less likely to cause a sudden pollination collapse, provided enough functionally similar species remain.

The mango industry

mangoes on a tree
Tomy mangoes by alexanruiz via Envato.

Mango is a significant industry in South Africa, valued at more than US$25 million annually and supporting over 13,000 jobs in processing and related trades, in addition to many smallholder and subsistence growers who rely heavily on wild, unmanaged pollinators.

The authors stress that their study is intended primarily as a proof-of-concept for this new modeling approach, rather than a definitive forecast of mango production. The models estimate climatically suitable habitat, not realised populations, and do not account for land use, habitat availability, or the timing of mango flowering relative to pollinator activity.

Practical steps for growers

pile of mangoes
Pile of Fresh Mangoes by elxeneize via Envato.

The researchers highlight several low-cost conservation measures that could help support wild pollinator populations in mango orchards, including reducing pesticide and herbicide use, setting up low-cost “stink stations” to attract pollinating blowflies, planting native flowering plants or allowing wildflowers to grow between orchard rows to provide food and nesting sites for pollinators, and increasing overall plant diversity within orchards.

Original source: 

Sánchez MP, Pearson R (2026) Biogeography of pollination under climate change: integrating pollinator effectiveness into species distribution models for mango in South Africa. Frontiers of Biogeography 19: e180771. https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.19.180771 

Four Pensoft-Published Journals Now Indexed in CABI

Our in-house indexing team works tirelessly to maintain the highest standards and to secure indexing for Pensoft-published journals across a growing range of indexing services. Our team works closely with journal editors and leverages the automated and manual workflows of the ARPHA Publishing Platform to export rich XML metadata, submit content to global databases, and maintain long-term digital preservation.

As of August 2026, these four Pensoft-published, open-access, peer-reviewed journals are now indexed in CABI. 

Indexing will begin with the latest volume, covering articles published from the start of 2026.

CABI’s full-text repository, as of May 2026, spans over 1,003,300 documents and continues to grow, fully integrated into CABI’s databases – including CAB Abstracts, Global Health, Subject Collections, and Database Subsets. Furthermore, readers with a CABI subscription gain instant, automatic access to all corresponding full-text material.

This marks a step forward in ensuring that research published in these journals reaches an even wider audience of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners worldwide.

Explore the latest issues of Frontiers of Biogeography, Phytologia Balcanica, Scientific Annals of the Danube Delta Institute, and Vegetation Ecology and Diversity – and stay tuned for individual announcements covering each journal in more detail. 

Pensoft at ESA 2026: Connecting with the Ecology Community in Salt Lake City, USA

Between 26-31 July, Pensoft Publishers joined more than 2,600 ecologists, researchers, and conservation professionals in Salt Lake City for the 111th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA2026).

Pensoft Publishers joined more than 2,600 ecologists, researchers, and conservation professionals in Salt Lake City for the 111th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA2026) between 26-31 July.

Table of Contents

  1. Ecology in an Era of Uncertainty
  2. The Opening Session
  3. Pensoft’s booth
  4. Two Interactive Activities at Our Booth
    1. The Pensoft Species Quiz
    2. The Agricultural and Environmental Modelling Poster Award
  5. Looking Ahead

Ecology in an Era of Uncertainty

  • Opening ceremony of ESA 2026.
    Opening ceremony of ESA 2026.
  • Opening ceremony of ESA 2026.
    Opening ceremony of ESA 2026.

This year’s conference theme, “Ecology in an Era of Uncertainty,” could not have felt more timely. Uncertainty is nothing new to ecological research – it’s built into measurements, mechanisms, and predictions.

But new sources of uncertainty are now reshaping the field: the rise of artificial intelligence, post-pandemic shifts in career development, and growing instability in research funding. Throughout the week, the ESA community came together not only to share cutting-edge ecological research, but also to think collectively about how to navigate these emerging challenges – trading multidisciplinary, creative solutions to keep the field resilient in the face of what’s next.

The Opening Session

The Grand Ballroom was packed for the opening session, where Conference Chairs Daniel Stover and Andrea Swei welcomed attendees. Despite a challenging year for funding and travel, the 111th annual meeting of ESA 2026 hosted 2,600 registered attendees 330 sessions and 884 posters,

The opening address was delivered by Diane Pitaki, Chief Scientist and Vice President for Science at the National Wildlife Federation, who spoke about ecology standing at a crossroads amid the biodiversity crisis and shifting political headwinds, urging the community to actively “defend conservation science.”

Among the meeting’s standout moments was the plenary from Tanya Berger-Wolf, Professor of Computer Science and Ecology at Ohio State University and a leading figure in AI for ecology and biodiversity.

Notably, Berger-Wolf will be a keynote speaker at TDWG 2026 in Oslo (20-25 September) – where Pensoft Publishers will once again be exhibiting, so stay tuned for future updates.

Pensoft’s booth

Situated right at the entrance of the exhibition hall, Pensoft’s booth revelled in attention from attendees throughout the week.

  • Pensoft's team at ESA 2026 in Salt Palace Convention Center.
    Pensoft’s team at ESA 2026 in Salt Palace Convention Center.
  • Pensoft's busy stand at the 111th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America.
    Pensoft’s busy stand at the 111th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America.
  • Pensoft's busy stand at the 111th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America.
    Pensoft’s busy stand at the 111th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America.
  • The beautiful Denitsa Peneva's illustrations at ESA 2026.
    The beautiful Denitsa Peneva’s illustrations at ESA 2026.

A particular highlight was our trio of diamond open-access journals – free to publish in and free to read – that drew considerable interest from attendees:

  • Individual-Based Ecology promotes a distinctive individual-based perspective on ecology, aiming to bridge individual behaviour and broader ecological patterns.
  • Advances in Pollinator Research is designed as an innovative platform for the full spectrum of pollinator science, from pollination ecology and pollinator-plant interactions to molecular ecology, conservation, and more.
  • Agricultural and Environmental Modelling (AEM), meanwhile, offers an innovative approach to publishing, dedicated to advancing both the science and practice of modelling across agriculture, food systems, natural resources, and environmental sciences.
  • Brochure of the diamond open-access Individual-Based Ecology Journal.
    Brochure of the diamond open-access Individual Based Ecology Journal.
  • Close up photo of the Advances in Pollinator Research brochure at ESA 2026.
    Close up photo of the Advances in Pollinator Research brochure at ESA 2026.
  • Nicole Nogoy, managing editor of Agricultural and Environmental Modelling at ESA 2026.
    Nicole Nogoy, managing editor of Agricultural and Environmental Modelling at ESA 2026.

Attendees curious about AEM had the chance to speak directly with its Managing Editor, Nicole Nogoy, who was on site throughout the conference to discuss publishing opportunities and promote the journal’s search for Subject Editors. 

The booth also gave visitors a window into the rest of Pensoft’s open-access portfolio. On the conservation side, that meant Nature Conservation and Neotropical Biology and Conservation; on the ecosystem side, One Ecosystem, Frontiers of Biogeography, and NeoBiota. 

  • NeoBiota brochure presented at ESA 2026.
    NeoBiota brochure presented at ESA 2026.
  • Neotropical Biology and Conservation brochure at ESA 2026.
    Neotropical Biology and Conservation brochure at ESA 2026.

Attendees also had the chance to learn more about our diamond open-access journal Estuarine Management and Technologies, which was accepted into the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) earlier this year. 

Estuarine Management and Technologies brochure.

Rounding out the display were several more specialised titles: Biodiversity Data Journal and Metabarcoding and Metagenomics; Quite popular amongst the visitors were also our our fungi-focused IMA Fungus and MycoKeys journals; and our vegetation titles, Vegetation Classification and Survey and Vegetation Ecology and Diversity.

We also introduced attendees to our newest addition, the diamond open-access Journal of Regeneration. For those interested in sharing early-stage research or project outcomes, Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) offered another avenue worth exploring, publishing everything from project proposals and data to policy briefs and null results.

Those looking for a new publisher or white-label solutions had the opportunity to explore ARPHA, Pensoft’s own publishing platform, which supports the full journey from manuscript writing and peer review to publication, dissemination, and archiving – all in one seamless workflow. 

Combined brochure of EU-Funded project in which Pensoft participates.

Beyond the journals and publishing solutions, the team took the opportunity to spotlight some of Pensoft’s ongoing EU-funded projects, including our pollination initiatives and our continued work with eLTER. 

Two Interactive Activities at Our Booth

Building on the success of interactive formats at previous events, namely the Fortune Wheel at the 8th European Congress of Conservation Biology in Leiden, our team brought two activities to ESA2026.

The Pensoft Species Quiz

Attendees taking our fun quiz at ESA 2026.

This time around, our team created “Pensoft Species Quiz,” challenging booth visitors to identify the correct Latin name for a series of species beautifully illustrated by Denitsa Peneva. Being more than just a fun activity, it became a natural conversation starter – leading into deeper discussions about Pensoft’s journals, services, and potential collaborations with attendees.

  • Some of the winners from our quiz at ESA 2026.
    Some of the winners from our quiz at ESA 2026.
  • Some of the winners from our quiz at ESA 2026.
    Some of the winners from our quiz at ESA 2026.
  • Some of the winners from our quiz at ESA 2026.
    Happy winners from our interactive quiz game at ESA 2026.
  • Attendees interacting with our fun quiz.
    Attendees interacting with our fun quiz.

The Agricultural and Environmental Modelling Poster Award

AEM’s Managing Editor – Nicole Nogoy ran a poster competition at the meeting, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our week. Three researchers stood out:

  • Julian Resasco (University of Colorado, Boulder) took home the prize for overall best presentation with a hand-drawn comic-book poster on climate change effects on Basque country thistles;
  • Gwendolyn Lloyd (Indiana University) impressed us with her research on arthropods and mites in agricultural soils;
  • Emily Redding (Fort Hays State University, KS) joined in with a poster on fire suppression’s effects on Juniper-dependent bird species, having been inspired to bring modelling into her own research. 

We also took part in a raffle organised by ESA, to which each exhibitor contributed a prize.

  • Kanchana Balasubramanian one of the winners of Pensoft Publishers' raffle prizes at ESA2026.
    Kanchana Balasubramanian one of the winners of Pensoft Publishers’ raffle prizes at ESA2026.
  • Elizabeth Afkhami Searcy received our book "Mapping Ecosystem Services" as part of the Ecological Society of America's conference raffle.
    Elizabeth Afkhami Searcy received our book “Mapping Ecosystem Services” as part of the Ecological Society of America’s conference raffle.

Looking Ahead

ESA2026 was a strong reminder of just how much energy – and uncertainty – is currently shaping the ecology community. Between thought-provoking plenaries on AI and conservation science, engaging conversations sparked by our species quiz, and the enthusiasm we saw around the AEM poster competition, it was a week full of meaningful connections for Pensoft.

We’re already looking forward to the next time, and we hope you’re looking forward to it, too!

Keep up with future updates and news by following us on Bluesky, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.

Pensoft awarded the FAO AGRIS Seal of Recognition for 2027

The seal recognises institutions that consistently share open-access agricultural research with the global community.

Pensoft has been awarded the Seal of Recognition for the FAO AGRIS Active Data Provider of the Year for 2027. The seal is granted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations through its AGRIS initiative, and it recognises institutions that consistently share open-access agricultural research with the global community.

Notably, Pensoft joined the FAO AGRIS network back in 2024, and the organisation has renewed our seal every year since, a recognition we’re proud to have kept.

What has changed is the scale of our contribution. In 2024, Pensoft’s records on AGRIS numbered just under 15,000. Today, that figure has doubled to nearly 30,000, drawn from all 51 of our journals that fall within the scope of FAO AGRIS. The subjects covered are wide-ranging, spanning taxonomy, biodiversity, conservation and biogeography – these are all areas that feed directly into sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.

Through AGRIS, this research travels well beyond our own journals to researchers, policymakers and practitioners worldwide, adding to the shared pool of open knowledge that supports global food security and environmental sustainability. We’re glad to keep contributing to that effort, and look forward to continuing our work with FAO AGRIS in the years to come.

About FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Its goal is to achieve food security for all, ensuring that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With 194 members, 193 countries and the European Union, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide.

About Pensoft

Founded in 1992 “by scientists, for scientists,” Pensoft is an academic open-access publishing company well known worldwide for its cutting-edge publishing tools, workflows and methods for text and data publishing of journals, books and conference materials. In 2010, Pensoft became the first scientific publisher to introduce semantic enrichments in scholarly publications. Through its Research and Technical Development department, the company is involved in a range of research and technology projects.

In Productive Ecosystems, Larger Animals Capture More Energy Per Species – but Human Pressure is Reshaping the Balance

A global analysis of more than 12,000 bird and mammal species reveals that ecosystems do not share energy evenly across body sizes and human activities influence this.

Guest blog post by Luis Camacho & Miguel Araújo

A global analysis of more than 12,000 bird and mammal species reveals that ecosystems do not share energy evenly across body sizes. Small species dominate in numbers, but in high-productivity regions their abundance is spread so thinly across many species that larger animals end up capturing more energy per species. Human activity compounds these patterns by selectively eroding large-bodied diversity.

How does an ecosystem distribute its energy across body sizes? A new study suggests the answer depends on where you are – and how much humans have altered the landscape. Analysing communities of birds and mammals worldwide, researchers show that larger-bodied species can, on average, capture more energy per species than smaller ones, particularly in highly productive environments. The work also reveals that human impacts restructure these patterns by disproportionately removing large-bodied species from local communities.

The research, led by Luis F. Camacho and Miguel B. Araújo is published in Frontiers of Biogeography, the journal of the International Biogeography Society.

Why body size matters for how ecosystems share energy

Workflow diagram to predict the individual density per km2 of mammal and bird species across a one-degree cell grid globally. A. Global density of data points of empirical estimates of species abundance used for model training; B. Example of 80% training and 20% testing blocks used per fold in our modelling framework; C. Global maps showing the sum of predicted abundance per km2 of all species across one-degree cells; D. Global estimations of species body mass-abundance relationships (MAR-SPP), individual mass distributions (IMD) and richness mass distributions (RMD). Credit to Camacho & Araújo, 2026.

Ecologists have long observed that larger species tend to have smaller populations: a bigger body requires more energy to sustain, so fewer individuals can be supported. A slope of −0.75 in the log–log relationship between body mass and abundance has been proposed as a null expectation – the point at which every species, regardless of size, commands an equal share of ecosystem energy. Yet testing this idea globally has been difficult because abundance data are patchy across regions and taxa.

This study tackles that limitation head-on. By combining large global datasets of abundance and distributions of species, the authors model local populations of birds and mammals across the planet and ask: is ecosystem energy concentrated in a few large organisms, or dispersed among many small ones – and how does that change from place to place?

What the team did

Using extensive abundance datasets and species trait information, the authors modelled population densities (individuals per km²) for 12,057 terrestrial bird and mammal species on a global grid at one-degree resolution. This enabled them to reconstruct community structure across environments and to examine three complementary signatures of how body size relates to energy and diversity within communities: the body mass–abundance relationship across species (how abundance declines with body size), the individual mass distribution (how individuals are distributed across body sizes regardless of species identity), and the richness mass distribution (how species richness is distributed across body sizes). They then related these patterns to two major global drivers: ecosystem productivity (net primary productivity) and human pressure (human footprint index).

Key findings

Relationship between species body mass and abundance (dark blue), individual mass distribution (light blue) and species-richness mass distribution (orange) in communities across one-degree cells as a function of global gradients of net primary productivity (NPP) (A, C) and human footprint (B, C). MAR-SPP, IMD and RMD slopes represent the exponent in power law relationships. Panel A shows the NPP effect on MAR-SPP, IMD and RMD values adjusted for human footprint and panel B shows the human-footprint effect adjusted for NPP. In A and B, the graph uses a boxplot format where the white central section represents the interquartile range between 25% and 75%, the central line denotes the median and the shaded areas indicate the whiskers. Outliers are omitted for clarity. The dashed line depicts a reference of slope = -0.75. Boxplots were calculated in intervals of 0.001 for NPP and every unit of human footprint raised to the 1/4 power. Lines were smoothed with a loess regression with a 0.06 span (α). The boxplots were drawn from the mean value per one-degree cell across 10 global datasets. In A and B, thicker lines represent the mean slopes of 10,000 general linear model (GLM) iterations (1000 iterations on 10 data sets), based on random samples of 20 one-degree cells. In C, GLM slopes are shown across the combined effects of NPP and human footprint. GLM slopes (thick lines in A and B and coloured areas in C) appear to depict non-linear relationships because of back-transformation of NPP and human footprint, which were squared-root and fourth-root transformed for GLM. Credit to

1. Productive ecosystems tilt energy capture towards larger species.

As productivity increases, the study finds that small-bodied species become more diverse without a matching rise in total abundance. Individuals are effectively “spread thinner” across more small-bodied species, reducing the average energy share per small-bodied species. Meanwhile, large-bodied species – fewer in number but less diluted by richness – end up capturing more energy on average. The body mass-abundance slope ranged from approximately −0.69 in the least productive environments to −0.35 in the most productive, consistently shallower than the −0.75 null expectation.

2. Human pressure reshapes community organisation, with lasting consequences.

Human activity produces a shift in these relationships that resembles – but is mechanistically distinct from – the productivity effect. Human impact operates primarily by reducing both the abundance and, more strongly, the species richness of large organisms. This likely reflects the well-documented disproportionate extirpation of large-bodied species by human activities, leaving a persistent imprint on how energy and diversity are distributed across body sizes.

3. Energy distribution and ecological opportunity vary independently.

Across the globe, patterns of energy flow across body sizes and the opportunities for diversification (how many species exist at each body size) can decouple. Interestingly, the distribution of species richness across body sizes was more stable across environments than the distribution of energy – yet it had a stronger influence on the body mass–abundance relationship. This helps explain why simple, one-size-fits-all expectations about body size and abundance often fail at large scales.

Why it matters

The authors argue that body mass–abundance–richness relationships can serve as a functional metric of ecological change – capturing not just how many species are present, but how ecosystems allocate individuals and energy across body sizes. This matters for biodiversity assessments because losing large-bodied diversity can reorganise ecosystems in ways that species counts alone cannot reveal. Specifically, these patterns may help improve biodiversity offset strategies and address the risk of underestimating the ecological importance of large-bodied species.

Small-bodied animals still dominate numerically, but in productive ecosystems they are divided among many more species. That dilution changes the per-species share of individuals and, by extension, energy.

Luis F. Camacho, first author

Human pressure does not just remove species; it reshapes the functional organisation of communities. Looking at body size, abundance, and richness together reveals structural changes that standard indicators miss.

Miguel B. Araújo, senior author

Original source:

Camacho LF, Araújo MB (2026) Body mass–abundance relationships reveal uneven global energy distribution across body size classes in vertebrates. Frontiers of Biogeography 19: e164408. https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.19.164408