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.
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.
Users of any journal or platform hosted on ARPHA will no longer need to remember, store, or update passwords to access their journal accounts.
In a new upgrade, ARPHA, the scholarly publishing platform, developed by scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, improves user experience across its entire portfolio of around 100 open-access peer-reviewed journals, conference outputs and preprint publication venues.
Users of any journal or platform hosted on ARPHA will no longer need to remember, store, or update passwords to access their journal accounts. By adopting passwordless log-in, signing-in is now seamless, faster, and significantly more secure.
How to sign in?
Whether you are submitting a manuscript, reviewing a paper, or managing an editorial workload, getting into your account takes just a few clicks:
Magic link: Enter your email address on the log-in page. You will receive an email titled “Sign in to [Journal Name]” containing a single-click Sign-in button.
Cross-device 6-digit code: If you request sign-in on your computer but open the email on another device, the email will display a 6-digit code. Simply enter this code into your browser to log in.
Google or ORCID: You can also sign in instantly using your Google or ORCID account.
How to register as a new user?
New users register using the exact same streamlined process. They simply need to enter their email address to get started. Alternatively, they can sign up by either filling out the form or using their ORCID account.
Why ditch passwords?
Password-based authentication is quickly becoming an outdated security standard. Moving away from passwords offers major benefits for researchers and editors:
No password risks: Weak, reused, or compromised passwords are the leading cause of online account breaches. Removing passwords eliminates this vulnerability entirely.
Resistance to phishing: Phishing pages can no longer capture user credentials because no passwords exist on our platform.
Verified communication: Every log-in re-verifies ownership of your email address, keeping user profiles accurate and active.
Proven standard: This approach follows modern authentication standards trusted by the majority of trusted platforms worldwide.
How does it improve security?
This upgrade adds multi-layered protections to keep your data safe:
Single-use & time-sensitive access: Magic links expire in 15 minutes, and 6-digit codes expire in 10 minutes. Requesting a new sign-in email instantly invalidates previous links.
Browser-bound verification: Verification codes are bound specifically to the original browser session. Even if someone gets hold of the link or code, they cannot use it from an unauthorised device.
Attempt & rate limits: Sessions lock automatically after 5 incorrect code entries. There are also limits on how many emails can be requested over a short timeframe.
Cryptographic hash storage: ARPHA does not store raw passwords, links, or codes, which ensures that user data remains fully secure.
Safe from automated email scanners: Enterprise security software and email scanners won’t accidentally trigger or invalidate your link; log-in requires an explicit user click.
What to keep in mind?
Because account access is linked directly to your email, your account security depends on how secure your inbox is. We strongly recommend enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) on your personal/institutional email provider.
It is with deep sadness that Pensoft bids farewell to Prof. Dr. Josef Settele, a longtime friend, author, editor, and partner.
On 9 October 2026, Prof. Dr. Josef Settele passed away unexpectedly. The news has left all of us at Pensoft shaken and deeply saddened. To the wider scientific world, he was considered one of Europe’s most influential biodiversity researchers. But to us, he was “Sepp”: a good friend, a colleague and a collaborator of many years.
A scientist who built bridges
Prof. Dr. Josef Settele trained as an agroecologist at the University of Hohenheim and later joined the newly founded Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig in 1993. There he headed the Department of Conservation Biology. Over the following decades he became a leading voice on insect conservation, and on how climate change and land use affect biodiversity.
Prof. Settele. Photo from Prof. Stoev’s personal archive.
He coordinated large international teams, and his work reached from the lab and the field to the halls where policy is made. He served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. He was a Co-Chair of the IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and had been a member of the IPBES Multidisciplinary Expert Panel since 2022. He was also a regular on the “Highly Cited Researchers” list.
His great expertise in the ecology of insects in cultural landscapes, in biodiversity, land use and social-ecological systems, and at the science-society-policy interface made him an invaluable voice in the global conversation on biodiversity, one that scientists, policymakers and the public alike trusted and listened to.
A partner from the very start
Our collaboration with Sepp began with a milestone in Pensoft’s own history. When Pensoft was still an emerging publisher and partner in the early years of EU-funded research, Sepp played an essential role in our journey.
Remembering the long friendship between Sepp and Pensoft, the company’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev, said:
It is hard to believe that my beloved friend Sepp is no longer with us! He has been with Pensoft since the very early days of our company, starting as a keen lover of our butterfly books in the late 1990s. His attitude to Pensoft since then has always been encouraging, supportive and inspirational!
Reflecting on Pensoft’s early days working on EU-funded research projects, Prof. Penev adds:
Sepp was also the first to invite us to join an EU consortium, that of the famous EU’s Sixth Framework Programme project ALARM (Assessing LArge-scale environmental Risks for biodiversity with tested Methods), running 2004-2009. In ALARM Sepp not only foresaw but also prototyped the concept of the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of ecology by bringing together 67 partners from 35 countries, producing more than 1,000 scientific publications.
ALARM was so brilliantly coordinated by Sepp, with such a passion, tolerance and love, that it still motivates and excites its partners to continue working together, keeping the ALARM spirit of collaboration and friendship!
Thank you my friend, for all your love and courage! We miss you!
says Prof. Lyubomir Penev.
ATLAS of Biodiversity Risk book cover.
One stark example for his legacy is the book “Atlas of Biodiversity Risk”, published by Pensoft in 2010, which was entirely the result of Josef’s efforts as a coordinator of ALARM. Together with R. Grabaum, V. Grobelnick, V. Hammen, S. Klotz, L. Penev, and I. Kühn (Eds.), he succeeded in synthesizing a vast amount of information to present in a comprehensive, easy-to-read, and richly illustrated format the major pressures, impacts, and risks associated with biodiversity loss on a global scale.
EC Commissioner Janez Potocnik in conversations with Lyubomir Penev short before a copy of the “Atlas of Biodiversity Risk” was handed over by the editors to Commissioner Potocnik on the June 1, 2010, during the Green Week in Brussels. Dr. Penev is co-editor of the atlas and director of Pensoft Publishing Company Sofia, which produced the atlas. The cooperation with Pensoft is one of the success stories of cooperations with small and medium sized enterprises within EC research projects on biodiversity. Photo Credit to GREEN WEEK 2010/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION.
The book immediately attracted the attention of the scientific community and policymakers, who required such an analysis to formulate and develop relevant policies within the European Commission. A case in point is the interest shown in the book by EU Commissioner Janez Potočnik during Green Week in Brussels on June 1, 2010.
Karl Falkenberg, Director General of the DG Environment of the European Commission, in active dialogue with Josef Settele short before a copy of the “Atlas of Biodiversity Risk” was handed over to him on the June 2, 2010, during the Green Week in Brussels. Dr. Settele is the main editor of the Atlas. Together with a team of five colleagues he coordinated the EC project ALARM, from which this atlas originated. He is scientist at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research — UFZ. Photo Credit to GREEN WEEK 2010/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION.
Shortly after ALARM, Sepp went on to initiate two further EU-funded projects and once again invited Pensoft to join. MACISexamined how climate change, and our responses to it, affect biodiversity across Europe, and what policies could limit the damage. COCONUTwhich examined how historic and current land use change drives biodiversity loss, and used that knowledge to model future scenarios and develop policy options for land use management.
Reminiscing about his relationship with Sepp, Pensoft’s Chief Operating Officer, Prof. Pavel Stoev, says:
I must have met Sepp sometime around 2009–2010, when our more intensive correspondence regarding the SCALES (Securing the Conservation of biodiversity across Administrative Levels and spatial, temporal, and Ecological Scales) project in which he was involved began. However, we became truly close during the LEGATO project (“Land-use Intensity and Ecological Engineering – Assessment Tools for Risks and Opportunities in Irrigated Rice-Based Production Systems”), which he coordinated. Throughout the project, we held numerous scientific meetings and conducted fieldwork in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, spending a great deal of time together discussing various scientific issues and planning publications.
The friendship we forged during that project endured for many years across a series of subsequent scientific initiatives; the last of these collaborations was the MAMBO project (“Modern Approaches to the Monitoring of Biodiversity”), where we co-led Work Package 7, focusing on communication and policy.
Prof. Dr. Josef Settele giving a talk about LEGATO project. Photo from Prof. Stoev’s personal archive.
Reflecting on his character, he adds:
Sepp was always a smiling, deeply spirited man with a wonderful sense of humour. He pursued his scientific path with immense enthusiasm and the composure of someone truly in his element. Yet, for him, practical application was just as important as fundamental research. This is clearly evident from the many leadership roles he held in international nature conservation initiatives, such as IPBES.
One of the conservation efforts to which he dedicated significant energy was securing support for the Nature Restoration Law, an endeavour that ultimately succeeded. We actively participated in this campaign by writing letters to Bulgarian Members of the European Parliament.
Sepp was a trusted partner in further collaborative projects over the years. He was part of the ongoing project BioAgora, which his team at UFZ co-coordinates, contributing to the effort for the development of the EU Science Service for Biodiversity.
Alexandra Korcheva, a science-policy communications officer working on BioAgora adds:
Rarely does one meet people that are so free, so wise, and yet so down-to-Earth. Prof. Settele was easy to talk to, and at the same time he was so experienced and knowledgeable. From my interactions with him, I have been inspired both as a biodiversity science-policy communicator, and as an early-career researcher. He left a bright trail in his field of work, and has inspired many to follow in his steps. May he rest in peace, and sincere condolences to all his family and friends!
Books soon followed, and over the years Sepp became one of our most prolific authors, with 97 works published with us. Several of them became some of the most influential book titles in our portfolio:
Sepp never saw science as something that should stay inside academia. Thus, in 2005 he launched the German Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, which became one of the country’s best-known citizen science projects and invited ordinary people to help track the state of nature.
Communicating science effectively became a large part of his life’s work. He explained why biodiversity matters, how ecosystems are faring, what drives their decline and what can be done to protect them for the long term. He took that message to politicians and journalists, and he was just as willing to sit down with groups whose political or economic goals, and views, differed from his own.
Our farewell
Prof. Dr. Josef Settele, circa 2012. From Prof. Stoev’s personal archive.
Pensoft has lost a dear friend, and the biodiversity community has lost a great champion. We are deeply grateful for everything he gave us: his trust, his ideas, his energy and his friendship. His work lives on in the journals, the books, the projects and the many researchers he inspired.
Our thoughts are with his family, his colleagues at UFZ and all who knew him.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 outOBSGESSION’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.
The beta release of an innovative collaborative stand-alone authoring tool transforms manuscript preparation with semantic enrichment and real-time collaboration capabilities.
Scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft Publishers announces the beta launch of ORPHO, a revolutionary online platform designed to streamline collaborative scientific writing and produce AI-ready, future-proof scholarly literature.
ORPHO presents a significant advancement in scholarly publishing technology, combining intuitive writing features with sophisticated semantic enrichment capabilities. The new platform builds upon Pensoft’s fifteen years of experience as a developer of semantic publishing infrastructure.
Key Features
Within a shared online workspace, researchers can start with built-in customisable templates, create their own or import an existing file. They can then team up with collaborators in real time using track changes, role-based user rights, inline comments, and document-level chat. More significantly, ORPHO automatically structures scientific content according to international publishing standards, making research outputs findable, discoverable, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) once published.
Unlike its predecessor, the ARPHA Writing Tool, ORPHO is available as a standalone real-time collaborative workspace decoupled from journals hosted on Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform. Once a manuscript is ready, authors receive AI-FAIR machine-readable content that can be formatted to meet multiple journal requirements at the click of a button.
The platform’s adaptability to domain-specific workflows is currently being piloted in biodiversity science. ORPHO integrates seamlessly with leading biodiversity data aggregators, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) and PlutoF, via import and export facilities for structured data, making ORPHO particularly valuable for researchers handling taxonomic, ecological and biodiversity data.
ORPHO: A new intelligent workspace for scientific writing.
Why ORPHO?
The name draws inspiration from multiple sources which reflect the tool’s philosophy and heritage. Named after Orphium: a unique plant genus endemic to South Africa whose sole species (Orphium frutescens) is known as the sea rose, ORPHO reflects the platform’s distinctive nature, heritage, and core philosophy.
It also evokes Orpheus, the legendary musician of ancient Thrace whose home region, the Rhodopi Mountains, lies in present-day Bulgaria, where ORPHO’s developer, Pensoft, is headquartered. The name thus honours the tool’s origins whilst embodying the exceptional creative performance it enables.
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Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO of Pensoft, comments:
“We are well aware that researchers today face an overwhelming list of formatting requirements and technical demands in an AI-driven landscape. It is true that rapid technological advancement presents both immense opportunities and mounting complexities for researchers.
We built ORPHO to remove that friction by offering an intuitive, collaborative workspace that lets scientists focus on their research. As a scientific publisher, our mission is to make scholarly publishing a seamless, rewarding experience fit for the modern age.”
The beta release invites researchers, institutions and publishing platforms to trial ORPHO and provide feedback. Access is available at orpho.net.
Researchers used simple moss bags and portable X-ray technology to track urban heavy metal pollution, offering a cheap, effective tool for environmental monitoring.
Air pollution is an invisible threat in our urban environments, heavily impacting cardiovascular and respiratory systems and standing as the single largest environmental cause of disease and premature death globally.
Often, monitoring the heavy metals and particulate matter that fill city air involves expensive equipment, heavy use of chemical reagents, and time-consuming laboratory preparation. However, researchers in Chicago have been exploring a much cheaper, greener alternative that might already be growing nearby: moss. The full research is available in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal BioRisk.
Because mosses lack true root systems, they absorb the vital nutrients they need to survive, along with any environmental contaminants, directly from the atmosphere, making them exceptionally effective living records of long-term air pollution.
Sphagnum moss by andipandz via Canva.
To test the viability of this biological monitoring, the team systematically deployed small, one-gram mesh bags of carefully cleaned Sphagnum moss across various locations in the Chicago area.
The scientists strategically hung these “green guardians” in diverse environments, including an industrial metals recycling facility, a marshland corridor, a commuter railroad station, and a semi-natural reference area in Lake County.
A. Biobags attached to branches in a semi-natural reference area; B. Biobags taped to the exhaust of a Ford F-350 diesel truck. Credit to Campbell et al., 2026
In a direct test of vehicle emissions, they even taped several moss bags straight to the exhaust pipe of a diesel truck. After leaving the moss bags exposed to the urban elements for roughly three to four weeks, the team brought them back to the lab, crushed them into a homogeneous powder using liquid nitrogen, and analyzed them using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) technology
The living monitors proved incredibly adept at capturing location-specific pollution footprints. Unsurprisingly, the moss placed near the metals recycling facility showed elevated levels across all the measured heavy metals, acting as a clear multi-metal emission source. The bags stationed near the commuter railroad exhibited significant spikes in iron, a likely consequence of the friction and wear on the steel rail infrastructure.
Alarmingly, even the moss placed in the semi-natural Lake County area absorbed elevated concentrations of nickel, demonstrating that pollution from a major highway less than one kilometer away can travel far into a seemingly pristine environment.
Ratio of pXRF counts for exposed samples to pXRF counts for unexposed samples for six metals. The horizontal line represents a ratio of 1, i.e., no net accumulation of that metal in the exposed samples. Error bars represent the standard deviation of the ratio of the measurements of the exposed samples to the unexposed samples. Credit to Campbell et al., 2026
Furthermore, the moss bags directly attached to the diesel truck showed a rapid accumulation of metals like iron, zinc, copper, titanium, and manganese within just three days, though a heavy Chicago rainstorm on the fourth day washed some of that accumulated particulate matter away.
Ultimately, this exploratory study demonstrates that combining simple moss bags with portable X-ray technology can serve as a highly accurate, cost-effective alternative to conventional air monitoring. Since the preparation is cost-effective and the screening process is relatively quick, this methodology has the potential to make environmental science more affordable and accessible; therefore, this study warrants further research.
Moving forward, resource-limited communities that are disproportionately burdened by poor air quality could utilize these green guardians to document local contamination hotspots. By doing so, they can gather the vital data needed to fiercely advocate for environmental justice, targeted remediation, and healthier urban spaces for everyone.
Original source:
Campbell T, Gwilliam III GF, Evans NM, Peltz K, Simpson G, Dussubieux L, Erazo E, Guare K, Krechner A, Long E, Maari S, Oguike I, Rice K, Zinke A, Christian C, Qazi-Lampert A, Henkin JM, Kreider D, Maves C, Merrill G, Moy P, Rodriguez Y, Ryan Z, von Konrat M (2026) Green guardians: Mosses as potential low-cost biomonitors of air pollution in urban Chicago. BioRisk 24: 55-67. https://doi.org/10.3897/biorisk.24.180507
The investigation, which was carried out through household surveys, focus group discussions, and field observations, revealed that local wildlife populations are under critical strain.
A new study published in the open-access journal BioRisk has highlighted a powerful wave of local support for wildlife conservation in the Hamer District of South Omo, Ethiopia, despite severe environmental pressures.
The investigation, which was carried out through household surveys, focus group discussions, and field observations, revealed that local wildlife populations are under critical strain. An overwhelming majority of the surveyed residents, precisely 82.3 per cent, reported a noticeable decline in wild animal numbers within their vicinity.
Map of Ethiopia showing the current study area (the Hamer District). Image credit: Zelalem Temesgen et al.
Participants identified deforestation and overgrazing as the most significant hazards to local biodiversity, with 63.5 per cent selecting forest clearing as the primary threat and 50.0 per cent identifying livestock overgrazing as the secondary threat. These human-induced activities are exacerbated by recurrent droughts and changing climate patterns, forcing pastoralist communities to venture deeper into natural habitats to seek fodder and water for their livestock.
Human induced fire in the Hamer District observed during the field visit. Image credit: Zelalem Temesgen et al.
Despite facing these daily challenges for survival, the local community demonstrated a remarkable commitment to environmental stewardship. The researchers found that 90.6 per cent of the respondents expressed an explicit willingness to participate actively in future wildlife conservation initiatives.
Focus group discussions held in Hamer District during the study. Image credit: Zelalem Temesgen et al.
Further, 96.9 per cent of those interviewed acknowledged that the responsibility to safeguard local species rests directly with the community itself, while 99 per cent stated that intervention programmes are an urgent necessity. Statistical modelling demonstrated that factors such as the specific locality, gender, marital status, and length of residence significantly influence an individual’s openness to conservation efforts.
Wildlife population status in the Hamer District as reported by survey respondents (%). Image credit: Zelalem Temesgen et al.
The study notes that local inhabitants traditionally interact with wildlife for various purposes, including utilising certain species for food, traditional remedies, or cultural decorations. However, these practices, combined with habitat loss, have pushed several animals to the brink, leaving the local presence of iconic species such as giraffes and ostriches highly uncertain.
To foster sustainable coexistence between humans and wild animals, the authors recommend implementing managed livestock husbandry practices and constructing dedicated water ponds to alleviate resource competition during dry spells.
They also advocate for the promotion of ecotourism, community-led management initiatives, and stricter enforcement of wildlife protection laws to curb illegal hunting and habitat destruction in the region.
Original source:
Temesgen Z, Biru Y, Gibru A (2026) Anthropogenic threats and challenges of wildlife conservation in Hamer District, South Omo, Ethiopia. BioRisk 24: 69-84. https://doi.org/10.3897/biorisk.24.175449
For more articles on biodiversity and ecosystem risk assessment, follow BioRisk on Facebook and Bluesky.
The agreement encompasses five key research and medical bodies, and allows corresponding authors to publish their findings without individual Article Processing Charges.
Pensoft and the University of Zurichhave signed a comprehensive Open Access (OA) agreement, starting a partnership that enables researchers at participating institutions to publish their findings in Pensoft’s peer-reviewed journals without incurring individual Article Processing Charges (APCs).
Under this new framework, publishing costs for corresponding authors affiliated with the respective institutions are 100% covered by a centralised institutional deposit secured by the University of Zurich. By removing financial barriers, the agreement encourages scientists to disseminate their work to both the academic community and the wider public, making research immediately and freely available upon publication.
This initiative ensures that research is shared under open licences in strict accordance with the FAIR principles—making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
“We are excited to start this partnership with the University of Zurich and sign an agreement that reflects our strong commitment to inclusive and equitable open science. By supporting researcher-driven publishing, we continue to foster a sustainable environment for high-impact scientific communication.”
Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO of Pensoft
“We are pleased to extend our portfolio of gold open access journals, in which our researchers can publish their findings without paying individual APCs. We thereby strengthen our commitment to open research information.”
University Library Zurich
Are you affiliated with a research institution operating with OA agreements? Is your institution interested in helping resident researchers navigate the complex processes underpinning academic publishing and knowledge sharing? Reach out to <publishing@pensoft.net> to discuss a potential collaboration.
To date, the content available on BHL includes 16,000 legacy articles and also extends to future articles.
Content from more than 30 biodiversity journals published on the ARPHA Platform will now be archived in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), the world’s largest open-access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives.
A global consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries, BHL digitises and freely shares essential biodiversity materials. A critical resource for researchers, it provides vital access to material that might otherwise be difficult to obtain.
Under the agreement, over 16,000 articles published on Pensoft’s self-developed ARPHA Platform are now available on BHL. Both legacy content and new articles are made available on the platform, complete with full-text PDFs and all relevant metadata.
Thanks to this integration, content in our journals will become even more accessible and readily discoverable, helping researchers find the biodiversity information they need.
Prof. Lyubomir Penev
More content published on ARPHA will gradually be added to the BHL archive.
The publications will be included in the Library’s full-text search, allowing researchers to easily locate relevant biodiversity literature. Crucially, the scientific names within the articles will be indexed using the Global Names Architecture, enabling seamless discovery of information about specific taxa across the BHL collection.
“Pensoft is pleased to collaborate with BHL in our joint mission to support global biodiversity research through free access to knowledge. Thanks to this integration, content in our journals will become even more accessible and readily discoverable, helping researchers find the biodiversity information they need,” said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft and ARPHA.
The news comes soon after BHL announced it is about to face a major shift in its operation. From 2026, the Smithsonian Institution – one of BHL’s 10 founding members – will cease to host the administrative and technical components of BHL. As the consortium explores a range of options, the BHL team is confident that “the transition opens the door to a reimagined and more sustainable future for BHL.”
Within and beyond our Pensoft team, we celebrate a year of well-nourished partnerships and excitement for the future
Yet another hectic year has passed for our team at Pensoft, so it feels right to look back at the highlights from the last 12 months, as we buckle up for the leaps and strides in 2025.
In the past, we have used the occasion to take you back to the best moments of our most popular journals (see this list of 2023 highlights from ZooKeys, MycoKeys, PhytoKeys and more!); share milestones related to our ARPHA publishing platform (see the new journals, integrations and features from 2023); or let you reminisce about the coolest research published across our journals during the year(check out our Top 10 new species from 2021).
In 2022, when we celebrated our 30th anniversary on the academic scene, we extended our festive spirit throughout the year as we dived deep into those fantastic three decades. We put up Pensoft’s timeline and finished the year with a New Species Showdown tournament, where our followers on (what was back then) Twitter voted twice a week for their favourite species EVER described on the pages of our taxonomic journals.
Spoiler alert: we will be releasing our 2024 Top 10 New Species on Monday, 23 December, so you’d better go to the right of this screen and subscribe to our blog!
As we realised we might’ve been a bit biased towards our publishing activities over the years, this time, hereby, we chose to present you a retrospection that captures our best 2024 moments from across the departments, and shed light on how the publishing, technology and project communication endeavours fit together to make Pensoft what it is.
In truth, we take pride in being an exponentially growing family of multiple departments that currently comprises over 60 full-time employees and about a dozen freelancers working from all corners of the world, including Australia, Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Together, we are all determined to make sure we continuously improve our service to all who have trusted us: authors, reviewers, editors, client journals, learned societies, research institutions, project consortia and other external collaborators.
After all, great deeds are only possible when you team up with great like-minded people!
In 2024, at Pensoft, we were hugely pleased to see a significant growth in the published output at almost all our journals, including record-breaking numbers in both submissions and publications at flagship titles of ours, including the Biodiversity Data Journal, PhytoKeys and MycoKeys.
Later in 2024, our colleagues, who work together with our clients to ensure their journals comply with the requirements of the top scholarly databases before they apply for indexation, informed us that another two journals in our portfolio have had their applications to Clarivate’s Web of Science successfully accepted. These are the newest journal of the International Association of Vegetation Science: Vegetation and Classification, and Metabarcoding and Metagenomics: a journal we launched in 2017 in collaboration with a team of brilliant scientists working together at the time within the DNAquaNet COST Action.
In 2024, we also joined the celebrations of our long-time partners at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, whose three journals: Zoosystematics and Evolution, Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Fossil Record are all part of our journal portfolio. This year marked the 10th Open Access anniversary of the three journals.
In the meantime, we also registered a record in new titles either joining the Pensoft portfolio or opting for ARPHA Platform’s white-label publishing solution, where journal owners retain exclusivity for the publication of their titles, yet use ARPHA’s end-to-end technology and as many human-provided services as necessary.
Pensoft’s CEO and founder Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev with Prof. Dr. Marc Stadler, Editor-in-Chief of IMA Fungus and President of the International Mycological Association at the Pensoft booth at the 12th International Mycological Congress (August, the Netherlands).
Amongst our new partners are the International Mycological Association who moved their official journal IMA Fungus to ARPHA Platform. As part of Pensoft’s scholarly portfolio, the renowned journal joins another well-known academic title in the field of mycology: MycoKeys, which was launched by Pensoft in 2011. The big announcement was aptly made public at this year’s 12th International Mycological Congress where visitors of the Pensoft stand could often spot newly elected IMA President and IMA Fungus Chief editor: Marc Stadler chatting with our founder and CEO Lyubomir Penev by the Pensoft/MycoKeys booth.
On our end, we did not stop supporting enthusiastic and proactive scientists in their attempt to bridge gaps in scientific knowledge. In January, we launched the Estuarine Management and Technologies journal together with Dr. Soufiane Haddout of the Ibn Tofail University, Morocco.
Later on, Dr. Franco Andreone (Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali, Italy) sought us with the idea to launch a journal addressing the role of natural history museums and herbaria collections in scientific progress. This collaboration resulted in the Natural History Collections and Museomics journal, officially announced at the joint TDWG-SPNHC conference in Okinawa, Japan in August.
Around this time, we finalised our similarly exciting journal project in partnership with Prof. Dr. Volker Grimm (UFZ, Germany), Prof. Dr. Karin Frank (UFZ, Germany), Prof. Dr. Mark E. Hauber (City University of New York) and Prof. Dr. Florian Jeltsch (University of Potsdam, Germany). The outcome of this collaboration is called Individual-based Ecology: a journal that aims to promote an individual-based perspective in ecology, as it closes the knowledge gap between individual-level responses and broader ecological patterns.
The three newly-launched journals are all published under the Diamond Open Access model, where neither access, nor publication is subject to charges.
As you can see, we have a lot to be proud of in terms of our journals. This is also why in 2024 our team took a record number of trips to attend major scientific events, where we got the chance to meet face-to-face with long-time editors, authors, reviewers and readers of our journals. Even more exciting was meeting the new faces of scientific research and learning about their own take on scholarship and academic journals.
Pensoft’s CEO and founder Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev welcomed editors at PhytoKeys to the Pensoft-PhytoKeys-branded booth at the XX International Botanical Congress in July 2024 (Spain).
We cannot possibly comment on Pensoft’s tech progress in 2024 without mentioning the EU-funded project BiCIKL (acronym for Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library) that we coordinated for three years ending up last April.
This 36-month endeavour saw 14 member institutions and 15 research infrastructures representing diverse actors from the biodiversity data realm come together to improve bi-directional links between different platforms, standards, formats and scientific fields.
Following these three years of collaborative work, we reported a great many notable research outputs from our consortium (find about them in the open-science project collection in the Research Ideas and Outcomes journal, titled “Towards interlinked FAIR biodiversity knowledge: The BiCIKL perspective”) that culminated in the Biodiversity Knowledge Hub: a one-stop portal that allows users to access FAIR and interlinked biodiversity data and services in a few clicks; and also a set of policy recommendations addressing key policy makers, research institutions and funders who deal with various types of data about the world’s biodiversity, and are thereby responsible to ensuring there findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR-ness).
Apart from coordinating BiCIKL, we also worked side-by-side with our partners to develop, refine and test each other’s tools and services, in order to make sure that they communicate efficiently with each other, thereby aligning with the principles of FAIR data and the needs of the scientific community in the long run.
During those three years we made a lot of refinements to our OpenBiodiv: a biodiversity database containing knowledge extracted from scientific literature, built as an Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System, and our ARPHA Writing Tool. The latter is an XML-based online authoring environment using a large set of pre-formatted templates, where manuscripts are collaboratively written, edited and submitted to participating journals published on ARPHA Platform. What makes the tool particularly special is its multiple features that streamline and FAIRify data publishing as part of a scientific publication, especially in the field of biodiversity knowledge. In fact, we made enough improvements to the ARPHA Writing Tool that we will be soon officially releasing its 2.0 version!
OpenBiodiv – The Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System
ARPHA Writing Tool 2.0
Amongst our collaborative projects are the Nanopublications for Biodiversity workflow that we co-developed with KnowledgePixels to allow researchers to ‘fragment’ their most important scientific findings into machine-actionable and machine-interpretable statements. Being the smallest units of publishable information, these ‘pixels of knowledge’ present an assertion about anything that can be uniquely identified and attributed to its author and serve to communicate a single statement, its original source (provenance) and citation record (publication info).
Nanopublications for Biodiversity
In partnership with the Swiss-based Text Mining group of Patrick Ruch at SIB and the text- and data-mining association Plazi, we brought the SIB Literature Services (SIBiLS) database one step closer to solidifying its “Biodiversity PMC” portal and working title.
Understandably, we spent a lot of effort, time and enthusiasm in raising awareness about our most recent innovations, in addition to our long-standing workflows, formats and tools developed with the aim to facilitate open and efficient access to scientific data; and their integration into published scholarly work, as well as receiving well-deserved recognition for their collection.
We just can’t stress it enough how important and beneficial it is for everyone to have high-quality FAIR data, ideally made available within a formal scientific publication!
🗨️Imagine if ALL these links were provided as hyperlinks within a #scholarly publication!
Pensoft’s CTO Teodor Georgiev talks about innovative methods and good practices in the publication of biodiversity data in scholarly papers at the First national meeting of the Bulgarian Barcode of Life (BgBOL) consortium (December, Bulgaria).
🤔What is a Data Paper?
👍 A means to describe a #dataset – like the ones on @GBIF – in a standardised, widely accepted #scientific article format.
👇🧵Highlights from @LyuboPenev's talk at the int'l symposium "#BiodiversityData in montane & arid Eurasia" in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Pensoft’s CEO and founder Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev presenting his “Data papers on biodiversity” talk at the “Biodiversity data in montane and arid Eurasia” symposium jointly organized by GBIF and by the Institute of Zoology of Republic of Kazakhstan (November, Kazakhstan).
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📸Today, at the @EASEeditors symposium, our @teodorpensoft gave a sneak peek into the AI-assisted tools at @ARPHAplatform we have been working on (e.g. Word -> JATS XML conversion) and the #ARPHA Writing Tool 2.0 (coming up in early 2025)!🎉
Pensoft’s CTO Teodor Georgiev presents new features and workflows currently in testing at the ARPHA Writing Tool 2.0 at the EASE Autumn Symposium 2024 (online event).Pensoft’s Head of Journal development, Marketing and PR Iva Boyadzhieva talks about Pensoft’s data publishing approach and innovations at the German Ecological Society 53rd Annual Conference (September, Germany).
Pensoft as a science communicator
At our Project team, which is undoubtedly the fastest developing department at Pensoft, science communicators are working closely with technology and publishing teams to help consortia bring their scientific results closer to policy actors, decision-makers and the society at large.
Ultimately, bridging the notorious chasm between researchers and global politics boils down to mutual understanding and dialogue.
Pensoft’s communication team attended COP16 (November 2024, Colombia) along with partners at the consortia of CO-OP4CBD, BioAgora and RESPIN: three Horizon Europe projects, whose communication and dissemination is led by Pensoft.
Throughout 2024, the team, comprising 20 science communicators and project managers, has been working as part of 27 EU-funded project consortia, including nine that have only started this year (check out all partnering projects on the Pensoft website, ordered from most recently started to oldest). Apart from communicating key outcomes and activities during the duration of the projects, at many of the projects, our team has also been actively involved in their grant proposal drafting, coordination, administration, platform development, graphic and web design and others (see all project services offered by Pensoft to consortia).
📸As leaders of the “Stakeholder engagement, comms & dissemination” WP at @BCubedProject, we joined the annual meeting to report on project branding, #scicomm & #DataManagement.
Naturally, we had a seat on the front row during many milestones achieved by our partners at all those 27 ongoing projects, and communicated to the public by our communicators.
Amongst those are the release of the InsectsCount web application developed within the Horizon 2020 project SHOWCASE. Through innovative gamification elements, the app encourages users to share valuable data about flower-visiting insects, which in turn help researchers gain new knowledge about the relationship between observed species and the region’s land use and management practices (learn more about InsectsCount on the SHOWCASE prroject website).
Another fantastic project output was the long-awaited dataset of maps of annual forest disturbances across 38 European countries derived from the Landsat satellite data archive published by the Horizon Europe project ForestPaths in April (find more about the European Forest Disturbance Atlas on the ForestPaths project website).
In a major company highlight, last month, our project team participated in COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan with a side event dedicated to the role of open science and science communication in climate- and biodiversity-friendly policy.
Pensoft’s participation at COP29 – as well as our perspective on FAIR data and open science – were recently covered in an interview by Exposed by CMD (a US-based news media accredited to cover the event) with our science communicator Alexandra Korcheva and project manager Boris Barov.
You see, A LOT of great things worth celebrating happened during the year for us at Pensoft: all thanks to ceaselessly flourishing collaboration based on transparency, trust and integrity. Huge ‘THANK YOU!’ goes to everyone who has joined us in our endeavours!
Here’s to many more shared achievements coming up in 2025!
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