One third of Vietnam’s 329 mammal species are threatened with extinction, according to a recent study published in our open-access journal Nature Conservation.
Conducted by German scientist Hanna Höffner of the University of Cologne and Cologne Zoo, alongside an international team, the research underscores Vietnam’s vital but fragile position as a biodiversity hub within the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot.
The study reveals that 112 mammal species in Vietnam face extinction, despite most being found in at least one protected area. Some micro-endemic species, such as the Da Lat tube-nosed bat (Murina harpioloides), are particularly vulnerable as they are not present in any protected sites.
Murina harpioloides. Credit: Son Truong Nguyen.Hipposideros alongensis. Credit: Son Truong Nguyen.
Around 40% of the threatened species lack ex situ conservation (zoo conservation breeding) programs, which increases their risk of extinction. Iconic species like the saola (Pseudoryx vuquangensis), the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor), and the large-antlered muntjac (Muntiacus vuquangensis) are among the Critically Endangered taxa at risk.
The study advocates for the IUCN‘s “One Plan Approach” to species conservation, which calls for combining different expertise and integrated in situ and ex situ management strategies. Establishing assurance colonies in zoos and increasing connectivity between isolated protected areas are critical recommendations for safeguarding Vietnam’s unique mammal diversity.
A gaur (Bos gaurus) in Vietnam.
By building up ex situ populations for threatened taxa, zoos can help to literally “buy time” and act as modern arks that can contribute with later releases according to the IUCN’s “Reverse the Red” conservation campaign. Ex situ species holding data by Species360 are now also integrated in the IUCN Red List species’ chapters (a “One Plan” approach to species data).
Ex situ preservation of threatened Vietnamese mammals worldwide.
Vietnam is home to a rich array of mammals, including 36 endemic species and nine micro-endemic taxa. Its primate fauna is particularly noteworthy, with 28 species, the highest number in mainland Southeast Asia. This includes the endemic tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) and Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri).
Northern Vietnam and the Annamite Mountain Range are biodiversity hotspots, hosting species such as the Critically Endangered Cao-vit gibbon (Nomascus nasutus), the southern white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus siki) and the red-shanked douc (Pygathrix nemaeus).
A red-shanked douc (Pygathrix nemaeus).
The study calls for prioritising the “One Plan Approach” to conservation of highly threatened species, reassessing Data Deficient species, and enhancing habitat connectivity.
VIETNAMAZING logo.
The conservation campaign VIETNAMAZING by EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) currently highlights Vietnam’s biodiversity treasure and advocates for improved conservation of threatened mammal species.
Original study
Höffner H, Nguyen ST, Dang PH, Motokawa M, Oshida T, Rödder D, Nguyen TQ, Le MD, Bui HT, Ziegler T (2024) Conservation priorities for threatened mammals of Vietnam: Implementation of the IUCN´s One Plan Approach. Nature Conservation 56: 161-180. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.56.128129
As a growing number of species face extinction, both researchers and the general public tend to focus on attractive, well-known and charismatic fauna and flora. But what about the species that have disappeared from scientific recognition altogether?
Research published in our open-access journal Nature Conservation sheds light on how historic taxonomic errors and misinterpretations have led to the disappearance of many species from science’s radar, highlighting the crucial role that taxonomy and natural history collections (NHCs) can play in rediscovering and conserving biodiversity.
Many species that were described long ago have been overlooked due to erroneous synonymisation, a process whereby one species is mistakenly classified under another’s name, generally because of the scarce number of specimens available. These species, the authors now refer to as ‘long-lost synonymised species,’ can fall out of awareness for decades, even centuries.
The 20th century saw a general trend of ‘lumping’ species together, reducing the number of recognised taxa, especially within well-known vertebrate groups. Taxonomic inertia – the persistence of outdated classifications – has caused many species to remain under-recognised, with their conservation statuses too often overlooked. This problem is described among better-known vertebrates, but is also likely present in some of the best studied invertebrates.
The importance of natural history collections
More than simply relics of the past, natural history collections provide a contemporary and essential resource for taxonomists working to untangle these historical errors. Museum specimens allow scientists to re-examine old classifications, using modern tools and methods to correct mistakes and uncover new taxa. Recent advances in ‘museomics’ – the study of genetic material from museum specimens – have opened new possibilities for species identification and conservation.
Leopardus geoffroyi. Credit: diegocarau via iNaturalist.
Such breakthroughs have led to the revalidation of the Neotropical genus Leopardus and the African wolf, Canis anthus, which had been synonymised for decades. Without natural history collections and the associated holotypes, the nomenclature of these species might have remained obscured, and their conservation needs unmet or delayed.
Natural History Collections and Museomics
Pensoft recently launched a new journal titled Natural History Collections and Museomics(NHCM).The publication comes at a pivotal moment in which taxonomists face the challenges of dwindling resources and fewer scientists entering the field. Through the publication of important open-access research, the journal aims to play a crucial role in bridging the gap between traditional taxonomy and modern conservation efforts.
Furthermore, by highlighting the essential role of taxonomy and natural history collections, NHCM will support the rediscovery of species long lost to science and help to conserve the world’s forgotten biodiversity. As the field of museomics grows, so too does the hope of rediscovering species that have been hidden in plain sight. The new journal already benefits from a competent and varied editorial board, including two of the authors of the Nature Conservation paper, Franco Andreone and Spartaco Gippoliti.
If the scientific community rally behind taxonomy and natural history collections, ensuring these vital tools are integrated into future biodiversity assessments, we can hope to preserve not just the species we know, but those we have forgotten.
Original source:
Gippoliti S, Farina S, Andreone F (2024) Lost species, neglected taxonomy, and the role of natural history collections and synonymization in the identification of the World’s forgotten biodiversity. Nature Conservation 56: 119-126. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.56.132036
At the 5th ESP Europe conference in Wageningen, Pensoft will lead a training session on effective science communication through open access publishing.
The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) is a global network that connects ecosystem services scientists, practitioners, stakeholders, and policymakers at local, national, regional, and global scales. ESP enhances and encourages a diversity of approaches, while reducing unnecessary duplication of effort in the development of concepts and application of ecosystem services.
Starting in 2008, ESP organises annual international conferences, where experts share research progress and exchange ideas in the field of ecosystem services, strengthening cooperation among scientists and practitioners. Since 2015, global and regional conferences started taking place bi-annually, with the 5th ESP Europe conference taking place this year between 18 and 22 November in Wageningen, The Netherlands, under the theme ‘Ecosystem Services: One Planet, One Health’.
The ESP Europe conference will focus on the question of how the ecosystem services concept can address the challenges involved in delivering the global vision of One Health. It will also highlight the interdependence of health across various domains – human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health, and the health of the global environment.
In addition to the main event, the organisers are providing access to pre-conference trainings on Sunday, 17 November, one day before the official start of the conference. One of these focuses on science communication and its role in enhancing research impact. Titled “Innovative tools for science communication: How to increase your research impact”, this session will be hosted by Pensoft Publishers.
A communication and dissemination leader in a wide range of EU research projects, as well as an independent publishing company, Pensoft will introduce the participants to best practices in science communication, drawing examples from a project portfolio which covers ecosystems and biodiversity, agriculture and forestry, pollinators and more. This training activity will also highlight the integral role of open science in effective dissemination, showcasing the opportunities facilitated by Pensoft’s open-access journals, which promoting transparency, accessibility, and reusability of results. Overall, the session will provide an in-depth look into the interlinkage between effectively communicated research outputs and the benefits of openly published data.
The Pensoft team will share their experiences with projects such as SELINA and SpongeBoost, both of which will also be presented in the scientific sessions and via a shared booth at the event.
Everyone who has already registered for the official programme can still add a training to their application using this link.
The International Congress of Entomology 2024 (ICE2024), which took place on August 25-30 2024 in Kyoto, Japan, was arguably the biggest entomology event of the year. For the Pensoft team, it was an excellent chance to catch up with our authors and editors and discuss new partnerships.
At the Kyoto International Conference Center, entomologists visited lectures, symposia, and poster presentations, but they also enjoyed insect-themed haikus, origami, and artworks, and got to sample some edible insects.
— International Congress of Entomology 2024 Kyoto JP (@ice2024kyoto_jp) August 27, 2024
Meeting our authors in person was a chance for us to gather valuable feedback and make sure we are doing our best to provide entomologists with a frictionless process that makes their published research shine.
Robin Kundrata, author in ZooKeys
Deepa Pureswaran, author and editor in NeoBiota
Alain Roques, author and editor in NeoBiota
Jessica Gillung, author in ZooKeys
Ranjith AP, editor in Check List and author in ZooKeys and Journal of Hymenoptera Research
Scientific illustrator Denitsa Peneva’s beautiful works adorned Pensoft’s stand; Mostafa Ghafouri Moghaddam, subject editor at ZooKeys and Biodiversity Data Journal and author at a number of Pensoft-published journals even got to take one of her prints home after winning a raffle that Pensoft organised. He won a beautiful illustration of Bombus fragrans on Trifolium pratense.
Pensoft’s founder and CEO and one of the founding editors of the company’s flagship journal ZooKeys, Prof. Lyubomir Penev, was there representing the company and meeting with fellow entomologists.
Prof. Penev with Evgeny Zakharov of the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics
Prof. Penev with researchers Jadranka Rota, Niklas Wahlberg, Alexander Konstantinov, and Michael Schmidt
Prof. Penev with researcher Caroline S. Chaboo
They also got the chance to learn about the ARPHA Platform, a next-generation publishing solution that offers a streamlined and efficient workflow for authors, reviewers, and editors.
At ICE2024, Pensoft also presented its newest open-access jorunal, Natural History Collections and Museomics. A peer-reviewed journal for research, discussion and innovation of natural history collections, NHCM will publish under a diamond open access model, allowing free access to published content without any fees for authors or readers.
In addition to its publishing endeavors, Pensoft also presented some of the EU-funded pollinator projects that it takes part in such as Safeguard, PollinERA, and WildPosh.
ICE2024 was a chance to advance entomological science and foster collaboration within the global scientific community. For those who missed the chance to connect with Pensoft in Kyoto, the company’s journals and platforms remain accessible online, offering opportunities to read and produce groundbreaking research in insect diversity and ecology.
The 10th World Congress of Herpetology (WCH) took place on August 5-9, 2024, in Kuching, Malaysia. Maria Kolesnikova, Pensoft’s marketing and sales manager, attended the event, connecting with many current and prospective authors and editors at Pensoft journals.
Throughout the congress, our stand attracted numerous visitors, including many editors of our journals, such as Herpetozoa and ZooKeys. The opportunity to connect with our editors in person was invaluable, reinforcing the collaborative spirit that drives our publishing efforts. In addition, many of the authors in our journal visited the Pensoft stand to see their papers in print.
Bibiana Rojas, subject editor at Herpetozoa
Luciano Javier Avila, subject editor at Biodiversity Data Journal
Luis Ceríaco, author and editor at ZooKeys
Anthony Herrel, subject editor at ZooKeys
Mao-Liang Li, author at Herpetozoa
Ilse K. Barraza-Soltero, author at ZooKeys, Herpetozoa, and Check List
Artem Lisachov, subject editor at Comparative Cytogenetics and author at Biodiversity Data Journal and Herpetozoa
Many of our editors participated actively in the congress, delivering talks that highlighted cutting-edge research in herpetology.
Luis Ceríaco, author and editor at ZooKeys, presented a talk called “The herpetological results of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira’s ‘Philosophical Voyage’ to Brazil (1783–1792)”, where he talked about a huge expedition to explore the Amazon and Cueva rivers.
Umilaela Arifin, subject editor at Zoosystematics and Evolution, delivered a presentation called, “Hang’in there! Toward stabilising phylogeny of Asian ranids with gastromyz ophorous tadpoles,” where she talked about Sumaterana, a new genus that has been identified with gastromyz tadpoles in Sumatra.
Ben Wielstra, subject editor at Herpetozoa, presented to a fully packed hall on the balanced lethal system in Triturus newts.
Hanh Thi Ngo, author at Nature Conservation, gave a talk called “Diversity of karst – adapted bent-toed geckos in Laos and Vietnam.” Karst diversity is in great danger because of human activities in Vietnam, she said. There are publications on this topic in ZK & Nature Conservation by Hanh and Ziegler.
Scientific illustrator Denitsa Peneva has designed Pensoft’s new communication materials, centered around rich, colourful illustrations of species that have been featured in Pensoft’s journals.
Swati Nawani, doctoral researcher at the Wildlife Institute of India, won one of Denitsa’s amazing scientific illustration prints as part of a raffle organised by Pensoft. Swati has researched Himalayan amphibians since 2018.
In a commitment to support and celebrate excellence in herpetological research, Pensoft sponsored the Best reptile conservation talk award. For her talk, “Heat water and reptiles – do the hydro-thermal properties of animals at the source location persist at the translocation site?,” Deanne Trewartha won a free publication in either Herpetozoa or Nature Conservation, as well as another beautiful print by Denitsa Peneva.
The award presentation was a moment of celebration, and we are delighted to support the work of such inspiring researchers.
For Pensoft, the 10th World Congress of Herpetology was a chance to connect with our authors and editors and engage with the global herpetology community. Inspired by all the quality research presented there, we look forward to the next Herpetology Congress – and until then, we will continue publishing and promoting outstanding scientific work.
Eight years since the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Brazil, researchers have highlighted ongoing environmental and social devastation caused by the disaster.
A paper published in our open-access journal Nature Conservation underscores the persistent and growing impacts of the collapse, which ranks as one of the world’s most significant environmental tragedies.
Dead fish in Marliéria, Minas Gerais, Brazil, about 200 km downstream from the Fundão tailings dam. Photo credit: Elvira Nascimento.
Caused by the Samarco mining company, the 2015 collapse released approximately 50 million cubic meters of toxic mud, burying the village of Bento Rodrigues and severely contaminating over 600 kilometres of river channels and coastal habitats. More than 1 million people across 35 cities were affected, leading to 19 deaths, widespread health issues, and the displacement of hundreds of residents.
The village of Bento Rodrigues after the disaster. Photo credit: Rogério Alves/TV Senado.
According to researchers, the environmental damage has only intensified over the years. High levels of heavy metals continue to threaten human and wildlife health, with significant bioaccumulation observed in endangered species like the Franciscana dolphin. Additionally, the disaster caused the introduction of numerous invasive species, further destabilising the ecosystem.
The paper, led by Dr Cássio Cardoso Pereira and Fernando Goulart of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, criticises the slow and controversial response by the Renova Foundation, an entity created by the responsible companies to address the disaster’s aftermath. While some compensation and restoration efforts have been made, the researchers argue that these actions are insufficient and often inadequate.
A Brief History of: The Mariana Disaster by Plainly Difficult.
One of the most concerning findings, they say, is the ongoing risk posed by similar structures across Brazil, where hundreds of dams remain in poor condition. The study advocates for the replacement of these dangerous dams with safer alternatives like dry mining, which significantly reduces the risk of future collapses.
“Urgent, science-based public policies are needed that prioritise the restoration of the Rio Doce basin, in addition to comprehensive compensation for affected communities. To achieve this, we need collaborations involving local and government oversight and independent scientific expertise to prevent further ecological and human disasters.”
Read a guest blog post by Dr Cássio Cardoso Pereira exploring whether biodiversity loss is being overlooked because of climate change.
As the region continues to face the compounded effects of climate change, with increasing cyclones and heavy rains worsening the spread of pollutants, the paper reminds us that the legacy of the Fundão disaster is far from over.
Original source
Pereira CC, Fernandes S, Fernandes GW, Goulart FF (2024) Eight years after the Fundão tailings dam collapse: chaos on the muddy banks. Nature Conservation 56: 77-82. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.56.133441
South Africa’s lion farming industry is rife with cruelty and is fuelling the illegal international trade of big cat bones, according to a new research paper published in the scientific journal Nature Conservation.
The study by World Animal Protection is based on direct interviews with whistleblowing workers at two closed-access lion facilities in South Africa’s North West Province.
According to the report, legal activities such as commercial captive lion breeding and canned hunting – the hunting of captive-bred wild animals in small, fenced enclosures with no chance of escape – are being used to mask involvement in the illegal international trade of lion and tiger bones.
Lions at a commercial breeding facility in South Africa (not from the study).
Several animal welfare violations were also reported, including malnutrition, lack of clean water, filthy enclosures and animals being deliberately starved throughout the low-hunting season.
Illegal hunting practices abound, including animals being drugged and hunted within an hour of release in enclosures that violate legal minimum size requirements.
Finally, the whistleblowers reported hazardous conditions for workers at the facilities, and suggested there may be shifts towards commercial exploitation of other felid species like tigers which could be used as substitutes in the bone trade.
It is estimated that between 8,000-12,000 lions and other big cats, including tigers, are bred and kept in captivity in more than 350 facilities across the country. To evade detection during professional inspections, farm owners use various strategies, such as security cameras, patrols, and messaging apps.
“Our study highlights the troubling reality of South Africa’s captive lion industry. Legal activities are being exploited to facilitate illegal trade, and this is compounded by serious animal welfare violations and unsafe conditions for workers. Urgent action is needed to protect lions and people.”
Lead researcher Dr Angie Elwin, Research Manager at World Animal Protection.
Although the commercial captive breeding and canned hunting of lions remains legal, though poorly regulated in South Africa, the export of lion skeletons – including claws and teeth – was declared unconstitutional by the South African High Court in 2019.
In 2021, the South African Government announced its intention to immediately halt the “domestication and exploitation of lions, and to ultimately close all captive lion facilities in South Africa”.
However, a lack of enforcement of regulations and clarity on the future of the industry, has left a legal grey area, enabling some farms to operate what on the surface appear to be legitimate captive breeding and ‘canned’ trophy hunting businesses – but which in reality supply the illegal international big cat bone trade facilitated by organised crime gangs.
In light of these revelations, the study calls for the South African Government to implement a comprehensive and well-managed plan to transition away from current practices in the captive lion industry. Key recommendations include:
Full Audit of the Industry: To ensure all commercial captive lion farms are officially registered and compliant with regulations until the industry is phased out.
Breeding Moratorium: Establishment of an immediate moratorium on breeding to prevent further growth of the commercial captive lion population.
Prevention of Bone Stockpiling: Development and enforcement of plans to prevent the accumulation of lion bones, which risks fuelling the illegal international lion bone trade.
Phase out Plan: Enactment of a time-bound strategic plan to phase out the captive lion farming industry, ensuring ethical treatment of animals and safety for workers.
“The South African Government must take immediate action to fulfil its public pledge to end the controversial captive lion industry. Without a comprehensive time-bound plan and stringent enforcement, this commercial industry will continue to pose significant legal, animal cruelty, and conservation concerns.”
Senior researcher Dr Neil D’Cruze, Head of Wildlife Research at World Animal Protection.
This study serves as a crucial call to action for both the South African Government and the international community to address and resolve the complex issues surrounding the captive lion industry.
The publication comes at a time when South African NGO Blood Lions encourages the public to raise their voice by sharing the 2024 World Lion Day “You’re killing them softly” campaign message, aimed at informing tourists and visitors to lion farms about the hidden suffering and cruelty involved, and to sign this petition urging the South African government among others to extend the ban on captive lion breeding and trading to other predators.
Original source:
Elwin A, Asfaw E, D’Cruze N (2024) Under the lion’s paw: lion farming in South Africa and the illegal international bone trade. Nature Conservation 56: 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.56.124555
Towards the end of July 2024, members of the Pensoft team travelled to Madrid for the XX International Botanical Congress, where an estimated 3,000 botanists gathered for the biggest event of the year.
Held once every six years, the congress has enlarged its scope over more than a century to become an integrated forum for knowledge on the plant and mycological world.
Proceedings kicked off with a fantastic lecture from PhytoKeys Editor-in-Chief Sandy Knapp titled, “Why botany? Why now?” The following day, Thorsten Lumbsch, Editor-in-Chief of MycoKeys, gave a keynote lecture titled, “Unravelling diversity and evolution of lichens in the genomic era.”
In fact, many authors, editors and readers of Pensoft’s journals were in attendance. And several gave presentations, including a plenary talk by renowned PhytoKeys editor, Pamela S. Soltis, on the changing face of herbarium collections.
Denitsa Peneva greeting researchers at the Pensoft stand.Lyubomir Penev giving a presentation to PhytoKeys editor.
The Pensoft team welcomed attendees with a bespoke stand, complete with print copies, illustrations and various promotional materials depicting beautiful species featured in PhytoKeys.
Lyubomir Penev, founder of Pensoft and founding editor of PhytoKeys, hosted a gathering of PhytoKeys editors at the stand, where he presented the story, latest results and highlights of the journal.
Researchers who found their publications on display at the Pensoft stand.
The congress included numerous lectures, symposia sessions, workshops and meetings across a variety of subject matters, all of which can be found on the IBC 2024 website. The major topics of the event were:
Systematics, phylogenetics, biogeography and evolution
Ecology, environment and global change, including invasive species and plant-animal interactions
Biodiversity and conservation
Structure, physiology and development, including Evo-Devo
Genetics, genomics and bioinformatics
Plants and Society
At the closing ceremony, multiple awards were presented, including Pensoft’s Early Career Researcher Talk Award. Sandy Knapp presented the award to Sonia Molino for her talk on a global study of the genus Parablechnum, a lineage of ferns of the family Blechnaceae. The award grants her a free publication in PhytoKeys.
What a way to end @ibc2024 ! I can't believe how lucky I was to get the Early career researcher talk award on taxonomy or systematics by @Pensoft for my talk at the conference. And delivered by my admired @SandyKnapp! Thank you so much! See you in Cape Town! pic.twitter.com/Y79U1xcKxj
Describing her study, Sofia Molino said: “To date there has been no study that takes into account all the centres of diversity of the genus at the same time, and what we have found is that it has a very complex evolutionary history, with several cases of cryptic diversity, hybridisation and rapid radiation.”
On her plans to use her free publication for a pending study on a series of novelties within Parablechnum in Bolivia, she added: “Although this is probably the country in South America where Parablechnum has been studied the most, after one expedition we have still found a lot of new things, such as several undescribed species, hybrids and new localities of some species that were only known from type material.”
The next International Botanical Congress is in 2029 and will take place in South Africa, where the Pensoft team looks forward to seeing plenty of new faces and old friends!
At the Pensoft’s stand, delegates learned about the scientific publisher’s versatile open-access journal portfolio, as well as related publishing services and the Horizon project where Pensoft is a partner.
Here’s a fun fact: the University of Bologna is the oldest one still in operation in the world. It is also etched in history for being the first institution to award degrees of higher learning.
This year, the annual event themed “Biodiversity positive by 2030” took place in the stunning Italian city of Bologna famous for its historical and cultural heritage, in a way building a bridge between the past of European civilisation and the future, which is now in our hands.
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At the Pensoft’s stand, delegates learned about the scientific publisher’s versatile open-access journal portfolio of over 30 journals covering the fields of ecology and biodiversity, as well as other related services and products offered by Pensoft, including the end-to-end full-featured scholarly publishing platform ARPHA, which hosts and powers all Pensoft journals, in addition to dozens other academic outlets owned by learned societies, natural history museums and other academic institutions.
In addition to its convenient collaborative online environment, user interface and automated export/import workflows, what ARPHA’s clients enjoy perhaps the most, are the various human-provided services that come with the platform, including graphic and web design, assistance in journal indexing, typesetting, copyediting and science communication.
Visitors at the stand could also be heard chatting with Pensoft’s Head of Journal development, Marketing and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva about the publisher’s innovative solutions for permanent preservation and far-reaching dissemination and communication of academic outputs that do not match the traditional research article format.
For example, the Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal was launched in 2015 by Pensoft as an open-science journal that would publish ‘unconventional’ research outputs, such as Grant proposals, Policy briefs, Project reports, Data management plans, Research ideas etc. Its project-branded open-science collections are in fact one of the Pensoft’s products that enjoys particular attention to participants in scientific projects funded by the likes of the European Commission’s Horizon programme.
Another innovation by Pensoft that easily becomes a talking point at forums like ECCB, is the ARPHA Conference Abstract (ACA) platform, which is basically a journal for conference abstracts, where abstracts are treated and published much like regular journal articles (a.k.a. ‘mini papers’) to enable permanent preservation, but also accessibility, discoverability and citability. Furthermore, ACA has been designed to act as an abstracts submission portal, where the abstracts undergo review and receive feedback before being published and indexed at dozens of relevant scientific databases.
On Wednesday, delegates also got a chance to hear the talk by renowned vegetation ecologist at the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences and Editor-in-Chief at the Vegetation Classification and Survey journal: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Dengler. He presented findings and conclusions concerning neophytes in Switzerland, while drawing comparisons with other European countries and regions.
🌱 Presence of #neophytes is not necesarily problematic, and can actually have positive effect, concludes recent research on 🇨🇭Swiss #grasslands diversity.
At this year’s ECCB, Pensoft took a stand as an active Horizon project participant too. At the publisher’s booth, the delegates could explore various project outputs produced within REST-COAST, SpongeBoost and BioAgora. Each of these initiatives has been selected by the European Commission to work on the mitigation of biodiversity decline, while aiming for sustainable ecosystems throughout the Old continent.
In all three projects, Pensoft is a consortium member, who contributes with expertise in science communication, dissemination, stakeholder engagement and technological development.
Having started earlier this year, SpongeBoost is to build upon existing solutions and their large-scale implementation by implementing innovative approaches to improve the functional capacity of sponge landscapes. The project is coordinated by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and will be developed with the active participation of 10 partnering institutions from seven countries across Europe.
In the meantime, since 2022, the five-year BioAgora project has been working towards setting up the Science Service for Biodiversity platform, which will turn into an efficient forum for dialogue between scientists, policy actors and other knowledge holders. BioAgora is a joint initiative, which brings together 22 partners from 13 European countries led by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).
4/🧵 The @HorizonEU project @BioAgoraEU is to create an efficient platform for dialogue between #scientists, policy actors & other knowledge holders.
Still, REST-COAST, SpongeBoost and BioAgora were not the only Horizon projects involving Pensoft that made an appearance at ECCB this year thanks to the Pensoft team.
On behalf of OBSGESSION – another Horizon-funded project, Nikola Ganchev, Communications officer at Pensoft, presented a poster about the recently started project. Until the end of 2027, the OBSGESSION project, also led by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and involving a total of 12 partnering organisations, will be tasked with the integration of different biodiversity data sources, including Earth Observation, in-situ research, and ecological models. Eventually, these will all be made into a comprehensive product for biodiversity management in both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.
On Tuesday evening, the CO-OP4CBD (abbreviation for Co-operation for the Convention on Biological Diversity) team: another Horizon Europe project, where Pensoft contributes with expertise in science communication and dissemination, held a workshop dedicated to what needs to be done to promote CBD activities in Central and Eastern Europe.
On the next day, scientists from the EuropaBON consortium: another project involving Pensoft that had concluded only about a month ago, held a session to report on the final conclusions from the project concerning the state and progress in biodiversity monitoring.
📌Eastern Europe and countries outside Europe underrepresented in the @EuropaBon_H2020 network, reports Christian Langer at #eccb2024bologna.
Scholarly publisher Pensoft is excited to announce it is now on Chinese social media platform Weibo. The move is aimed at fostering stronger connections with researchers, academics, and enthusiasts in China, which in turn will enhance the dissemination of scientific knowledge and facilitate international collaboration.
With over half a billion active users, Weibo is a powerful social media platform that combines the functionalities of microblogging and social networking. The Pensoft team is looking forward to engaging in real-time conversations with its Chinese audience, sharing insights, and receiving their feedback.
The launch coincides with the Dragon Boat Festival, a significant cultural event in China that commemorates the ancient poet Qu Yuan and symbolizes unity and teamwork.
The move aims to make Pensoft’s publications and updates more accessible to Chinese researchers, allowing them to stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries and advancements. In addition, it offers an excellent opportunity for Pensoft to foster collaborations with Chinese institutions, researchers, and academic societies.
As a pioneer in open-access publishing, Pensoft will also use its Weibo account to promote the benefits of open access, making sure Chinese research reaches a global audience without paywalls.
“China, with its rapidly growing research output and a burgeoning community of scholars, represents a significant segment of the global academic landscape. Recognizing the importance of engaging with this vibrant community, Pensoft’s decision to establish a presence on Weibo underscores its commitment to inclusivity and accessibility in scientific publishing,” says Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft.
We invite you to join Pensoft’s Weibo account to learn all about our latest scientific discoveries and publishing updates.
