Content from 20 Pensoft journals will now be automatically added to ResearchGate to reach the research network’s 25 million users. Each journal will also receive a dedicated profile.
ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and Pensoft today announced a new partnership that will see a set of Pensoft’s open access journals increase their reach and visibility through ResearchGate – increasing access and engagement with its 25 million researcher members.
As part of this new partnership, 20 journals published by Pensoft – including the publisher’s flagship titles ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal and Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal) amongst others – will now have their content automatically added to ResearchGate upon publication to benefit from enhanced visibility and discoverability through ResearchGate’s innovative Journal Home offering. These journals will all have dedicated profiles and be prominently represented on all associated article pages on ResearchGate, as well as all other relevant touch points throughout the network.
Journal Home provides a unique opportunity for Pensoft to connect its authors with their readers. The new journal profiles on ResearchGate will provide a central location for each journal, enabling researchers to learn more, discover new article content, and understand how, through their network, they are connected to the journal’s community of authors and editors. Authors of these journals additionally benefit from having their articles automatically added to their ResearchGate profile page, giving them access to metrics, including who is reading and citing their research. These rich insights will also enable Pensoft to build a deeper understanding of the communities engaging with its journals.
“Pensoft is delighted to be working with ResearchGate to provide an even greater service to our authors and readers. ResearchGate offers an innovative way for us to grow the reach and visibility of our content, while also giving us a way to better understand and engage our author and reader audiences.”
said Prof Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft.
“We couldn’t be happier to see Pensoft embark on this new partnership with ResearchGate. Journal Home will not only enable Pensoft authors to build visibility for their work, but provide them and Pensoft with greater insights about the communities engaging with that research. I look forward to seeing this new collaboration develop”
said Sören Hofmayer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate.
About ResearchGate:
ResearchGate is the professional network for researchers. Over 25 million researchers use researchgate.net to share and discover research, build their networks, and advance their careers. Based in Berlin, ResearchGate was founded in 2008. Its mission is to connect the world of science and make research open to all.
An attempt to explore the history of the spread of four non-indigenous invasive tree species in one of the most important Hungarian forest-steppe forests of high conservation value.
Guest blog post by Arnold Erdélyi, Judit Hartdégen, Ákos Malatinszky, and Csaba Vadász
Today, almost everyone is familiar with the term “biological invasion”. Countless studies have been carried out to describe the various processes, and explore the cause and effect, and several methods have been developed in order to control certain invasive species. However, one of the biggest puzzles is always the question of how it all happened. It is not always easy to answer, and, in general, the smaller the area, the more difficult or even impossible it is to answer. In the course of our work, we attempted to explore the history of the spread of four, non-indigenous invasive tree species in one of the most important Hungarian forest-steppe forests of high conservation value, the Peszér Forest (approximately 1000 ha). Last week, we published our study in the journal One Ecosystem.
An open formation of the Eurosiberian steppic woods with Quercus spp., a priority natural habitat type of Community interest under the European Union’s Habitats DirectiveA closed formation of steppic oak forest with a dense shrub layer and a herb layer dominated by the lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis).
The Far Eastern tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), as well as the North American black cherry (Prunus serotina), the box elder (Acer negundo) and the common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) are among the worst invasive plant species in Hungary. They are also responsible for serious conservation and economic problems in the Peszér Forest.
Invasion of tree of heaven (top left) and common hackberry (top right) in poplar stands, carpet of seedlings of black cherry (bottom left), and monodominant stand of box elder, regrown from stump after cutting (bottom right)
Historical reconstructions of the spread of invasive species are most often based on only one, or sometimes a few aspects. We used six approaches simultaneously:
we reviewed the published and grey literature,
extracted tree species data from the National Forest Database since 1958,
conducted a field survey with full spatial coverage (16,000 survey units (25×25 m quadrats)) – instead of sampling,
recorded all the largest (and presumably the oldest) individuals for annual ring counts,
performed hotspot analyses on the field data
collected local knowledge.
Cutting down the oldest common hackberry trees in order to count the annual rings from trunk discs
Our results show that each approach provided some new information, and without any of them the story revealed would have been much shorter and more uncertain. We have also highlighted that at the local level, the use of one or two aspects can be not only inadequate but also misleading.
From the literature it was possible to determine the exact place and date of the first occurrence of the tree of heaven and the black cherry. However, in the case of black cherry, for example, it was only possible to piece together the circumstances of the first plantings by combining three different sources. The first occurrences of box elder were found in forestry data. Finally, in the case of the common hackberry, searching for old individuals and determining their age gave the best results.
Common hackberry in the Peszér forest according to the recent forestry data (2016) and the field survey (2017-2019). The difference is clear: in the official forestry database, the tree species is underrepresented several times over
A well-explored story of a biological invasion can go a long way in making more and more people understand that controlling these non-indigenous species can only be beneficial. On the other hand, it can also help to strengthen conservation efforts, for example by increasing the volunteer workforce, which can be a major factor in the reduction of certain species. We hope that our work and the approaches we have taken will serve as a good model for exploring other invasion stories around the world.
Winter snapshot from the Peszér Forest, a diverse forest edge habitat along an inner road.
Research article:
Erdélyi A, Hartdégen J, Malatinszky Á, Vadász C (2023) Historical reconstruction of the invasions of four non-native tree species at local scale: a detective work on Ailanthus altissima, Celtis occidentalis, Prunus serotina and Acer negundo. One Ecosystem 8: e108683. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.8.e108683
For the Pensoft team, September 2023 was a busy and exciting month filled with conferences. Travelling across Europe, they promoted journals, connected with the scientific community, and rewarded exceptional research with free article publications.
Let’s take a look back at all the events of the past month.
Pensoft representatives Mrs. Boriana Ovcharova and Mrs. Anna Sapundzhieva, ready to greet attendees in the sun.
The conference looked at evolutionary adaptations from the perspective of behavioural ecology, reproduction biology, genetics, physiology, as well as nature conservation. It particularly focused on the pressing issues of wildlife research and species conservation in the context of global environmental change. Most of the ≈100 participants were young scientists from more than 30 countries.
The Pensoft team greeted fellow attendees with an exhibition stand and presented the conservation and ecology-focused journals Neobiota, Nature Conservation, One Ecosystem, and Biodiversity Data Journal. Pensoft also advocated for EuropaBon, who are designing an EU-wide framework for monitoring biodiversity and ecosystem services, and REST-COAST, whose mission is to provide the tools to restore environmental degradation of rivers and coasts. Within both European-funded initiatives, Pensoft is a key dissemination partner that contributes expertise in science communication, scholarly publishing, and the development of digital tools and platforms.
Joao Pedro Meireles posing with his Best Poster award.
Pensoft presented Joao Pedro Meireles from Utrecht University with the Best Poster Award for his research on pair compatibility in okapis, entitling him to a free publication in one of Pensoft’s open-access journals.
“My study looked at pair compatibility in the zoo breeding programme of Okapi. During breeding introductions, sometimes the male becomes aggressive towards the female and we decided to investigate the potential factors. We ran a survey among all zoos that house the species in Europe and we found that differences in husbandry were linked to the aggressiveness performed by the males.”
Joao Pedro Meireles, Utrecht University
GfÖ Annual Meeting 2023
From the 12th to 16th of September, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research hosted the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerlandin Leipzig, Germany. The meeting welcomed more than 1,100 participants from around the world, including scientists, policymakers, educators, and environmental enthusiasts.
This year’s meeting was held with the theme: “The future of biodiversity – overcoming barriers of taxa, realms and scales.” There was a particular emphasis on future challenges and opportunities facing biodiversity, and how to address and manage these in an interdisciplinary and integrative way.
Mrs. Boriana Ovcharova (Pensoft) with Neobiota Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Ingolf Kühn.
Conference participants were welcomed at the Pensoft stand, where they could learn more about the projects EuropaBon and SELINA, which deal with biodiversity, ecosystem and natural capital topics.
Also in Leipzig, the European Conference on Ecological Modellingtook place between the 4th and 8th of September. The event focused on the transformation of how societies deal with natural resources in a world where biodiversity and ecosystem services are at high risk.
The ECEM 2023 continued a series of conferences launched by the European chapter of ISEM, the International Society for Ecological Modelling. ISEM promotes the international exchange of ideas, scientific results, and general knowledge in the areas of systems’ analysis and simulations in ecology, and the application of ecological modelling for natural resource management.
📢Shutout to all attending the #ECEM23@ECEM_2023#ecological#modelling conference TODAY in Leipzig! Make sure to visit the poster session during lunch & find about the unique article types welcome to our #journal! 💡They intend to disseminate models PRIOR TO implementation! https://t.co/dUVskYFK11
— Food & Ecological Systems Modelling Journal, FESMJ (@FESMJournal) September 5, 2023
The Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung team presented a poster on the Formal Model format and potential new MiDox formats, unique publication types that can be submitted to Pensoft’s Food and Ecological Modelling Journal.
118th Congress of the Italian Botanical Society
Speakers at the 118th Congress of the Italian Botanical Society.
Pensoft was proud to sponsor the 118th Congress of the Italian Botanical Society, which took place in Pisa, Italy from the 13th to 16th of September. Experts in various fields of Botany gathered to share their research on the following topics:
Journals promoted by Pensoft at the 94th Annual Meeting of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft.
Summer may be well and truly over, but as a new academic year begins, Pensoft looks forward to attending more conferences, rewarding more incredible research, and connecting with more of the scientific community. Thank you to everyone who contributed to or engaged with Pensoft’s open-access journals this year, and here’s to a successful final quarter of 2023.
Guest blog post by Natalia Alvarado-Arias, Vinicio Moya-Almeida, Francisco Cabrera-Torres, and Andrea Medina-Enríquez
Urban rivers play a crucial role in providing ecosystem services that contribute to the social well-being and quality of life of urban inhabitants. However, rapid urbanization has led to the progressive degradation of these rivers, affecting their capacity to deliver these services and generating significant socioecological impacts. A groundbreaking study conducted in the Zamora and Malacatos Rivers in Loja, Ecuador, performed a participatory mapping of the non-monetary social values (both positive and negative) and their associated ecosystem services. This research, published in the journal One Ecosystem, aimed to understand community perceptions and preferences in the context of degraded landscapes, using a complementary analysis approach to traditional methods.
Oblique aerial photographs of the research area captured with unmanned aerial vehicles (2021). Left: Malacatos River. Right: Zamora River
The methodology employed in this study involved data collection and analysis using ArcGIS Survey123 Connect (ESRI 2020), a digital survey tool that facilitated easy data collection from participants. Additionally, The Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES 4.0) tool was utilized, integrating participatory survey data and environmental data to assess and map the social values associated with ecosystem services. This combination of technological tools allowed for comprehensive analysis and visual representation of the results.
The study findings revealed that the most relevant social values encompassed learning, aesthetics, therapy, displeasure, deficient and inaccessible infrastructure, and the threat of flooding. Different spatial patterns were identified for each of these social values, with the horizontal distance to green areas emerging as a significant environmental variable contributing to these patterns.
Spatial distribution of positive social values.
These findings enhance our understanding of the social values and preferences associated with ecosystem services in urban river contexts. Furthermore, they provide valuable insights for identifying areas of opportunity and conflict, informing community planning, and enabling effective management of the urban landscape. The significance of this study lies in its novel approach, considering non-monetary social values, and its application in a city in the Global South, where previous research has predominantly focused on the Global North.
The degradation of urban rivers and the resulting socioecological impacts are a growing concern worldwide. Rivers play a vital role in providing natural resources, species habitats, freshwater supply, and flood control, while also satisfying the social, spiritual, and recreational needs of local communities. However, the processes of rapid urbanization have transformed river ecosystems into monofunctional channels and open sewers, negatively impacting the quality of life of residents.
Spatial distribution of negative social values.
This study emphasizes the importance of considering social values and community preferences when assessing and managing urban rivers. By doing so, opportunities and conflicts can be identified, and management strategies can be developed that are socially accepted and supported. Active community participation is crucial in this process as it allows for the addressing of traditional viewpoints and power asymmetries in planning.
The study employed a participatory and community-based approach, utilizing surveys and digital mapping tools such as ArcGIS Survey123 Connect (ESRI 2020) and The Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES 4.0) to collect and analyze data from multiple social actors. This integration of technological tools and participatory methods allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of the social values and ecosystem services associated with urban rivers.
An urban river. Photo by alcides OTA used under a CC BY-NC 2.0 license.
In summary, this groundbreaking study highlights the importance of urban rivers as providers of ecosystem services and their role in the quality of life of urban communities. By understanding and valuing the social and cultural aspects of river ecosystems, effective management strategies can be developed to promote the restoration and conservation of these critical natural resources. Active community participation is essential in achieving sustainable management of urban rivers and ensuring a prosperous future for future generations.
Research article:
Alvarado-Arias N, Moya-Almeida V, Cabrera-Torres F, Medina-Enríquez A (2023) Evaluation and mapping of the positive and negative social values for the urban river ecosystem. One Ecosystem 8: e101122. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.8.e101122
A new paper in One Ecosystem, marks the first attempt at compiling accounts aligned with the UN international standard (SEEA EA) at a regional sea scale.
Ecosystem Accounting offers a robust framework for quantifying and valuing ecosystem extent, condition, and services, enabling the identification of ecological degradation and the evaluation of economic activities’ risks and dependencies on the environment. The OSPAR Convention, committed to safeguarding the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, has embraced the accounting for natural capital and ecosystem services, with the SEEA EA providing the international standard.
A map of the OSPAR Maritime Area, denoting sub-regions I to V, as defined by the OSPAR convention. Ecosystem Accounting was performed by seafloor type (A3 – A6), according to EUNIS classifications.
This research paves the way for a comprehensive understanding of the OSPAR region’s natural capital and ecosystem services. The study entailed the identification of open-access data, the production of accounts for selected ecosystems, valuation of their services and asset value, and the revelation of crucial challenges and invaluable lessons.
The ecosystem services included in the analyses were fish provisioning, carbon sequestration, and outdoor recreation across OSPAR contracting parties’ coastal and marine environments. This exercise shed light on the need to overcome challenges including the lack of fitting data at the regional level and the imperative for spatially explicit linkages and harmonization to expand ecosystem accounting. It also offers valuable recommendations, including a shift towards ecosystem-type-based data collection, harmonization of data among countries, and the establishment of systematic data collection practices to facilitate data sharing and standardization.
The Ecosystem Accounts framework followed. The figure illustrates the set of accounts forming the accounting system, in which the accounts are strongly interconnected and provide a comprehensive and consistent view of the ecosystems.
It is key to emphasize that this work represents an initial step towards progressing ecosystem accounting practices not only in the OSPAR region but can serve as overall guidance for other regions in first steps regional ecosystem accounting, and it shows that, even with limited data and incomplete time-series, accounts can be compiled.
As the world faces unprecedented environmental challenges, understanding and measuring our marine ecosystems and how they change are of paramount importance. This research sets the stage for transformative actions towards sustainable development and underscores the critical need for further advancements in regional ecosystem accounting.
Research article:
Alarcon Blazquez MG, van der Veeren R, Gacutan J, James PAS (2023) Compiling preliminary SEEA Ecosystem Accounts for the OSPAR regional sea: experimental findings and lessons learned. One Ecosystem 8: e108030. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.8.e108030
The shore is a mutual caress. More than just a place of encounter between land and water, it is one of the physical and imagined thresholds between humans and the other-than-human world. This place of touch - through thoughts, actions, interconnections, and affect - is the inevitable crossing at the beginning and end of every inquiry into the world’s bodies of water.
🥈Second prize for Best Talk Award at #esp22europe goes to @KrBurkhard and her couple of gorgeous co-authors🥰 about her research on co-benefits and risks of carbon sequestration in coastal ecosystems! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/hsQufK9Ncm
I find the idea of improving the understanding of how ecosystems – and more generally the natural world – contribute to our well-being to be very inspiring and refreshing in a high-tech profit-oriented world,
she says to explain how she stays motivated in her research work.
To communicate this knowledge to policy- and decision-makers, as well as the general public is key, especially when we consider the threats of climate change and the fact that our deep dependency on nature seems to be largely undervalued,
she adds.
Kremena highlights the role of nature-based solutions:
When utilising conventional and nature-based solutions, the focus is often on a single benefit that is demanded in a certain area, time and situation.
In contrast to conventional solutions, nature-based solutions provide additional co-benefits. These may include biodiversity protection and other ecosystem services that address broader societal demands and are more sustainable in the long term.
As part of the CDRmare research mission “Marine carbon sinks in decarbonisation pathways” of the German Marine Research Alliance, Kremena’s work on coastal ecosystems aims to develop approaches and methodologies which can be applied in an international context.
Our project sea4soCiety focuses on the carbon storage capacity and co-benefits of four coastal vegetated ecosystems which play a key role as carbon sinks around the world and thus contribute to climate regulation. The analysis and methods developed in the project contribute scientifically to the studied topics and have an international relevance.
The German coast is representative of three coastal ecosystems, namely seagrass, salt marsh and macroalgae. The fourth ecosystem – that of mangrove forests in the tropics, is also investigated within the project as a key ocean carbon sink of global relevance.
But climate regulation is only one of the multiple services that these ecosystems provide. Coastal protection, water purification, food and material provision and recreation are among the key services of coastal ecosystems, the benefits of which are used and highly appreciated by the local communities and have significant role in the local safety, economy and culture.
What are the strategies for mitigating or further analysing the risks of carbon sequestration in coastal ecosystems?
We prioritise conservation and restoration of coastal vegetated ecosystems, which are often heavily degraded, and we identify the most suitable areas for establishment of new ecosystems. This reduces the risk of carbon release and provides additional carbon sink capacity.
Further risks are related to unknown climate change impacts. The sea temperature and hydrodynamics are changing, and we are not sure how those changes of habitat will impact the coastal ecosystems. We are studying their reaction in laboratory environments and in the field, identifying thresholds for their functionality and capacity to supply ecosystem services.
Finally, the identification and mitigation of conflicts with other users of those ecosystems is also key to reduce the social risks for all beneficiaries, including labour, human rights, public health issues, and political uncertainty.
When it comes to stakeholders and non-experts, is science communication around the topic of carbon sequestration in coastal ecosystems effective?
On a national and international level, Germany seems to be on track with setting targets and planning actions to become climate neutral through the Climate Action Programme 2030.
The CDRmare research mission and in particular the sea4soCiety project on carbon sequestration in coastal ecosystems are in a way part of that effort, receiving funding to provide the knowledge base for the action programme. Thus, to some extent, the science communication on that level is working and the action plan is based on scientific knowledge.
The shortcomings are in the implementation phase. Local governments are often lacking established mechanisms that allow and support the implementation of action plans related to the national targets.
Such regulated implementation strategies should operationalise the uptake of scientific knowledge in the management of coastal ecosystems and by the local communities, and also in all fields of policy and management.
The so-called High Seas Treaty is a legal framework for the protection of marine biodiversity and responsible and equitable use of resources of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBJN). Its draft, published on the 5th of March 2023, is the outcome of two decades of negotiations, and is part of the international effort to protect a third of the world’s biodiversity by 2030.
An unwavering dedication to the protection and conservation of biodiversity will be required to see the firm landing of this hopeful step.
On this occasion, we look back at some impactful studies published in our journals that have made waves, hopefully in the right direction towards impactful conservation measures and actions.
Following President Barack Obama’s expansion of the largest permanent Marine Protected Area on Earth (Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument) in 2016, a new species of coral-reef fish was named in his honour. The fish is the only known coral-reef species to be endemic to the Monument, and, despite its small size, it carries wide-reaching cultural and political significance as a reminder of how politics go hand in hand with science.
Former President of the United States, Barack Obama, arriving on Midway Atoll Midway on September 1, 2016 to commemorate his use of the Antiquities Act to expand the boundaries of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Dr. Sylvia Earle gives President Barack Obama a photograph of Tosanoides obama on Midway Atoll, from the film “Sea of Hope: America’s Underwater Treasures” premiered on National Geographic Channel on January 15, 2017. See also the news story on National Geographic.
Other studies from our flagship zoology journal ZooKeys have focused on the benthic megafauna and abyssal fauna of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean.
The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, managed by the International Seabed Authority, has been targeted by deep-sea mining interests. In the context of heightened concern over potential biodiversity loss, scientific research is crucial for informing policy-makers and the general public about the risks and outcomes of such initiatives.
The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, central Pacific Ocean (purple box), spanning 6 milllion km2. Knowledge of marine biodiversity in the area is crucial for its protection. Image source: A. Glover at al. (2016).
The rich biodiversity of the deep sea has also been documented in big-scale taxonomic inventories and checklists in the Biodiversity Data Journal.
The echinoderm Amphioplus cf. daleus Lyman, 1879. Image source: A. Glover at al.Hymenopenaeus cf. nereus observed in the UK-1 exploration contract area. Image source: Amon et al. (2017).
Going forward, the expansion of Marine Protected Areas should also ensure the implementation of policies for the methods of resource extraction and their equitable sharing and use among the world’s nations.
Over the next few years, we hope to see an ever increasing interest in biodiversity conservation - from the general public, stakeholders and policy makers, and, of course, research institutions.
We need to love what we protect in order to be able to protect it.
Follow Pensoft on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for our newsletter on the right.
OpenBiodiv is a biodiversity database containing knowledge extracted from scientific literature, built as an Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System.
Apart from coordinating the Horizon 2020-funded project BiCIKL, scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft has been the engine behind what is likely to be the first production-stage semantic system to run on top of a reasonably-sized biodiversity knowledge graph.
OpenBiodiv is a biodiversity database containing knowledge extracted from scientific literature, built as an Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System.
As of February 2023, OpenBiodiv contains 36,308 processed articles; 69,596 taxon treatments; 1,131 institutions; 460,475 taxon names; 87,876 sequences; 247,023 bibliographic references; 341,594 author names; and 2,770,357 article sections and subsections.
In fact, OpenBiodiv is a whole ecosystem comprising tools and services that enable biodiversity data to be extracted from the text of biodiversity articles published in data-minable XML format, as in the journals published by Pensoft (e.g. ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal), and other taxonomic treatments – available from Plazi and Plazi’s specialised extraction workflow – into Linked Open Data.
“I believe that OpenBiodiv is a good real-life example of how the outputs and efforts of a research project may and should outlive the duration of the project itself. Something that is – of course – central to our mission at BiCIKL.”
explains Prof Lyubomir Penev, BiCIKL’s Project Coordinator and founder and CEO of Pensoft.
“The basics of what was to become the OpenBiodiv database began to come together back in 2015 within the EU-funded BIG4 PhD project of Victor Senderov, later succeeded by another PhD project by Mariya Dimitrova within IGNITE. It was during those two projects that the backend Ontology-O, the first versions of RDF converters and the basic website functionalities were created,”
he adds.
At the time OpenBiodiv became one of the nine research infrastructures within BiCIKL tasked with the provision of virtual access to open FAIR data, tools and services, it had already evolved into a RDF-based biodiversity knowledge graph, equipped with a fully automated extraction and indexing workflow and user apps.
Currently, Pensoft is working at full speed on new user apps in OpenBiodiv, as the team is continuously bringing into play invaluable feedback and recommendation from end-users and partners at BiCIKL.
As a result, OpenBiodiv is already capable of answering open-ended queries based on the available data. To do this, OpenBiodiv discovers ‘hidden’ links between data classes, i.e. taxon names, taxon treatments, specimens, sequences, persons/authors and collections/institutions.
Thus, the system generates new knowledge about taxa, scientific articles and their subsections, the examined materials and their metadata, localities and sequences, amongst others. Additionally, it is able to return information with a relevant visual representation about any one or a combination of those major data classes within a certain scope and semantic context.
Users can explore the database by either typing in any term (even if misspelt!) in the search engine available from the OpenBiodiv homepage; or integrating an Application Programming Interface (API); as well as by using SPARQL queries.
On the OpenBiodiv website, there is also a list of predefined SPARQL queries, which is continuously being expanded.
“OpenBiodiv is an ambitious project of ours, and it’s surely one close to Pensoft’s heart, given our decades-long dedication to biodiversity science and knowledge sharing. Our previous fruitful partnerships with Plazi, BIG4 and IGNITE, as well as the current exciting and inspirational network of BiCIKL are wonderful examples of how far we can go with the right collaborators,”
Scientists from Germany developed a framework with indicator suggestions to quantify and compare flood-regulating ecosystem services supply and demand.
Extreme weather events – like heavy rainfall – are a major environmental risk. Only recently after the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) 2022 Europe Conference on Crete (Greece) some conference attendees were able to directly experience the effects of heavy rainfall, when air traffic was stopped in Heraklion for many hours, streets were flooded, properties damaged, and even people died.
Two people were killed after torrential rain brought major flooding to the Greek island of Crete, firefighters said on Sunday. Rain started to fall on Saturday morning in the southern Greek island, hitting the Heraklion region particularly hard. Read more: https://t.co/KbzRqy9SBvpic.twitter.com/DeJqLzolzF
Heavy rainfall can occur anywhere and are usually highly localized. Cities are particularly vulnerable to pluvial flooding because of the high degree of surface sealing, the high population density and the high potential of socio-economic damage in urban areas. In this light, ecosystems are important natural flood-regulating elements that can relieve grey infrastructure such as sewer systems. They can buffer rain events and prevent flooding as their functions turn into a flood-regulating ecosystem service (ES) to protect society.
So far, flood-regulating ES supply and demand for heavy rainfall in urban areas have rarely been studied. Therefore, scientists from the Climate Service Center Germany and the Leibniz University Hannover (Germany) developed a framework with indicator suggestions to quantify and compare flood-regulating ES supply and demand. Interception by canopies and infiltration in the soil serve as essential indicators for urban flood-regulating ES supply. The indicators can be quantified based on the outputs of a hydrological model that has explicitly been developed for this study. The model is based on single, individual landscape elements. It considers vegetation-hydrological interaction, and 2D surface water routing. Social-economic indicators and the surface flooding indicate the related ES demand.
In their study, published in the journal One Ecosystem, they assessed the flood-regulating ES of an urban district in the City of Rostock (Germany) for a one-hour heavy rainfall event. They found the highest mean ES supply on greened areas of forests, woodlands and green areas, resulting in a supply surplus. Whereas, sealed areas (paved surface where water cannot infiltrate into the soil), such as settlements, urban dense areas, traffic areas and industry, showed an unmet demand resulting from both low supply and relatively high actual demand. The results indicated that vegetation plays an important part in flood regulation, if the soils are saturated or sealed and, thus, should be considered in urban flood-regulating ES assessments.
Budget of the flood-regulating ecosystem services supply and demand resulting in unmet demand and supply surplus.
Analysing the supply and demand for flood-regulating ES is particularly important for urban planning in order to identify ES supply-demand mismatches. Based on this information, adaptation measures such as Nature-based Solutions can be planned and their possible ES contributions can be quantified. Since heavy precipitation events are projected to become more frequent and intense in the future, the future functionality of current flood-regulating ES and the benefits of adaptation measures under changing climate conditions need to be assessed. This provides information about changing ES supply and the development of ES demand.
Research article:
Wübbelmann T, Bouwer LM, Förster K, Bender S, Burkhard B (2022) Urban ecosystems and heavy rainfall – A Flood Regulating Ecosystem Service modelling approach for extreme events on the local scale. One Ecosystem 7. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.7.e87458
All journals published by Pensoft – each using the publisher’s self-developed ARPHA Platform – provide extensive and transparent information about their costs and services in line with the Plan S principles.
In support of transparency and openness in scholarly publishing and academia, the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft joined the Journal Comparison Service (JCS) initiative by cOAlition S, an alliance of national funders and charitable bodies working to increase the volume of free-to-read research.
As a result, all journals published by Pensoft – each using the publisher’s self-developed ARPHA Platform – provide extensive and transparent information about their costs and services in line with the Plan S principles.
The JCS was launched to aid libraries and library consortia – the ones negotiating and participating in Open Access agreements with publishers – by providing them with everything they need to know in order to determine whether the prices charged by a certain journal are fair and corresponding to the quality of the service.
According to cOAlition S, an increasing number of libraries and library consortia from Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia have registered with the JCS over the past year since the launch of the portal in September 2021.
While access to the JCS is only open to librarians, individual researchers may also make use of the data provided by the participating publishers and their journals.
This is possible through an integration with the Journal Checker Tool, where researchers can simply enter the name of the journal of interest, their funder and affiliation (if applicable) to check whether the scholarly outlet complies with the Open Access policy of the author’s funder. A full list of all academic titles that provide data to the JCS is also publicly available. By being on the list means a journal and its publisher do not only support cOAlition S, but they also demonstrate that they stand for openness and transparency in scholarly publishing.
“We are delighted that Pensoft, along with a number of other publishers, have shared their price and service data through the Journal Comparison Service. Not only are such publishers demonstrating their commitment to open business models and cultures but are also helping to build understanding and trust within the research community.”
said Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at cOAlition S.
***
About cOAlition S:
On 4 September 2018, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. It is built around Plan S, which consists of one target and 10 principles. Read more on the cOAlition S website.
About Plan S:
Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations. Plan S requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. Read more on the cOAlition S website.
