Science in the sunshine: Pensoft’s month of European conferences

Pensoft participated in five conferences across Germany and Italy in September 2023.

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.

Wildlife Research and Conservation 2023

Wildlife Research and Conservation 2023 took place in Berlin between the 9th and 11th of September. Jointly organised by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria and WWF Germany, it was a fantastic event, featuring an exchange of ideas between wildlife scientists from different disciplines related to mammalian species.

Image showing the WRC2023 logo and two women promoting Pensoft at a conference.
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.

Man holding a certificate.
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 Switzerland in 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. 

Woman standing beside man.
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. 

The Pensoft team took great pleasure in talking to attendees about their fantastic journals focused on ecology and biodiversity, including Food and Ecological Systems Modelling Journal, Neobiota, Nature Conservation, One Ecosystem, Vegetation Classification and Survey and Research Ideas and Outcomes, as well as meeting with authors, reviewers and editors.

European Conference on Ecological Modelling

Also in Leipzig, the European Conference on Ecological Modelling took 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.

Pensoft presented its innovative journals in the field of ecology and modelling, such as Nature Conservation, Food and Ecological Systems Modelling Journal and Neobiota, as well as the projects PoshBee and B-GOOD, which aim to help beekeepers and support healthy bee populations where Pensoft acts as the dissemination partner.

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

Three men sitting before a projector screen at a conference.
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:

  • Molecular and cell biology
  • Taxonomy, systematics and evolution
  • Biodiversity
  • Environmental monitoring and policies
  • Biotechnology and applied botany
  • Ecology

Pensoft awarded Emma Cocco, University of Cagliari, and Lucrezia Laccetti, University of Naples Federico II, a free article publication in any of Pensoft’s journals related to botany.  Additionally, Silvia Cannucci, University of Siena, and Flavia Guzzi received the Italian Botanical Society’s support for publishing papers in Italian Botanist for their excellent research.

Four people at a certificate presentation.
Best poster award, presented by Pensoft.

94th Annual Meeting of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft

Finally, between the 18th and 22nd of September, the 94th Annual Meeting of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft was held in Jena, Germany. Pensoft couldn’t make it in person, but still made sure to showcase journals publishing papers in palaeontology, especially Zitteliana and Fossil Record. The international meeting was a great success, and focused on cutting-edge research from palaeobiology, palaeontology, geobiology and related subjects.

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.

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Pensoft among the first 27 publishers to share prices & services via the Journal Comparison Service by Plan S

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. 

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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.

🥳 Here goes THE title in our New Species Showdown!

From the kingdom of plants, welcome the all-time crowd-favourite species ever described in a Pensoft journal!

Which one is the species that springs to mind when you think about the most awesome discoveries in recent times?

In an age where we more than ever need to appreciate and preserve the magnificent biodiversity inhabiting the Earth, we decided to go for a lighter and fun take on the work of taxonomists that often goes unnoticed by the public. 

From the ocean depths surrounding Indonesia to the foliage of the native forests of Príncipe Island and into the soils of Borneo, we started with 16 species described as new to science in journals published by Pensoft over the years. 

Out of these most amazing creatures, over the past several weeks we sought to find who’s got the greatest fandom by holding a poll on Twitter (you can follow it further down here or via #NewSpeciesShowdown).

Grand Finale – here comes the champion!

Truly, we couldn’t have a more epic final!

The two competitors come from two kingdoms, two opposite sides of the globe, and the “pages” of two journals, namely PhytoKeys and Evolutionary Systematics.

While we need to admit that we ourselves expected to crown an animal as the crowd-favourite, we take the opportunity to congratulate the botanists amongst our fans for the well-deserved win of Nepenthes pudica (see the species description)!

Find more about the curious one-of-a-kind pitcher plant in this blog post, where we announced its discovery following the new species description in PhytoKeys in June 2022:

Back then, N. pudica gave a good sign about its worldwide web appeal, when it broke the all-time record for online popularity in a competition with all plant species described in PhytoKeys over the journal’s 22-year history of taxonomic papers comrpising over 200 issues.

What’s perhaps even more curious, is that there is only one species EVER described in a Pensoft-published journal that has so far triggered more tweets than the pitcher plant, and that species is the animal that has ended up in second place in the New Species Showdown: a tiny amphibian living in Peru, commonly known as the the Amazon Tapir Frog (Synapturanus danta). Which brings us once again to the influence of botanists in taxonomic research.

Read more about its discovery in the blog post from February 2022:

Another thing that struck us during the tournament was that there was only one species described in our flagship journal in systematic journal ZooKeys: the supergiant isopod Bathynomus raksasa, that managed to fight its way to the semi-finals, where it lost against S. danta.

This makes us especially proud with our diverse and competitive journal portfolio full of titles dedicated to biodiversity and taxonomic research!

The rules

Twice a week, @Pensoft would announce a match between two competing species on Twitter using the hashtag #NewSpeciesShowdown, where everyone could vote in the poll for their favourie.

Disclaimer

This competition is for entertainment purposes only. As it was tremendously tough to narrow the list down to only sixteen species, we admit that we left out a lot of spectacular creatures.

To ensure fairness and transparency, we made the selection based on the yearly Altmetric data, which covers articles in our journals published from 2010 onwards and ranks the publications according to their online mentions from across the Web, including news media, blogs and social networks. 

We did our best to diversify the list as much as possible in terms of taxonomic groups. However, due to the visual-centric nature of social media, we gave preference to immediately attractive species.

All battles:

(in chronological order)

Round 1
The first tie of the New Species Showdown was between the olinguito: Bassaricyon neblina (see species description) and the “snow-coated” tussock moth Ivela yini (see species description).
In the second battle, we faced two marine species discovered in the Indian Ocean and described in ZooKeys. The supergiant isopod B. raksasa (see species description) won against the Rose Fariy Wrasse C. finifenmaa (see species description) with strong 75%.
In the third battle, we faced two frog species: the tapir ‘chocolate’ frog described in Evolutionary Systematics (see species description) winning against the ‘glass frog’ described in Zookeys (see species description) with 73%.
With 62% of the votes, the two-species tournament saw the Harryplax severus crab grab the win against another species named after a great wizard from the Harry Potter universe: the Salazar’s pit viper, which was described in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution in 2020. The “unusual” crustacean was described back in 2017 in ZooKeys. As its species characters matched no genus known to date, the species also established the Harryplax genus.
With the fifth battle in the New Species Showdown taking us to the Kingdom of Plants, we enjoyed a great battle between the first pitcher plant found to grow its pitchers underground to dine (see the full study) and the Demon’s orchid, described in 2016 from a single population spread across a dwarf montane forest in southern Colombia (read the study). Both species made the headlines across the news media around the world following their descriptions in our flagship botany journal PhytoKeys.
Next, we saw the primitive dipluran Haplocampa wagnelli (read its species description in Subterranean Biology) – a likely survivor of the Ice Age thanks to the caves of Canada – win the public in a duel against Xuedytes bellus (described in ZooKeys in 2017), also known as the Most cave-adapted trechine beetle in the world!
We had a close battle between the Principe Scops-owl Otus bikegila (see species description published in our ZooKeys earlier in 2022) and the blue-tailed Monitor lizard Varanus semotus (also first ‘known’ from the pages of ZooKeys, 2016). Being adorable species, but also ‘castaways’ on isolated islands in the Atlantic, they made great sensations upon their discovery. In fact, the reptile won with a single vote!
In the last battle of Round 1, the ‘horned’ tarantula C. attonitifer claimed the victory with a strong (80%) advantage from its competitor with a rebel name: the freshwater crayfish C. snowden (species description in ZooKeys from 2015). Described in African Invertebrates in 2019, the arachnid might be one amongst many ‘horned’ baboon spiders, yet there was something quite extraordinary about its odd protuberance. Furthermore, it came to demonstrate how little we know about the fauna of Angola:  a largely underexplored country located at the intersection of several ecoregions.
Round 2 – Quarter-finals
In the first quarter-final round, in the close battle, the isopod ’emerged’ from the ocean depths of Indonesia B. raksasa (species description in Zookeys from 2020) claimed the victory with just a few votes difference (58%!) from its competitor: lovely olinguito B. neblina, also described in Zookeys but back in 2013.
In the second round of the quarter-final, the tapir ‘chocolate’ frog S. danta (described in Evolutionary Systematics this year) claimed the victory with a significant advantage (69%) over its competitor crab H. severus described in Zookeys in 2017.
The third battle in Round 2 secured a place at the semi-finals for the only plant to get this far in the New Species Showdown. If you are dedicated to the mission of proving the plant kingdom superior: keep supporting Nepenthes pudica in the semi-finals and beyond!
In the meantime, read the full description of the species, published in our PhytoKeys in June.
The last quarter-final send the Angolan ‘horned’ tarantula to the next round. Described in African Invertebrates in 2019, its discovery would have likely remained a secret had it not been for the local tribes who provided the research team with crucial information about the curious arachnid.
Round 3 – Semi-finals
Curiously enough, by winning against the ‘supergiant’ isopod B. raksasa – also known around the Internet as the ‘Darth Vader of the seas’ – the Amazonian anuran S. danta outcompetes the last species in the New Species Showdown representing our flagship taxonomy journal: ZooKeys.

The charming anuran was described in February 2022 in Evolutionary Systematics, a journal dedicated to whole-organism biology that we publish on behalf of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB).
In a dramatic turn of events, the tight match between the Angolan tarantula C. attonitifer , whose ‘horn’ protruding from its back surprised the scientists because of its unique structure and soft texture, and the first pitcher plant whose ‘traps’ can be found underground in Borneo, ended up with the news that the New Species Showdown will be concluding with a battle between the kingdoms Animalia and Plantae! What a denouement!

The record-breaking plant was described in June 2022 in PhytoKeys: a journal launched by Pensoft in 2010 with the mission to introduce fast, linked and open publishing to plant taxonomy.
THE FINAL
And here we were at the finish line.
But why did we hold the tournament right now?

If you have gone to the Pensoft website at any point in 2022, visited our booth at a conference, or received a newsletter from any of our journals, by this time, you must be well aware that in 2022 – more precisely, on 25 December – we turned 30. And we weren’t afraid to show it!

Pensoft’s team happy to showcase the 30-year story of the company at various events this year.
Left: Maria Kolesnikova at the annual Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG 2022) conference, hosted by Pensoft in Sofia, Bulgaria. Right: Iva Boyadzhieva at the XXVI International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2022) in Helsinki, Finland.

Indeed, 30 is not that big of a number, as many of us adult humans can confirm. Yet, we take pride in reminiscing about what we’ve done over the last three decades. 

The truth is, 30 years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to picture this day, let alone think that we’d be sharing it with all of you: our journal readers, authors, editors and reviewers, collaborators in innovation, project partners, and advisors. 

Long story short, we wanted to do something special and fun to wrap up our anniversary year. While we have been active in various areas, including development of publishing technology concerning open and FAIR access and linkage for research outcomes and underlying data; and multiple EU-supported scientific projects, we have always been associated with our biodiversity journal portfolio.

Besides, who doesn’t like to learn about the latest curious creature that has evaded scientific discovery throughout human history up until our days? 😉

Now, follow the #NewSpeciesShowdown to join the contest!

Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform integrates with OA Switchboard to streamline reporting to funders of open research

By the time authors open their inboxes to the message their work is online, a similar notification will have also reached their research funder.

Image credit: OA Switchboard.

By the time authors – who have acknowledged third-party financial support in their research papers submitted to a journal using the Pensoft-developed publishing platform: ARPHA – open their inboxes to the congratulatory message that their work has just been published and made available to the wide world, a similar notification will have also reached their research funder.

This automated workflow is already in effect at all journals (co-)published by Pensoft and those published under their own imprint on the ARPHA Platform, as a result of the new partnership with the OA Switchboard: a community-driven initiative with the mission to serve as a central information exchange hub between stakeholders about open access publications, while making things simpler for everyone involved.

All the submitting author needs to do to ensure that their research funder receives a notification about the publication is to select the supporting agency or the scientific project (e.g. a project supported by Horizon Europe) in the manuscript submission form, using a handy drop-down menu. In either case, the message will be sent to the funding body as soon as the paper is published in the respective journal.

“At Pensoft, we are delighted to announce our integration with the OA Switchboard, as this workflow is yet another excellent practice in scholarly publishing that supports transparency in research. Needless to say, funding and financing are cornerstones in scientific work and scholarship, so it is equally important to ensure funding bodies are provided with full, prompt and convenient reports about their own input.”

comments Prof Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft and ARPHA.

 

“Research funders are one of the three key stakeholder groups in OA Switchboard and are represented in our founding partners. They seek support in demonstrating the extent and impact of their research funding and delivering on their commitment to OA. It is great to see Pensoft has started their integration with OA Switchboard with a focus on this specific group, fulfilling an important need,”

adds Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director of the OA Switchboard.

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About the OA Switchboard:

A global not-for-profit and independent intermediary established in 2020, the OA Switchboard provides a central hub for research funders, institutions and publishers to exchange OA-related publication-level information. Connecting parties and systems, and streamlining communication and the neutral exchange of metadata, the OA Switchboard provides direct, indirect and community benefits: simplicity and transparency, collaboration and interoperability, and efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

About Pensoft:

Pensoft is an independent academic publishing company, well known worldwide for its novel cutting-edge publishing tools, workflows and methods for text and data publishing of journals, books and conference materials.

All journals (co-)published by Pensoft are hosted on Pensoft’s full-featured ARPHA Publishing Platform and published in a way that ensures their content is as FAIR as possible, meaning that it is effortlessly readable, discoverable, harvestable, citable and reusable by both humans and machines.

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Follow OA Switchboard on Twitter and Linkedin.

Celebrating World Lizard day with amazing discoveries

This August 14, we’re looking back to the most impressive lizard discoveries we’ve witnessed throughout the years.

World Lizard Day is a great way to raise awareness of these curious reptiles and their conservation needs; it is also a good excuse to look at pretty lizard pictures! Today, we’re doing a bit of both.

At Pensoft, we’ve published many new lizard species, some of them rare and truly fascinating. This August 14, we’re looking back to the most impressive lizard discoveries we’ve witnessed throughout the years.

The Dracula lizard

This beautiful lizard, described in 2018, comes from the Andean slopes of southwestern Colombia and northwestern Ecuador. It inhabits evergreen low montane forests, and is only known from a relatively small territory of approximately 1582 km2. Its prey most often consists of insects, spiders and worms.

Contrary to what you might think, this species was not named after the eponymous vampire count, but rather after some beautiful tropical flowers.

The specific epithet dracula refers to the Dracula Reserve, which is located within the lizard’s distribution and near its type locality. The Reserve protects an area with a high diversity of orchids of the genus Dracula.

Published in ZooKeys.

The tiny chameleon

This lizard friend, known as Brookesia tedi, is less than 3 cm long! It is more than ten times smaller than the longest known chameleon, Furcifer oustaleti. Its size makes it difficult to find, and as a result, challenging to study. Its description, published in 2019, helped resolve a 50-year old identity question.

Living at 1300 m above sea level on the Marojejy massif in northeastern Madagascar, Brookesia tedi lives is brown in colour, its tail and the back of its head grey.

The researchers consider it Vulnerable but worry that improper protection on Marojejy, as well as fires, could rapidly drive the species to becoming Critically Endangered.

Published in Zoosystematics and Evolution.

The charismatic wood lizard

Enyalioides feiruzae is a colourful and highly variable lizard – especially its males, who can have brownish turquoise, gray, or greenish brown backs traced with pale lines. Females, in turn, can be greenish brown or floury brown, with faint dark brown lines on their back, limbs and tail, and spots on the sides. The team behind its discovery spent seven years in the area searching for amphibians and reptiles before describing it.

The species comes from the Tropical Andes, and more specifically – from the Huallaga River basin, an area which is still poorly studied because for a long time it was disturbed by civil wars.

The Feiruz wood lizard was named after another reptile, Feiruz the iguana – “muse and lifelong friend”.

The spotted monitor lizard

Mussau is a small island in northeastern Papua New Guinea. The top predator on it? A lizard.

Varanus semotus has been isolated from related species for an estimated one to two million years, with its closest relatives several hundred kilometers away.

Even so, science discovered it only recently.

The one-meter-long lizard has a black body with yellow and orange markings and a pale yellow tongue, with a turquoise to blue tail. These animals “will eat just about anything they can catch and kill,” study author Valter Weijola told the Washington Post.

As the only large terrestrial generalist predator and scavenger on the island, Varanus semotus may fill an important ecological function, making it of particular conservation concern.

Published in ZooKeys.

The black iguana

What makes Iguana melanoderma so distinct is its black color; in fact, it only gets blacker with age. The species was discovered in Saba and Montserrat islands, the Lesser Antilles (Eastern Caribbean), to which it is endemic.

However, it is threatened by unsustainable harvesting (including pet trade), and competition and hybridization from invasive alien iguanas from South and Central America.

A greater focus on biosecurity, the minimization of hunting, and habitat conservation, would help its conservation, the researchers write in their paper.

In Saba, Iguana melanoderma lives on cliffs, in trees and bushes, in shrublands, and deciduous woodlands. It lives in a foggy and cool environment up to about 500 m a.s.l. and sunbathes as soon as the sun rises.

Published in ZooKeys.

Bonus: Illegal lizard trade might be closer than you think

Dubbed “miniature Godzilla” and “the Holy Grail of Herpetology,” the earless monitor lizard is endemic to Borneo. Legally, it can neither be traded within Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, nor exported out of them.

Even so, reptile enthusiasts and unscrupulous traders have long been smuggling small numbers of earless monitor lizards, eventually bringing them to Europe.

A new study reported that accredited zoos have acquired individuals of the protected lizard, without any evidence of legal export.

“Zoos that continue to obtain animals that have been illegally acquired, directly or indirectly, are often fuelling the illegal wildlife trade, supporting organised crime networks and possibly contributing to the decline in some species,” Vincent Nijman, author of the study, told us.

Published in Nature Conservation.

Top new species discoveries for the first half of 2022

The diversity is impressive, but what is even more amazing is how much more remains undiscovered.

In the world of biodiversity science, 2022 started with some great discoveries and a lot of hope. Here at Pensoft, we get to see a new species (or more!) make an appearance into the scientific world almost every day. The diversity is impressive, but what is even more amazing is how much more remains undiscovered.

With the first half of the year already behind us, here are the stellar new species that took the world by storm as soon as we published them.

The magical fairy wrasse

This rainbow-coloured fish is called Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa, or Rose-Veiled Fairy Wrasse, and it was found in the Maldives’ reefs. It can live 160 to 500 feet beneath the ocean’s surface in unexplored coral ecosystems dubbed “the twilight zone”. 

It was discovered within California Academy of SciencesHope for Reefs initiative, which is aimed at better understanding and protecting coral reefs around the world.

“Nobody knows these waters better than the Maldivian people,” says senior author and Academy Curator of Ichthyology Luiz Rocha. “Our research is stronger when it’s done in collaboration with local researchers and divers.”

Apart from its striking appearance, Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa also gained popularity as the first new-to-science species to be described by a Maldivian scientist.

“It has always been foreign scientists who have described species found in the Maldives, even those that are endemic, without much involvement from local scientists, says study co-author and Maldives Marine Research Institute biologist Ahmed Najeeb. “This time it is different.”

It is also one of the first species to have its name derived from the local Dhivehi language, ‘finifenmaa’ meaning ‘rose’, a nod to both its pink hues and the island nation’s national flower.

This beautiful fish is already being exploited through the aquarium hobbyist trade, a fact described as “unsettling” by the people who discovered it.

Published in ZooKeys.

The Taylor Swift millipede

How often is it that a millipede makes top news headlines? Well, Nannaria swiftae sure did.

Scientists Derek Hennen, Jackson Means, and Paul Marek, at Virginia Tech, U.S., described the new species in April, naming it after singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. “Her music helped me get through the highs and lows of graduate school, so naming a new millipede species after her is my way of saying thanks,” Derek Hennen says, admitting he has been her fan for years.

N. swiftae joins 16 other new species of twisted-claw millipedes described from the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. To find them, researchers traveled to 17 US states, checking under leaf litter, rocks, and logs. They then sequenced the DNA of the species they found and described them scientifically. They looked at over 1800 specimens collected on their field study or taken from university and museum collections!

These little-known invertebrates are somewhat tricky to catch, because they tend to remain buried in the soil, sometimes staying completely beneath the surface.

Most twisted-claw millipedes live on the forest floor, where they feed on decaying leaves and other plant matter. They also have a valuable role as decomposers: breaking down leaf litter, they release their nutrients into the ecosystem.

Published in ZooKeys.

The Greta Thunberg frog

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has been namesakes with a frog for half a year now. In 2018, Rainforest Trust celebrated its 30th anniversary by hosting an auction offering naming rights for some new-to-science species, including Pristimantis gretathunbergae, a black-eyed rainfrog from in eastern Panama.

The undisclosed auction winner wanted to name the frog in honor of Thunberg and her work in highlighting the urgency in preventing climate change. She has impressed global leaders and her work is drawing others to action for the climate.

The international team that discovered the new rainfrog was led by Abel Batista, Ph.D. (Panama) and Konrad Mebert, Ph.D. (Switzerland). They found the frog on Mount Chucanti, a sky island surrounded by lowland tropical rainforest in eastern Panama. Reaching its habitat in the cloud forest required access via horseback through muddy trails, hiking up steep slopes, by-passing two helicopters that crashed decades ago, and camping above 1000 m elevation.

Unfortunately, the frog’s remaining habitat is severely fragmented and highly threatened by rapid deforestation for plantations and cattle pasture. Rising temperatures are another threat as they could destroy its small mountain habitat. The Mount Chucanti region already has lost more than 30% of its forest cover over the past 10 years, and the scientists insist that conservation of the remaining habitat is critical to ensure the survival of the frog.

Published in ZooKeys.

The chocolate frog

Since we’re on the subject of frogs, how about one that almost looks like it’s not real?

Instantly gaining popularity as Chocolate Frog, Synapturanus danta is a curious little frog that was recently discovered in the Peruvian Amazon. Local people had long known about this tiny, burrowing frog with a long snout; one local name for it is rana danta, “tapir frog”, for its resemblance to the large-nosed Amazonian mammal.

“These frogs are really hard to find, and that leads to them being understudied,” says Michelle Thompson, a researcher in the Keller Science Action Center at Chicago’s Field Museum and one of the authors of the study describing the frog. “It’s an example of the Amazon’s hidden diversity, and it’s important to document it to understand how important the ecosystem functions.”

While the frogs are hard to see, they’re not hard to hear. “We just kept hearing this beep-beep-beep coming from underground, and we suspected it could be a new species of burrowing frog,” says Thompson. “But how do we get to it?”

Local guides who were familiar with the frogs led the researchers to peatland areas– wetlands carpeted with nutrient-rich turf made of decaying plant matter. “After 15 to 20 minutes of digging and looking for them, I heard Michelle screaming, and to me that could only mean that she and David had found the first adult,” says Germán Chávez, a researcher at Peru’s Instituto Peruano de Herpetología and the study’s first author.

The researchers used the physical specimens of the frogs, along with the recordings of their calls and an analysis of the frogs’ DNA, to confirm that they were a new species. They named them Synapturanus danta – Synapturanus is the name of the genus they belong to, and danta is the local word for “tapir.”

Published in Evolutionary Systematics.

The fabulous flaming-red snake

This magnificent non-venomous snake, previously unknown to science, was discovered in Paraguay. It belongs to the genus Phalotris, a group of snakes from central South America noted for their striking coloration with red, black, and yellow patterns.

Jean-Paul Brouard, one of the involved researchers, came across an individual of the new species by chance while digging a hole at Rancho Laguna Blanca in 2014. Together with his colleagues Paul Smith and Pier Cacciali, he described the discovery, naming the new snake Phalotris shawnella.

The species name recognizes two children – Shawn Ariel Smith Fernández and Ella Bethany Atkinson – who were born in the same year as the Fundación Para La Tierra (2008). They inspired the founders of the NGO to work for the conservation of Paraguayan wildlife, in the hope that their children can inherit a better world.

This new Phalotris snake is particularly attractive and can be distinguished from other related species in its genus by its red head in combination with a yellow collar, a black lateral band and orange ventral scales with irregular black spots.

Only known from three individuals, this species is endemic to the Cerrado forests of the department of San Pedro in east Paraguay. Its extreme rarity led the authors to consider it as “Endangered”, according to the conservation categories of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means it is in imminent danger of extinction in the absence of measures for its protection.

Published in Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Striking new snake species discovered in Paraguay

Only known from three individuals, Phalotris shawnella is endemic to the Cerrado forests of the department of San Pedro in east Paraguay.

Distribution map.

A beautiful non-venomous snake, previously unknown to science, was discovered in Paraguay and described by researchers of the Paraguayan NGO Para La Tierra with the collaboration of Guyra Paraguay and the Instituto de Investigación Biológica del Paraguay. It belongs to the genus Phalotris, which features 15 semi-subterranean species distributed in central South America. This group of snakes is noted for its striking colouration with red, black, and yellow patterns.

Jean-Paul Brouard, one of the involved researchers, came across an individual of the new species by chance while digging a hole at Rancho Laguna Blanca in 2014. Together with his colleagues Paul Smith and Pier Cacciali, he described the discovery in the open-access scientific journal Zoosystematics and Evolution. The authors named it Phalotris shawnella, in honour of two children – Shawn Ariel Smith Fernández and Ella Bethany Atkinson – who were born in the same year as the Fundación Para La Tierra (2008). They inspired the founders of the NGO to work for the conservation of Paraguayan wildlife, in the hope that their children can inherit a better world.

Phalotris shawnella. Photo by Jean-Paul Brouard

The new Phalotris snake is particularly attractive and can be distinguished from other related species in its genus by its red head in combination with a yellow collar, a black lateral band and orange ventral scales with irregular black spots. Only known from three individuals, it is endemic to the Cerrado forests of the department of San Pedro in east Paraguay. Its known distribution consists of two spots with sandy soils in that department – Colonia Volendam and Laguna Blanca – which are 90 km apart. 

Phalotris shawnella. Photo by Jean-Paul Brouard

The extreme rarity of this species led the authors to consider it as “Endangered”, according to the conservation categories of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means it is in imminent danger of extinction in the absence of measures for its protection.

Phalotris shawnella. Photo by Jean-Paul Brouard

This species can only be found in the famous tourist destination of Laguna Blanca, an area declared as an Important Area for the Conservation of Amphibians and Reptiles. 

Phalotris shawnella. Photo by Jean-Paul Brouard

“This demonstrates once again the need to protect the natural environment in this region of Paraguay,” the authors comment. “Laguna Blanca was designated as a Nature Reserve for a period of 5 years, but currently has no protection at all. The preservation of this site should be considered a national priority for conservation.”

Research article:

Smith P, Brouard J-P, Cacciali P (2022) A new species of Phalotris (Serpentes, Colubridae, Elapomorphini) from Paraguay. Zoosystematics and Evolution 98(1): 77-85. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.98.61064

Guest blog post: New tardigrade species honours Eurovision Song Contest winner

guest blog post by Matteo Vecchi

One of the main threats to biodiversity conservation is not recognizing the uniqueness of species – without a formal name, a species cannot be protected properly. Tardigrades – microorganisms also known as water bears or moss piglets – are no exception. When we were faced with two new species, we took the chance to describe them and add a small piece of information to the biodiversity of those tiny animals.

Thanks to the generosity of my research group principal investigator (Sara Calhim) and the second author’s (Daniel Stec) academic supervisor (Lukasz Michalczyk), who made available to us their spaces and instrumentations, we were able to give a formal name and description to two marvelous tardigrade species.

Macrobiotus annewintersae (top) and the eggs of M. Annewintersae (left) and M. Rybaki (right) Photos by Matteo Vecchi, Daniel Stec

When describing species, researchers have almost complete freedom to express their creativity or gratitude in bestowing them with names. We decided to honour two people: Dr. Anne Winters, who collected the sample where one of the new species – Macrobiotus annewintersae, was found, and the singer Alexander Rybak  with Macrobiotus rybaki.

While routinely examining samples for tardigrades, we stumbled upon tardigrade eggs that didn’t look like any described species. Macrobiotus annewintersae eggs have many conic projections on their surface (called processes) that are topped by about 6 small and stubby tentacles, whereas the processes of Macrobiotus rybaki look like spikes topped with a very tiny dish.

The choice to dedicate the new species to Alexander Rybak is the fruit of our (mine and Daniel’s) passion for the Eurovision Song Contest. We are both fans of this very popular, diverse and cheerful song contest, and we wanted to honour it with a reference to one of its most iconic winners. Rybak’s song Fairytale, which won the 2009 edition, is immediately recognized by any Eurovision Song Contest enthusiast. Our research article, where we describe the two newly found tardigrades,was published in the open-access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution on 19 May, right in the middle of the semi-finals for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

This is not the first instance that a tardigrade species is named after a singer. One species, Barbaria madonnae, was named in 2006 after the singer and performer Madonna.

We hope that naming tardigrade species after popular singers and artists will help popularize them and bring the broad public attention to their conservation.

Original source:

Vecchi M, Stec D (2021) Integrative descriptions of two new Macrobiotus species (Tardigrada, Eutardigrada, Macrobiotidae) from Mississippi (USA) and Crete (Greece). Zoosystematics and Evolution 97(1): 281-306. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.97.65280

Editor’s note: The image of Alexander Rybak posted here is credited to NRK P3 under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence.

What can we learn from vanishing wildlife species: the case of the Pyrenean Ibex

The sad history of the Pyrenean Ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) is a powerful example of species loss due to causes related to human activity. DNA analyses of Pyrenean Ibex found evidence that, after a demographic expansion about 20,000 years ago, its population went through a bottleneck caused by hunting, inbreeding and other factors, which ultimately caused its extinction. Their research is published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Only the French mountaineer and photographer Bernhard Clos managed to take a series of good photos of the Bucardo, as the Pyrenean Ibex is called on the Spanish side. Photo: Bernhard Clos

Likely the first extinction event of the 2000s in Europe, the sad history of the Pyrenean Ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) is a powerful example of the ever-increasing species loss worldwide due to causes related to human activity. It can, however, give us valuable information on what should be done (or avoided) to halt this extinction vortex.

The distribution of this subspecies of Iberian Ibex was limited to the French and Spanish Pyrenees. Its first mention in an official written document, dating back to 1767, already refers to it as extremely rare. Like many other mountain goats, it was almost hunted to extinction before its killing became prohibited in 1913. Neither the institution of a national park (Ordesa & Monte Perdido), nor a conservation project with European LIFE program funding could stop the extinction of the Pyrenean Ibex eventually officialised on January 6, 2000. But the story of this charismatic animal did not end there – a controversial cloning program was started instantly with no scientific agreement, nor support from regional environmental NGOs, claiming that de-extinction was possible even in the absence of further DNA studies.

Laña, the last surviving Pyrenean Ibex, returned as a mounted animal to Torla-Ordesa on the 6th November 2012 after its controversial cloning attempt. Her skin is now exhibited in the visitors centre of Ordesa & Monte Perdido National Park. Photo: Manolo Grasa

To find out more about the drivers of its extinction, an international team composed of 7 nationalities built a database of all known museum specimens and reconstructed the demographic history of the Pyrenean Ibex based on DNA evidence. Their research is published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

The research found that after a population expansion between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago (which is quite recent from a genetic point of view), a significant loss of genetic diversity followed between approximately 15,000 and 7,500 years BP, and continued until present. By that time, the Pyrenean Ibex also lived outside the Pyrenean mountain chain, but, gradually, its distribution was reduced to only one valley in the Ordesa National Park in the Spanish Pyrenees.

The adventures of the British hunter E.N. Buxton were published in 1893. This engraving represents a hunting party in the Ordesa Valley (Spanish Pyrenees).

Written sources confirm hunting of the Pyrenean Ibex from as early as the 14th century, and during the 19th and 20th century it became a common target for trophy hunters. Undoubtedly, hunting played an important role in reducing its population numbers and distribution area, but it is not possible – with the information currently available – to pinpoint it as the straw that broke the camel’s back. Infectious diseases that originate from livestock (for instance, those caused by the bluetongue virus, BTV, and sarcopses) are capable of decimating other subspecies of Iberian Ibex in extremely short periods of time.

While the relative contribution of various factors remains largely unknown, it seems that hunting and diseases transmitted from other animals have been effective in drastically reducing the number of Pyrenean ibexes over the last two centuries, because they were acting on an already genetically weakened population. This low genetic diversity, combined with inbreeding depression and reduced fertility, brought the population beyond the minimum viable size – from that point onwards, extinction was inevitable.

This case study shows the importance of historical biological collections for genetic analyses of extinct species. A privately owned 140-year-old trophy preserved in Pau, France, was genotyped as part of this research, showing that private individuals may possess material of high value. As there is little knowledge of such resources, the authors call for the creation of an online public database of private collections hosting biological material for the benefit of biodiversity studies. 

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Original source:
Forcina G, Woutersen K, Sánchez-Ramírez S, Angelone S, Crampe JP, Pérez JM, Fandos P, Granados JE, Jowers MJ (2021) Demography reveals populational expansion of a recently extinct Iberian ungulate. Zoosystematics and Evolution 97(1): 211-221. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.97.61854

Highlands of diversity: Another new chameleon from the Bale region, Ethiopia

The Bale Mountains in south-central Ethiopia are considered to be one of the most unique centers of endemism, with an extraordinary number of plants and animals that can only be found there. Numerous species are already known from this Afromontane high-elevation plateau, making it a biodiversity hotspot, but ongoing research continues to reveal the presence of so far unknown and undescribed organisms. 

The new chameleon species, Trioceros wolfgangboehmei
Credit: Koppetsch et al.

Zoologists Thore Koppetsch and Benjamin Wipfler of the Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn, Germany, and Petr Nečas from the Czech Republic, describe one such species: a new small-sized chameleon living on the edge of the forest. Their findings were published in the open-access, peer-reviewed life science journal Zoosystematics and Evolution

There were already two species of the chameleon genus Trioceros known to be restricted to the Bale region when Thore Koppetsch and his colleagues discovered another unique representative of this group from the northern slopes of the Bale Mountains. Interestingly, this new chameleon is considered to be part of a species complex of the wide-spread Ethiopian Chameleon Trioceros affinis. Previous studies have indicated divergence between its different populations across the Ethiopian Highlands – with some of them separated by the northern extension of the Great Rift Valley, which also shaped the evolution of early humans. 

Living individual of Trioceros wolfgangboehmei
Credit: Koppetsch et al.

The new chameleon, Trioceros wolfgangboehmei, has a special name. It honours the scientific work of Wolfgang Böhme, senior herpetologist at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn, and his passion for chameleons and other reptiles.

Apart from its biogeographical patterns, the new species also has a characteristic appearance, displaying enlarged spiny scales on its back and tail that form a prominent crest. It usually lives on small trees and bushes at an altitude of above 2,500 m above sea level.

Head detail of the new chameleon, Trioceros wolfgangboehmei
Credit: Koppetsch et al.

“Given the variation in colour patterns and morphology between different populations of these chameleons in Ethiopia, it is likely that these groups still bear a higher hidden diversity than expected, which might be revealed by further ongoing investigations.”

Thore Koppetsch

Furthermore, the research team urges for sustainable preservation and conservation of its habitat to mitigate the impact of human activity.

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Original source:

Koppetsch T, Nečas P, Wipfler B (2021) A new chameleon of the Trioceros affinis species complex (Squamata, Chamaeleonidae) from Ethiopia. Zoosystematics and Evolution 97 (1): 161–179. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.97.57297