The open-access journal NeoBiota has published its milestone 100th issue, celebrating more than fourteen years of advancing research on biological invasions and their impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and society. The milestone comes at a time of great achievement for the Pensoft-published journal in terms of editorial leadership, readership growth, and international recognition.
New editorial leadership
Last year, NeoBiota welcomed a new editorial leadership team, as Dr. Ana Novoa Perez, Prof. Tammy Robinson, Prof. Phil Hulme and Dr. Andrew “Sandy” Liebhold joined forces to bring a wealth of expertise to the journal.
According to the 2024 release of Web of Science metrics, NeoBiota achieved a Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of 3.0, maintaining its Q1 position in Biodiversity Conservation. At the same time, Scopus reported an impressive CiteScore of 6.8, which secures the journal a Q1 ranking across seven categories: Animal Science and Zoology; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Insect Science; Aquatic Science; Plant Science; Ecology; and Ecological Modeling.
The rankings underscore the journal’s influence across ecological disciplines and its continued recognition as a leading publication in invasion science.
Growing global readership
NeoBiota has also experienced remarkable growth in readership. In just the latest quarter, articles published in the journal have attracted over 220,000 views from 90,000 unique readers worldwide.
This increase in readership, coupled with the journal’s focus on strong science communication, has attracted international media attention to NeoBiota’s research papers, such as this piece on the spread of lionfish in the Mediterranean Sea published in BBC Wildlife.
The landmark issue features a collection of articles that reflect the journal’s mission to expand both the geographical and conceptual scope of invasion science:
From Abreo et al. Map of Southeast Asia showing the number of established non-native species reported per country.
Compiling and analyzing the non-native flora of a megadiverse Neotropical country: a new catalogue for continental Ecuador (read here) by Ileana Herrera, Anahí Vargas, Kimberly Rizzo, Zhofre Aguirre, Isabella Dillon, Brunny Espinoza-Amén, Felipe Espinoza De Janon, Andrés Espinoza-Maticurena, José R. Ferrer-Paris, Efraín Freire, Carlos Gómez-Bellver, Diego Gutiérrez del Pozo, Vanessa Lozano, Alejandra Moscoso-Estrella, Nora H. Oleas, Kevin Panchana, Sebastián Pardo, Katya Romoleroux, Verónica Sandoya, Carmen Ulloa Ulloa, Isabela Vieira, Jordi López-Pujol – Also part of the above topical collection focusing on the Global South
Acacia invasion triggers cascading effects above- and belowground in fragmented forests (read here) by Raquel Juan-Ovejero, Filipa Reis, Pedro Martins da Silva, Elizabete Marchante, Fernanda Garcia, Maria Celeste Dias, Filipe Covelo, António Alves da Silva, Helena Freitas, José Paulo Sousa, Joana Alves.
From Juan-Ovejero et al. Conceptual flow chart showing the hypotheses of the study.
Transparency and reproducibility in invasion science (read here) by Fabio Mologni, Jason Pither.
Taken together, these contributions highlight both regional challenges, such as managing alien taxa in biodiversity hotspots, and broader conceptual issues, including methodological rigour in invasion science research.
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As NeoBiota celebrates its 100th issue, it continues to push the boundaries of open, accessible, and impactful publishing in invasion science. With new leadership, growing readership, and a commitment to innovation in scholarly communication, the journal is poised for further growth in its next hundred issues. Explore the full 100th issue here.
With the Grassland Butterfly Index for Germany, UFZ scientists are providing important input for the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation.
One of the goals of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, which came into force in 2024, is to halt species loss and preserve important ecosystem services provided by agricultural landscapes.
The results, published in the open-access journal Nature Conservation, show a negative trend, especially in recent years. For their calculations, the researchers were able to draw on 4 million observation data collected at the UFZ over the last 20 years as part of the ‘Butterfly Monitoring Germany’ programme.
Agricultural landscapes are among the most degraded habitats worldwide. Their restoration is one of the key measures for halting global biodiversity loss and preserving important ecosystem services.
“The Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), which came into force in 2024, is an essential instrument for achieving the restoration targets set for the European Union,” says Prof. Josef Settele, agroecologist at the UFZ. The objectives also include increasing biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems (Article 11 of the NRR), taking into account climate change, the needs of rural areas and sustainable agricultural production. To implement the overall objectives, EU Member States are required to develop national restoration plans and implement concrete measures in terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine habitats.
The extent to which the specific measures are effective and the ecosystems develop positively will be determined using indicators. For agricultural landscapes, these are (a) the grassland butterfly index, (b) the stock of organic carbon in cropland mineral soils, and (c) the share of agricultural land with high diversity landscape features. For at least two of these three indicators, the EU regulation calls for an upward trend towards a satisfactory level by 2030. Since natural conditions vary across EU countries and there is a wide range of different land management practices, Josef Settele argues that all EU countries should start by recording all three indicators so that none of them is prematurely dropped.
With the ‘Grassland Butterfly Index’, a research team led by the UFZ has now calculated one of the three indicators for Germany for the first time and published the results in the journal Nature Conservation. The data for this analysis comes from Butterfly Monitoring Germany (Tagfalter-Monitoring Deutschland – TMD), a long-term programme coordinated by the UFZ and the Society for Butterfly Conservation (GfS). Every week during the summer, volunteers count butterflies at fixed locations using a standardised European method.
“Since the TMD was launched in 2005, this has resulted in around four million data records being collected, which provide information on the development of butterfly populations in Germany,” explains one of the co-authors of the publication, biologist Elisabeth Kühn, who coordinates the German Butterfly Monitoring programme at the UFZ.
What does the index show for Germany?
The ‘Grassland Butterfly Index’ tracks the development of populations of 15 butterfly species from 2006 to 2023 that are considered typical inhabitants of various grassland biotopes.
“Four species have increased, five species show a declining trend. For six species, the trend is uncertain, which is probably due to insufficient data and large differences between the locations where they were found,” says the study’s lead author, bioinformatician Alexander Harpke. In the first decade of the period analysed (2006 to 2016), the index for Germany as a whole shows a slightly positive trend – which does not rule out the possibility that this may vary greatly for individual species.
However, if we look only at recent years (2016 to 2023), the index shows a significant decline overall. This mainly affects specialised species such as the Small Blue (Cupido minimus) or the Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages); generalists such as the Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) or the Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) are hardly affected.
These results show that the trend for grassland butterflies in Germany during the comparison period corresponds to the trend at European level, which was last determined by Butterfly Conservation Europe in 2025 for all 27 member states.
Butterflies are known to be sensitive to changes in their environment. Land use plays a decisive role in this. “The loss and fragmentation of habitats have a proven negative effect on the long-term survival of butterfly populations. Intensive mowing, nitrogen inputs and pesticides contribute to a deterioration in habitat quality or increased mortality. Species that depend on specific habitats, such as nutrient-poor grasslands, also suffer from a lack of use, e.g. through grazing or mowing,” explains Prof. Thomas Schmitt from the Senckenberg German Entomological Institute (SDEI) in Müncheberg, who is also co-author of the study.
In addition to land use, climate change is increasingly contributing to changes in butterfly fauna. Higher temperatures favour the spread of heat-loving or tolerant species, while species adapted to cooler conditions are in decline.
These dependencies of butterflies on land use and climate change make them excellent indicators of the state of our ecosystems. In addition, they are easy to record – especially by qualified volunteers. Together, these two factors have provided an invaluable database for butterfly monitoring in Germany, which scientists are now evaluating to calculate trends and indicators for reporting under European environmental legislation.
“The significance and representativeness of the indicator could be further increased if government programmes such as Habitats Directive monitoring or nationwide insect monitoring were integrated into the analysis,” says UFZ biologist and co-author of the publication Dr Martin Musche. The same would apply if data from neighbouring countries were included.
In 1869, the construction of the Suez Canal was completed, connecting two marine regions previously separated for 16 million years and initiating major ecological changes that continue to this day.
Now more than 100 fish species native to the Indo-West Pacific Ocean – including the ‘devil firefish’ – have crossed to become established in the Mediterranean Sea.
But how do they make the journey?
Researchers from the American University of Beirut and the American University in Dubai analysed how invasive fish from the Indo-Pacific region colonise the Mediterranean. Combining ocean current modelling, shipping data, and environmental analysis, they examined records of 136 fish species to map the natural and human-driven factors that enable these invaders to thrive.
Location of the Suez Canal.
Published in NeoBiota, the findings indicate that the primary drivers for the initial entry of invasive fish into the Mediterranean are proximity to the Suez Canal and sea currents transporting fish larvae into nearby eastern Mediterranean regions. However, while sea currents play an important role early in the invasion stage, they cannot explain how species cross into the western Mediterranean.
Indeed, cargo shipping has become increasingly influential, with focal points like Malta acting as key stepping stones for the spread of non-native fish, especially to western Mediterranean areas. Over time, the odds of a region being colonised via shipping have grown significantly.
A ship passing through the Suez Canal in Egypt.
Additionally, local conditions such as high salinity in Mediterranean waters boost the likelihood of invasive species establishing permanent populations, as these fish tend to be pre-adapted to saline environments from their native habitats.
“Scientists have long suspected that the anti-clockwise spread of invasive species in the eastern Mediterranean is due to currents and the high number of first records in Malta is due to shipping.
“Our use of sea current simulations and shipping data could confirm these conjectures and provide quantitative estimates of the effects.”
Heinrich zu Dohna, lead author of the paper.
Logistic regression models indicate that in some regions shipping leads to a sixfold increase of the odds of receiving invasive species, indicating targeted management and monitoring is needed at major shipping hubs.
Better data on ballast water release and ship movements in the Mediterranean are needed, as cargo shipping’s impact on biological invasions is now clear. Malta’s role as a major shipping hub makes it a particular hotspot for secondary introductions and warrants special attention by policymakers and marine managers.
Original source
zu Dohna H, Lakkis I, Bariche M (2025) The spread of Indo-Pacific origin fish species in the Mediterranean Sea is influenced by sea currents, habitat factors, and increasingly by shipping. NeoBiota 101: 73-89. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.101.157775
A new white paper delivers a clear message: protecting biodiversity is not just an environmental issue. It is essential for food security, public health, climate stability, and the global economy.
The authors make a call for a decisive shift: from fragmented initiatives to a holistic, global approach to biodiversity research and policy, already demonstrated during a workshop at the 79th United Nations General Assembly and the Science Summit (UNGA79). A key part of this transformation concerns the role of research infrastructures in connecting science, technology, and policy: from vast biodiversity collections and genomic observatories, to ecosystem “digital twins” powered by supercomputers.
Behind the paper are a network of legal entities based in Europe and holding global interests, which includes biodiversity, ecology, and engineering communities, coordinated by the LifeWatch European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC).
With their combined expertise and through European initiatives, such as Research Infrastructures, e-Infrastructures, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), the Digital Twin projects and academic publishers, these communities provide a basis for collaboration in strategically contributing to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (K-M GBF) targets.
Biodiversity needs to be placed at the centre of the upcoming 2026 UN Summit of the Future and become a core pillar of the agenda after the 2030 deadline for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
The UN Pact for the Future should include biodiversity as a core pillar: “not only of environmental sustainability, but of equity, security, and intergenerational justice”.
urges the team.
To do this, the authors propose the establishment of a global alliance that will strategically integrate biodiversity conservation into the core priorities of the UN Summit of the Future and the post-SDG agenda.
This alliance is meant to join the voices of researchers, policymakers, indigenous knowledge holders, civil society, and industry to ensure that biodiversity underpins peace, prosperity, and justice as a universal enabler.
The white paper also demonstrates how the research infrastructures collectively contribute to the seven Strategic Considerations of the K-M GBF, outlined here in brief and further detailed in the full publication:
Contribution and rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities: Ensuring fair recognition and sharing of benefits with indigenous peoples and local communities, thus integrating their knowledge into biodiversity science.
Collective efforts towards the targets of the K-M GBF: Coordinating biodiversity monitoring, databases, and digital infrastructures to track progress towards global conservation targets.
Fulfilment of the three principal objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its protocols: Studying or supporting the study of all aspects of biodiversity; and providing public and streamlined access to biodiversity information.
Implementation through science, technology, and innovation: Developing and offering technologically advanced and novel solutions for research, data sharing and management to various users; and promoting open science by publishing research findings and increasingly sharing more facets of the research process.
Ecosystem approach: Developing and implementing technologies that enable a cross-domain, multidisciplinary approach to studying biodiversity and ecosystems; and using holistic, cross-disciplinary methods to understand and predict biodiversity and environmental dynamics.
Cooperation synergies: Collaborating with organisations responsible for implementing the CBD, policy agents, international research projects; and participating in international forums and social, scientific and technical initiatives.
Biodiversity and health linkages: Demonstrating how healthy ecosystems support human health, food security, and resilience to pandemics by supporting interdisciplinary research through bringing together knowledge and data and uncovering links and interactions between humans and the environment.
“With the UN’s ‘Pact for the Future’ currently being shaped, we see a unique opportunity to anchor biodiversity as a unifying thread across global goals that will transform how societies respond to the intertwined crises of climate change, nature loss, and pollution,” say the authors.
The white paper is the latest contribution to the LifeWatch ERIC Strategic Working Plan Outcomes open-science collection meant to provide a one-stop access point to the most important deliverables by the European biodiversity and ecosystem research infrastructure, which is currently undergoing a significant upgrade as a response to the needs of its target communities and stakeholders.
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Original source:
Arvanitidis C, Barov B, Gonzalez Ferreiro M, Zuquim G, Kirrane D, Huertas Olivares C, Drago F, Pade N, Basset A, Deneudt K, Koureas D, Manola N, Mietchen D, Casino A, Penev L, Ioannidis Y (2025) From Knowledge to Solutions: Science, Technology and Innovation in Support of the UN SDGs. Research Ideas and Outcomes 11: e168765. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.11.e168765
This publication is part of a collection:
LifeWatch ERIC Strategic Working Plan Outcomes Edited by Christos Arvanitidis, Cristina Huertas, Alberto Basset, Peter van Tienderen, Cristina Di Muri, Vasilis Gerovasileiou, Ana Mellado
Europe’s biodiversity and ecosystem research infrastructure. LifeWatch ERIC provides access to biodiversity and ecosystem data, services and other research products: its virtual workbenches and digital twins for biodiversity science enable researchers worldwide to analyse biodiversity patterns, processes, and changes in ecosystems, and derive evidence-based knowledge for science and policy.
CSC hosts one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers (LUMI), pioneering biodiversity digital twins and climate models. CSC provides critical support for data-intensive projects that link computing, AI, and environmental science.
A federation of hundreds of data centres providing global-scale computing, AI, and data services. EGI enables large-scale analysis of biodiversity and environmental data from sensors and satellites, supporting international collaboration.
A hub for marine research, coordinating Europe’s Digital Twin of the Ocean and global biodiversity data systems, such as WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species). VLIZ drives blue innovation and ocean data integration.
Europe’s infrastructure for marine biology, offering access to organisms, labs, and genomic observatories. EMBRC connects over 70 institutes across 10 countries, supporting research “from genes to ecosystems.”
The largest initiative to digitise and unify Europe’s natural science collections into a single, FAIR-data-based infrastructure. DiSSCo makes museum collections globally accessible, boosting taxonomic, ecological, and environmental research.
A European e-Infrastructure dedicated to building a globally connected, interoperable, and sustainable open research ecosystem, with Open Science at its core. By offering a suite of services covering the entire research lifecycle, guidelines, and practices that support the adoption of Open Access and FAIR data principles across its network of National Open Access Desks in 34 countries, OpenAIRE supports local researchers, funders, and policymakers in aligning with European and global open science policies.
Founded in 1992 “by scientists, for scientists”, the academic open-access publishing company is well known worldwide for its novel cutting-edge publishing tools, workflows and methods for text and data publishing of journals, books and conference materials. Through its Research and Technical Development department, the company is involved in various research and technology projects. Pensoft coordinated the EU project BiCIKL (2021-2024), which established a new community of Research Infrastructures and users of FAIR and interlinked biodiversity data.
The world’s largest computing society, established to foster ethical and responsible innovation. ACM brings global expertise in computing and AI to biodiversity research and policy.
A leading ICT and AI research institute advancing digital infrastructures and open science platforms. Athena connects computing innovation with biodiversity, humanities, and societal challenges.
We attended the International Congress for Conservation Biology to present the REST-COAST and SELINA Horizon-funded projects, as well as our scholarly journals and books portfolio.
Over 1,200 people from more than 90 countries, including conservation and social science researchers, students, practitioners, government and NGO professionals, policy specialists and leaders from indigenous groups attended the 32nd International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2025), hosted by the SCB Oceania Region from 15th to 19th June 2025 in Brisbane/Meanjin, Australia.
The Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre (BCEC) welcomed over 1,200 participants for the 32nd International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2025) hosted by the SCB Oceania Region. Photo credit: BCEC.
A special focus seen across the talks and overall rhetoric of the event was on indigenous peoples, culture and knowledge, and how they can be recognised and further engaged in the study and protection of the environment in a sustainable and culturally appropriate manner. Other topics popular during the week included biocultural diversity and wildlife trade and traffic.
Throughout the week, the delegates enjoyed three sets of plenary talks, and got to choose from upwards of ten parallel sessions taking place three times each day. Multiple workshops and business meetings would also take place every day around lunch time. Then, each day of the congress would conclude with a poster session at the Exhibition hall. Additionally, multiple social events scheduled throughout the week – such as a nature documentary movie night, a science comedy night, and a closing reception, held amongst the exhibits of the Queensland Museum Kurilpa – would take care of the attendees’ entertainment after long days of talks and presentations.
Our team at Pensoft was proud to join this amazing event as one of the 14 exhibitors at ICCB 2025. At our stand, Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva would invite delegates to elaborate on their scientific interests and latest research endeavours, as well as wants and needs concerning the publication, communication and outreach of their work.
Pensoft’s Head of Journal development and PR: Iva Boyadzhieva at the ICCB2025 (Brisbane, Australia).
Then, visitors would leave the Pensoft stand with helpful advice concerning scholarly publishing and multiple recommended titles from the Pensoft open-access journal portfolio fitting the scope of their research. If you have met us at any event in the past couple of years, you would also know that it is next to impossible for a visitor of ours to leave without at least one of our signature stickers featuring captioned scientific illustrations of species studied in papers from across our journals.
At every event in the past two years, Pensoft has been handing out stickers featuring detailed scientific illustrations of species studied in papers published in Pensoft’s scholarly portfolio. This is our ‘thank you’ to the authors who have trusted our journals with their work.
Many would also become intrigued to know more about the latest activities and results of the two European Union-funded projects that enjoyed prominent visibility at the Pensoft stand, namely: SELINA (an acronym for Science for Evidence-based and Sustainable Decisions about Natural Capital) and REST-COAST (Large scale RESToration of COASTal ecosystems through rivers to sea connectivity). At both projects, our team takes pride in leading work packages dedicated to the communication and dissemination of the projects’ outputs.
Having started in 2022 and set to run until 2027, SELINA comprises 50 partner organisations coordinated by the Leibniz University Hannover. This transdisciplinary project provides smart, cost-effective, and nature-based solutions to historic societal challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security. A main objective is to identify biodiversity, ecosystem condition, and ecosystem service factors that can be successfully integrated into decision-making processes in both the public and private sectors.
Most recently, the consortium launched SELINA’s Communities of Practice initiative to promote collaborative learning and knowledge integration across Europe. This digital platform provides a forum for scientists, policymakers, practitioners, and business representatives to exchange knowledge and further engage with its real-life application. On the Communities of Practice webpage, visitors may explore how SELINA is driving change across Europe.
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Meanwhile, the mission of the EU Horizon’s Green Deal-funded REST-COAST is to address today’s challenges to coastal ecosystems caused by a long history of environmental degradation of rivers and coasts. Bringing together 38 European institutions, led by the Catalonia University of Technology UPC-BarcelonaTech (Spain), the project is set to demonstrate to key stakeholders and decision-makers that large-scale restoration of river deltas, estuaries and coastal lagoons is necessary to sustain the delivery of vital ecosystem services.
A prominent output by the REST-COAST project is a policy brief addressing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, and serving to provide scientifically-informed policy recommendations and targets.
At the Pensoft stand, ICCB2025 participants had the opportunity to browse through nine fact sheets produced within the project. Each provides a neat snapshot of the story of one of the pilot sites selected by REST-COAST as representatives of particularly vulnerable hotspots for the main EU regional seas (Baltic, Black, North Atlantic and the Mediterranean). On display was also a recent policy brief addressing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. It serves to provide a concise summary of the issues and challenges at hand, in addition to scientifically-backed policy recommendations and targets.
Both the pilot site factsheets and the policy briefs produced by the consortium are made public in the Media Center on the project website. Further project outputs, including research articles, data papers and project reports, are permanently available from the REST-COAST’s open-science project collection in the Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal.
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On the final day, the ICCB 2025 did not disappoint either. The day started with a touching plenary talk by Amy Van Nice of the Wildlife Alliance, where she shared a lot of her own experience as a wildlife rescuer, but also as a human with her own personal battles along the way. Throughout her talk she remained fully transparent about the current situation in wildlife trafficking, which remains, sadly, a crisis yet to be tackled.
The day continued with a full programme of parallel sessions before everyone gathered for the closing session and the closing ceremony, where delegates could look back at the last year in conservation, and learn about what is to come. The closing ceremony also announced and celebrated the SCB 2025 Global Service Awards and the ICCB awards.
Following the ICCB tradition, the organisers also waited until the end of the event to announce the location of the next international congress. It will take place in 2027 some 12,000 km (7,500 miles) away from Brisbane: in Mexico, where it will be jointly hosted by the North American (SCBNA) and the Latin America and Caribbean (SCB-LACA) regions of the Society for Conservation Biology.
Published in the open-access journal NeoBiota, and funded by the European Commission, a new study identifies where and how targeted action against IAS can have the highest conservation impact.
Researchers applied the IUCN Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric to measure opportunities for species threat abatement caused by IAS. They estimated that fully removing threats from IAS could reduce extinction risk for EU species by up to 16%.
Methodological outline for the different steps of the STAR-t analyses on Invasive Alien Species threats.
The Macaronesian Islands, namely the Canary Islands (Spain), Madeira (Portugal), and the Azores (Portugal), present the largest opportunities for reducing species extinction risk. The research calculates this at an over 40% reduction in extinction risk if IAS were eliminated, illustrating how IAS pose a significantly higher threat to islands compared to mainland ecosystems. Islands are particularly vulnerable due to their unique biodiversity, high levels of endemism, and often fragile ecosystems.
“Given the alarming impact that invasive alien species have on native biodiversity and the economy, it is essential to identify where action can have the greatest effect. In this context, our work presents the first regional application of the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric, a science-based method that links conservation actions to the reduction of species extinction risk. By applying STAR with data from the EU Red List of threatened species, we highlight opportunities for addressing invasive alien species across national and subnational levels in the EU.
Randall Jiménez Q., Senior Conservation Scientist, IUCN (first author of the research).
For specific IAS, the greatest opportunities to reduce regional species extinction risk by mitigating threats from IAS come from managing feral goats (12.4%), mouflons (8.1%), rabbits (5.3%) and rats (4.6%).
Contribution of IAS threat abatement to extinction risk reduction. Relative contribution (in percentage) to the species extinction risk reduction that could be met by acting to abate IAS threats in each of the EU Member States or Outermost Regions.
Invasive alien species are a major threat to global biodiversity and the total cost of biological invasions across all European Union member states has been estimated at 129.9 billion US dollars between 1960 and 2020. In Europe, measures for IAS management are mainly established through the European Union Biodiversity Strategy 2030, which aims to halve the number of IUCN Red List of Threatened Species at risk from IAS by 2030.
“Mitigating the impacts of invasive alien species offers some of the greatest potential gains for conserving native biodiversity, while also delivering benefits for ecosystem services and local economies.
“This analysis provides decision-makers with guidance on where efforts can achieve the most significant results, supporting progress toward the EU Biodiversity Strategy target of reducing impacts on threatened species from invasive alien species by 50%.”
BorisErg, IUCN European Regional Director.
Across the EU, 3,759 species (excluding marine animals) have been assessed as Near Threatened or Threatened with extinction, of which 579 (15%) are documented to be threatened by IAS (IUCN 2024).
A 2023 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that IAS have been a significant driver in 60% of documented plant and animal extinctions. The report, informed by experts from the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG), identified 3,500 invasive species that are severely harming biodiversity and human livelihood. These are increasing rapidly, with a forecast increase of 36% by 2050 – posing threats to the realisation of the Global Biodiversity Framework.
Original source:
Jiménez RR, Smith KG, Brooks TM, Scalera R, Mair L, Nunes AL, Costello KE, Macfarlane NBW (2025) Guiding action on invasive alien species towards meeting the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. NeoBiota 99: 109–129. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.99.148323
Elephants are among the largest land mammals on Earth and are often referred to as “ecosystem engineers” because they sustainably alter their surroundings through grazing, trampling, and digging. Europe, too, had an elephant: the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) lived on our continent for around 700,000 years. The species survived multiple ice ages before becoming extinct during the last one due to additional hunting pressure from humans. Throughout its existence, the straight-tusked elephant helped shape Europe’s landscape, maintaining open spaces and light woodlands. Many native plant species are still adapted to these conditions today.
A sculpture of Palaeoloxodon antiquus next to the paleontological museum of Ambrona (Soria, Spain). Photo credit: PePeEfe under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
“The German name Waldelefant (forest elephant) originates from the assumption that this species primarily lived in the wooded regions of Europe. However, fossil evidence shows that P. antiquus often inhabited open or semi-open habitats with mosaic-like vegetation, similar to modern elephants,” explains Prof. Dr. Manuel Steinbauer, Chair of Sport Ecology at the University of Bayreuth.
What for?
Our perception of nature is shaped by what we experience in our surroundings. Ecosystems without direct human influence are often perceived as “natural.” However, when considering insights gained from fossils, it becomes clear that today’s ecosystems— even without direct human intervention—differ significantly from those in which the species of our landscapes evolved thousands of years ago. Studies like the one carried out by the Bayreuth research team highlight the importance of studying past ecosystems for conservation. Understanding how climate and environmental changes have historically affected large mammals can provide valuable insights for modern conservation strategies.
To reconstruct the way of life of P. antiquus and, in particular, its actual habitat—known as the realised niche—the research team examined scientific literature and palaeontological databases for fossil finds of P. antiquus that could be assigned to specific Marine Isotope Stages. Marine Isotope Stages are periods in the earth’s history that reflect climate history, representing warm and cold stages. The Bayreuth research team assigned fossil finds from across Europe to either a warm or cold stage and used climate models from these periods to reconstruct the realised niche of the straight-tusked elephant. A comparison with modern climate data suggests that straight-tusked elephants would still be able to live in Europe today. The climate in Western and Central Europe would be particularly suitable, except for mountainous regions such as the Alps and the Caucasus.
Current potential distribution of the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) in Europe. The colouring represents the probability of occurrence, with grey indicating “very unlikely” and dark green “very likely”. The black dots mark the fossil finds on which the prediction is based.
“In the past, megafauna like the straight-tusked elephant and their regulatory mechanisms—such as grazing—were omnipresent. Many European species, particularly plants that thrive in open habitats, likely established in their diversity in Europe because they benefited from these ecological influences. Traditional conservation strategies in Europe primarily aim to protect biodiversity by shielding habitats from human activities. However, this strategy alone is unlikely to restore the lost ecological functions of megafauna,” says Franka Gaiser, a doctoral student in the Sport Ecology research team and lead author of the study.
Modern conservation projects actively reintroduce large herbivores to Europe. However, this comes with challenges, as the ecological processes that have shaped modern ecosystems are not yet fully understood. Additionally, today’s large herbivores cannot entirely replace the role of extinct megafauna, as both the animals themselves and the landscape structures, as well as species interactions, have changed significantly.
Original publication:
Gaiser F, Müller C, Phan P, Mathes G, Steinbauer MJ (2025) Europe’s lost landscape sculptors: Today’s potential range of the extinct elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus. Frontiers of Biogeography 18: e135081. https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.18.135081
The exhibition was organised by Pensoft as part of the communication and dissemination activities for the EC Horizon project eLTER (European Long-Term Ecosystem Research)
In the past months, a unique photo exhibition showcasing European long-term ecosystem research sites was presented in the Bulgarian capital: Sofia.
This visually striking exhibition was not only a celebration of science and nature, but also an illustrative example of Pensoft’s integrated approach to communication, dissemination, and community engagement under the EU-funded eLTER project.
Coordinated by Pensoft’s Communications team, the initiative demonstrates how a carefully curated campaign can be transformed into a multi-layered outreach success. From conceptualization to realization, the team worked closely with the eLTER Coordination and Head Office to create what is now known as the eLTER Grand Campaign—a journey across Europe to visually document the human and ecological stories behind the research stations.
The eLTER photo exhibition was displayed at the ‘Lover’s bridge’ in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Over the course of three months, photographer Evgeni Dimitrov and his team traveled across 23 European countries, visiting some of the continent’s most advanced long-term ecosystem research sites. Using both drone and handheld cameras, the team captured nearly 3,000 photographs and 50 videos, bringing an artistic lens to the world of environmental science. The visual materials created during the Grand Campaign will be integrated into the eLTER database, becoming a valuable resource for researchers and stakeholders across Europe. These assets will support ongoing efforts in data visualisation, educational outreach, and long-term documentation of ecosystem changes.
“During the trip, it was fascinating to observe the work of scientists—each team reflecting the specific national context, yet united by a shared goal: to collect increasingly detailed data that can help us create a better environment.
I aimed to portray the research stations not only from a technical perspective—showing the equipment and how it’s used—but also within the broader environment: the nature around them, the living beings they interact with, and the people behind the machines who bring meaning to otherwise dry data.
explained photographer Evgeni Dimitrov.
Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev (Pensoft’s CEO and founder) and photographer Evgeni Dimitrov at the photo exhibition.
Seizing the momentum of the exhibition’s launch in Sofia, the Pensoft team also engaged with local media to broaden public awareness of the eLTER project. For example, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency published a feature story, titled “Photo Exhibition Presents Research Stations across Europe in Sofia” in both Bulgarian and English, which highlights the exhibition, as well as the mission and goals of eLTER, with a special focus on the work of LTER-Bulgaria. Other local media also covered the news and promoting eLTER.
This strategic blend of visual storytelling, media engagement, and public outreach exemplifies Pensoft’s holistic approach to science communication.
From centrally managing a campaign, coordinating international logistics, and delivering high-quality media assets, to generating public interest and securing media coverage, this initiative shows how communication can become a vital extension of research impact.
To stay up to date with the activities and overall progress of the eLTER project, subscribe to the eLTER Newsletter, and follow eLTER on BlueSky,X, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
This June, the eLTER project will be holding its very first science conference with the aim to bring together scientists across disciplines who are striving to adopt a holistic approach to the understanding of the complex interactions between living organisms, humans, and their physical environment in the critical zone.
Pensoft is a project partner and a work package leader in the eLTER projects. eLTER receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under GA No 871126 (eLTER PPP) and GA No 871128 (eLTER PLUS), and the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under GA No 101131751 (eLTER EnRich).
Guest blog post by Daniel Ayllón and Steve Railsback
Early in the morning, Daniel Ayllón and his research mates at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid drive towards the mountains near Madrid. They’re out to survey streams where the endangered Southern Iberian spined-loach and Northern Iberian spined-loach used to coexist. We say “used to,” because once again they fail to find the Northern Iberian spined-loach, probably locally extinct. Such extinctions are not unusual, as freshwater fishes are one of the most threatened groups of animals in the world. There are still many brown trout there, though; the water is still cold enough for them.
Salmonids (trout, salmon and char) are especially challenged by climate change because they need cold, oxygenated and clean water. Trout populations at low altitudes or low latitudes are thus particularly at risk; many in the Iberian Peninsula have been declining for decades as rivers warm and dry. Climate models project a bleak future: such Mediterranean populations will face hotter and drier streams, with more frequent and longer droughts and heat waves, and increasing competition from warm-water fish.
Brown trout (Salmo trutta). Photo by J. R. Pérez (AEMS-Ríos con Vida archive)
Despite these changes, local extinctions of trout are still rare, because salmonids are among the most adaptable and resilient of freshwater fishes. They are changing their physiology and phenology, growth and reproduction patterns, and life-history strategies to adjust to the new environmental conditions, via evolutionary, plastic and behavioural mechanisms. While evolutionary ecologists typically focus on genetic adaptation to forces such as climate change, behavioural plasticity could be even more important, because it is fast, reversible and often predictable.
In fact, thermoregulatory movements seem a ubiquitous behavioural mechanism in salmonids: individuals move up and down river networks to find less-stressful temperatures and better growth potential. Behavioural plasticity in circadian activity and habitat selection (deciding when and where to feed) also help trout resist short-term environmental changes. However, we don’t know how important changes in circadian activity─or behaviours in general─are to long-term population persistence in the face of climate change. So to shed light on this question, in a recent work published in Individual-based Ecology, weran two virtual experiments using the inSTREAM individual-based model to represent a trout population in northern Spain.
The Roncal study site on the River Eska (northern Spain). Photo by Benigno Elvira
Steve Railsback and his colleagues at Cal Poly Humboldt University and the US Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station in Arcata, California, have been developing, testing, and applying inSTREAM for 25 years. The central idea of individual-based models (IBMs) and of individual-based ecology in general is that a biological system can be described through its individual agents, their environment, and the interactions among agents and between agents and environment. The agents of a system (for example, all fish in a population) are modelled as unique and autonomous individuals with their own properties.
The controlled experiment of Harvey and White to quantify how trout trade off feeding vs. predation risk. The experimenters trained wild trout to feed at this dispenser, and then moved it to increasingly risky habitat. The feeding rate needed to keep the trout from leaving increases with the risk it perceives. IBMs like inSTREAM use knowledge about individual behaviour from experiments like this to predict complex population responses. Video by Jason L. White.
Agents also have behaviours: they make decisions, following simple rules or algorithms, independently of other individuals, and seek objectives such as surviving to reproduce in the future. These behaviours are adaptive: agents’ decisions depend on their state and the state of their environment. In this way, population-level results actually emerge from the behaviour of the individuals. In inSTREAM, model trout decide whether to feed vs. hide from predators at different times of day, assumed a trade-off between the need to feed and the predation risk it poses. Temperature has a strong effect on this trade-off because a fish’s metabolic rates, and thus the amount of food it needs, increase sharply with temperature.
Three members of the research team at the UCM conducting habitat surveys at the Roncal study site. In IBMs like inSTREAM, modelled populations and their environment are characterised by field data collected in surveys like this. Photo by Benigno Elvira.
What did we learn with our IBM? First, our simulations show what behavioural ecologists know from experiments: that during warm summers trout can meet their metabolic requirements only by feeding at multiple times of day and segregating temporally, so that fish of different size can feed at the same spot but at different times of day. Feeding during daytime is more profitable but riskier, while doing it at night is safer but less efficient, and feeding during twilight provides near-daytime growth and somewhat-reduced risk.
We then analysed how model trout change their circadian foraging behaviour under increasing climate change. As we expected, trout showed great behavioural plasticity: trout of all ages responded to warmer and drier conditions by increasing daytime feeding and overall foraging activity, although there were differences across age classes in the distribution of daily activity. Our second experiment used a great advantage of IBMs as a virtual laboratory: we can run experiments that are impossible in reality. We tested the importance of behavioural plasticity by simply turning the behaviour off. In our simulations, virtual populations of trout capable of flexible circadian feeding were more resistant to climate change─had higher biomass and a more balanced age structure─than were populations of trout that feed only during daytime.
These experiments reinforce that behavioural plasticity can be key for coping with environmental changes, so we shouldn’t minimise its relevance when predicting the persistence of salmonid populations in warming and drying rivers. This conclusion no doubt also applies to other taxa that have powerful adaptive behaviours.
This study epitomises individual-based ecology, the subject of Pensoft’s new journal: we use what we know from empirical research on individual physiology and behaviour, in an individual-based model, to study complex population responses of direct relevance to our changing world.
Research article:
Ayllón D, Railsback SF, Harvey BC, Nicola GG, Elvira B, Almodóvar A (2025) Behavioural plasticity in circadian foraging patterns increases resistance of brown trout populations to environmental change. Individual-based Ecology 1: e139560. https://doi.org/10.3897/ibe.1.e139560
Individual-based Ecology (IBE), a new open-access peer-reviewed journal by scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, has now published its first articles, offering a fresh perspective on how the behaviour of individual organisms and ecological systems dynamics are linked.
The journal was launched in September 2024 with an official announcement made during the German Ecological Society’s 53rd annual conference (Freising, Germany).
To fill a known gap in knowledge, the journal focuses on individual-based perspectives in ecology, complementing other ecological disciplines. Current approaches cannot fully capture the mechanisms underlying ecological responses to change in drivers, the journal’s editors believe, as they rarely focus on the individual organisms who directly respond to change.
Four editors-in-chief lead IBE: Prof. Dr. Volker Grimm and Prof. Dr. Karin Frank of Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Prof. Dr. Mark E. Hauber of The City University /(CUNY) of New York, and Prof. Dr. Florian Jeltsch of the University of Potsdam. “This team represents an international and collaborative group who agree on the conceptual and empirical need for this new journal”- says Dr Mark E. Hauber, from the Graduate Center of CUNY, and a former guest professor in ecology at the University of Potsdam.
The journal is published under a diamond open-access model, which makes it free of charge for both readers and authors. It publishes a wide range of articles, including empirical, experimental, and modeling studies, as well as reviews, perspectives, and methodological papers.
By blending basic and applied research, IBE offers a transformative framework for addressing global challenges such as the loss of biodiversity and potential loss of ecosystem services.
“We propose a paradigm shift in ecological science, moving from simplifying frameworks that use species, population or community averages to an integrative approach that recognizes individual organisms as fundamental agents of ecological change,” advocates write in a forum paper just published in IBE’s first issue.
Examples of individual variation and its consequences: a individual variation describes the variation in traits, including behaviour, between or within individuals resulting from various processes such as microevolution and biotic filtering. It also explicitly includes variation induced by experience, health status or microbes and microbial communities associated with the host; b simplified example showing how successful colonisation or invasion depends on inter-individual variation in morphological or behavioural traits (González-Suárez et al. 2015; Dammhahn et al. 2020; Premier et al. 2020).
“By unravelling and predicting the dynamics of biodiversity in the Anthropocene through a comprehensive study of individual organisms, their variability and their interactions, individual-based global change ecology will provide a critical foundation for a better understanding if and how we can manage individual variation and behaviour for conservation and sustainability, taking into account individual-to-ecosystem pathways and feedbacks.”
Hierarchical organisation from genes to ecosystems. Individuals are the elementary particles of ecological systems, meaning that variation and interactions between individuals can scale up to emergent properties at the population, community and ecosystem levels. The different ecological levels are highly interconnected through both bottom-up and top-down processes. Elucidating these feedback loops through an individual-based lens is a prerequisite for understanding ecosystem resilience and response to global change.
“By taking into account the variation, behaviours, and interactions of individual organisms, individual-based ecology links the responses of organisms to the responses of ecosystems: if we understand enough about individuals, we can predict complex system dynamics, even under novel conditions,” the editors and colleagues write in a “manifesto” for individual-based ecology that they published in the new journal. “We intend the journal to show how the individual-based perspective, in empirical, theoretical, and computational studies, benefits all branches of ecology.”
IBE’s first published research articles provide excellent examples of the individual-based perspective of the journal. Church et al. explore, using an established model of brown trout, how the uptake of microplastics by fish with different personalities affects population size. Ayllón et al. use the same model to explore to what extent behavioural plasticity allows this species to cope with environmental change, in particular increasing temperatures. Railsback and Harvey argue that in many models the representation of mortality risk is too simple. They present a new method, “survival increase functions”, which is more realistic but still straightforward to calibrate.
The journal is supported by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ, Germany) and the City University of New York (CUNY, USA).
The journal utilises Pensoft’s innovative ARPHA platform, which offers a seamless end-to-end publishing experience, encompassing all stages between manuscript submission and article publication, indexation, dissemination and permanent archiving. As a journal of Pensoft, IBE joins a number of open-access scholarly outlets in ecology by the publisher.
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