Pensoft.net news

The Auburn Tiger trapdoor spider -- a new species discovered from a college town backyard

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:00:00 +0200

09 May 2012

Researchers at Auburn University have reported the discovery a new trapdoor spider species from a well-developed housing subdivision in the heart of the city of Auburn, Alabama. Myrmekiaphila tigris, affectionately referred to as the Auburn Tiger Trapdoor spider, is named in honor of Auburn University's costumed Tiger mascot, Aubie. The research team, directed by Biological Sciences professor Jason Bond, lead investigator and director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, and Charles Ray, a research fellow in the Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology, was excited at the prospect of such a remarkable find just underfoot. Bond and Ray actually live in the neighborhood where the new species was discovered. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys and is freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Myrmekiaphila tigris belongs to a

Revolutionary article in PhytoKeys picked up by Scientific American

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0200

26 Apr 2012

Pensoft Publishers are pleased to inform you that a PhytoKeys paper, by Natalia Filipowicz, Michael Nee and the journal's editor, Susanne Renner, was featured in a Scientific American article: Genome Run: Andean Shrub Is First New Plant Species Described by Its DNA.

Original source:
Filipowicz N, Nee MH, Renner SS (2012) Description and molecular diagnosis of a new species of Brunfelsia (Solanaceae) from the Bolivian and Argentinean Andes. PhytoKeys 10: 83–94. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.10.2558

Related press release on EurekAlert.

Long-term preservation: Pensoft Publishers partner with the CLOCKSS Archive

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0200

18 Apr 2012

The CLOCKSS Archive has partnered with Pensoft Publishers to preserve their e-journals in CLOCKSS's geographically and geopolitically distributed network of redundant archive nodes, located at 12 major research libraries around the world. By archiving with CLOCKSS, Pensoft demonstrate their commitment to the long-term preservation of the electronic versions of their journals. This ensures that an author's work will always be fully accessible and usable, as it provides for content to be freely available to everyone even if it ceases to be available from the publisher's site after a "trigger event". "The partnership with CLOCKSS represents a significant expansion of our archiving activities, with fully automated harvesting, import and preservation of the electronic content of our Open Access journals. Besides, the feature of archiving with CLOCKSS renders our publishing system even more attractive for other publishers to use", said Dr Lyubomir Penev, managing director of Pensoft. CLOCKSS Executive Director Randy S. Kiefer adds, "The CLOCKSS Archive welcomes Pensoft Publishers' e-journals with their coverage of biodiversity science, plant systematics, phylogeny and biogeography into the community's archive. By archiving with CLOCKSS, Pensoft Publishers have ensured that th...

Stoneflies mapped across Ohio, with implications for water quality and nature conservation

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0200

12 Apr 2012

Stoneflies, or Plecoptera, are insects that live in water during immature stages, but are terrestrial as adults. They are among the best bioindicators of river water quality and general landscape disturbance. Anglers often model their dry and wet flies (lures) after these insects. Scientists at the University of Illinois and Western Kentucky University, funded by the USA National Science Foundation, have completed the first ever statewide assessment of stonefly diversity in Ohio. The study has been published in the open-access journal ZooKeys. The team used over 30,000 insect specimens gathered from 18 regional museums (Illinois Natural History Survey, Brigham Young University, Ohio State University) and from new sampling for the analysis. They determined that at least 102, but possibly as high as 120 species occur in Ohio. The majority of species were found to have evolved to survive warm summer water temperatures and even drought, most similar to the stoneflies found in the neighboring states of Indiana and Kentucky. Analyses demonstrated that the greatest number of species lived in the eastern half of the state where forest cover is greatest. This study ...

ZooKeys continues to grow

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0200

09 Apr 2012

Pensoft Publishers’ flagship taxonomic journal ZooKeys continues to experience growth. In the first quarter of 2012, the journal reported 130% increase of the number of published articles (125), in comparison to the same period of the previous year (54). The number of published issues has also increased, from 15 to 21 for the same timeframe, as well as the total number of pages (2,403 in 2012 and 1,991 in 2011).

Furthermore, ZooKeys continues to evolve it’s editorial workflow, constantly implementing new and improved publishing and dissemination technologies, thus always being on point for digital biodiversity science.

Scorpio rising - An elusive new scorpion species from California lives underground

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

23 Mar 2012

Even in places as seemly well-studied as the national parks of North America, new species are still being discovered. Using ultraviolet light that cause scorpions to fluoresce a ghostly glow, researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) have discovered an intriguing new scorpion in Death Valley National Park. They named the species Wernerius inyoensis, after the Inyo Mountains where it was found. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. This new species is small, only 16 mm in length. "We almost overlooked this one during the survey" said Matthew Graham, a PhD Candidate with the School of Life Sciences at UNLV. Matt discovered the scorpion along with his father who was volunteering that night. "Only a single male individual was found, but the physical uniqueness was enough to identify it as a new species", said Michael Webber, another PhD Candidate from UNLV who described the specimen. This new scorpion appears to be closely related to two other species found over 400 kilometers away at Joshua Tree National Park and along the lower Colorado River. This group of scorpions is most easily identified by the presence of a conspicuous spine at the base of the stinger, the function of which, if any, is unknown. The previously known species are also r...

Megalara garuda: the King of Wasps - A new, giant wasp comes from Indonesia

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

23 Mar 2012

A new and unusual wasp species has been discovered during an expedition to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It was independently also found in the insect collections of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, where it was awaiting discovery since the 1930s, when it had been collected on Sulawesi. The new species is pitch-black, has an enormous body size, and its males have long, sickle-shaped jaws. The findings have now been described in the open access journal ZooKeys. The species belongs into the digger wasp family, which is a diverse group of wasps with several thousands of species known from all over the world. Female digger wasps search for other insects as prey for their young and paralyze the prey by stinging it. Prey selection is often species specific, but the prey of the new species is unknown. With its unusual body size and the male's jaws, the new species differs from all known related digger wasps, so much so that it was placed in a new genus of its own, Megalara. The new genus name is a combination of the Greek Mega, meaning large, and the ending of Dalara, a related wasp genus. ...

Plant DNA speaks English, identifies new species

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

23 Mar 2012

The important changes to the way scientists name new plants that took effect on 1 January 2012 included the fall of the so-called Latin requirement - a stipulation that descriptions or diagnoses of new species had to be in Latin. The new rules make it possible to take full advantage of an ongoing revolution in how botanists and mycologists verify that a particular species is indeed new to science: Many studies now routinely include the sequencing of short DNA regions that will amplify easily, even when the DNA comes from old specimens. Such "barcoding" sequences can be used to confirm a suspected new species as long as related species that already have a scientific name are also being sequenced for the same DNA stretch. There is no standard Latin vocabulary for describing DNA barcoding, yet in English, there is. In an article in the open access journal PhytoKeys, botanists Natalia Filipowicz (Medical University of Gdańsk), Michael Nee (New York Botanical Garden), and Susanne Renner (University of Munich), now provide the first English-language diagnosis of a new species that relies exclusively on DNA data. Their publication of a new species in the Solanaceae genus Brunfelsia also includes a traditional morphology-based de...

A new pipewort species from a unique, but fragile habitat in India

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

20 Mar 2012

The foot hills of the Western Ghats are a remarkable habitat. Formed of Laterite (a hard rock) outcrops, they are a barren land during summer. Yet, as soon as the monsoon rains start, they sprout vibrant plant carpets in blue, pink and white. This seasonal vegetation is formed mainly by pipeworts and insectivorous plants, such as bladderworts or sundews. The species combinations differ greatly along the Western Ghats and the rich plant growth attracts many birds, butterflies and other insects. A team of botanists discovered another new species of pipewort from this unique but highly threatened habitat, indicating the importance of such areas. "It is a treasure trove of unique plants to the botanists, but considered just a wasteland, or a dump by the authorities." said Dr K.P. Rajesh of the Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College (ZGC). "Many more unique and unknown plants still await discovery in such areas. " Added Dr Rajesh. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The shallow wet areas formed in the rocks, for a short period from June to November, are the home of some of the rarest plants on the planet. These aquatic or semi-aquatic plants soon set seeds, and dry up before the summer season. The seeds remain in the soil, waiting for the next rains to wake them up. The flat-toppe...

Nature Conservation – a new open-access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal launched!

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

16 Mar 2012

Pensoft Publishers announced the launch of Nature Conservation, the next member of Pensoft’s family of high technology open-access journals for biodiversity science. Its goal is to mobilize ideas and data in all theoretical and applied aspects of nature conservation – biological, ecological, societal, economic, and legal. The journal’s broad scope and innovative use of media encourage interdisciplinary and integrative approaches. Nature Conservation is a new-generation open-access journal launched by Pensoft Publishers. The journal is platform comprising both innovative technologies and a routine medium for publication of data related to the vast area of basic and applied research in conservation of nature. Nature Conservation builds upon the success of its sister journals ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, BioRisk, and NeoBiota, and is supported by an editorial team of highly renowned specialists in the field. The composition of papers in the inaugural issue largely reflects the focus and scope of the new journal, w...

Building the European Union's Natura 2000 -- the largest ever network of protected areas

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

16 Mar 2012

The European Union's Habitats Directive is now 20 years old, and its network of protected areas, known as Natura 2000, is nearing completion. After a slow start, the network now includes some 26 000 protected sites and covers approximately 18% of the EU's land surface as well as significant areas of sea. It is widely considered to be the world's largest network of protected areas based on agreed site selection criteria. The review has been published in the newly launched open-access journal Nature Conservation. Douglas Evans, seconded to the Paris-based European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC/BD) from Scottish Natural Heritage, has been closely involved in the development of the network since 1993. His review in Nature Conservation describes how the network has evolved during a period when the EU itself has increased from 12 to 27 Member States. Based largely on personnel experience, the author provides detailed information on the series of seminars which started in the 1990s, usually known as biogeographical seminars. These seminars, which involve both governments an...

Efficient nature conservation policies require sharp focus

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

16 Mar 2012

People have always known that their survival depends on something that is outside of their control – that is, nature. Nature regulates human life, and from it people have tried to derive rules for proper behavior. This is the historical starting point of nature conservation. The intellectual roots of nature conservation are diverse. In Europe, the ideal took shape in the 19th century from such elements as concern over human-caused extinctions, excessive hunting and cruelty toward animals, from utilitarian care for natural resources, and from growing appreciation of nature as a source of human health and inspiration. More recently, the ideal gained support from growing awareness of the dependence of humanity's future on global-scale changes in ecosystem services. In what ways do alternative conservation policies help to protect biodiversity? How can conservation policies be extended to those sectors of social and economic activity that most directly affect biodiversity? The whole legacy of conservation science needs to be harnessed to answer such questions. Modern nature conservation requires efficient governance, built upon competent administrative bodies with sufficient authority. However, the scale and diversity of the problem makes efficient governance difficult. First of all, nature conservation regularly drifts into conflicts with other ideals, revealing conflicting aspirations and vested interests. Another difficulty is that nature conser...

How to save Europe's most threatened butterflies

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0200

16 Mar 2012

The report entitled "Dos and don'ts for butterflies of the Habitats Directive of the European Union" was published in the form of an "Applied Conservation" paper in the newly launched open-access journal Nature Conservation (press release on the journal launch). It includes detailed accounts of each species, their habitat requirements and food-plants, as well as a list of dos and don'ts in the management of their habitats. European butterflies are under huge threat and almost 10% are now threatened with extinction. The European grassland indicator shows that the abundance of 17 characteristic butterflies has declined by over 70% in the last 15 years. The main reasons for the declines are habitat loss and incorrect management. Many habitats are now either abandoned from agriculture, allowing them to become overgrown with scrub, while others are too intensively managed. The new publication is thus a pivotal step to get remaining habitats better managed. Butterflies are sensitive indicators of the environment and populations respond very quickly to habitat change. Management for butterflies will help ensure the survival of a wide range of other insects, which form the bedrock of European bio...

Human population the primary factor in exotic plant invasions in the United States

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

23 Feb 2012

Improved data reveals new patterns of exotic plant invasions in the United States Extensive ongoing research on biotic invasions around the world constantly increases data availability and improves data quality. New research in the United States shows how using improved data from previous studies on the establishment of exotic plant species changes the understanding of patterns of species naturalization, biological invasions, and their underlying mechanisms. The study was published in the open access journal NeoBiota. Over the centuries, people brought uncounted numbers of nonnative or exotic plant species to the United States for a range of purposes. Usually cultivated for food or ornamental purposes, most of these plants are considered "naturalized" when they reproduce and sustain populations over many generations without direct help from humans. Many others were introduced accidentally. "About 10 percent of naturalized plant species usually become invasive, and more may be so over time" says Qinfeng Guo, research ecologist with the Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center and lead author of the article. "This means that they begin to spread considerable distances from the parent plants, often crowding or shading out native plant populations." Guo and fellow researchers used newly added and improved data to look more closely at plant naturalization patterns ac...

Italian vineyards invaded from North America by new species of leafminer

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

22 Feb 2012

Since in 2006 an unknown leafmining moth was found in North Italian vineyards by Mario Baldessari and colleagues, often in great numbers, scientists have tried to put a name to this apparently new invader. Italian scientists from the Fondazione Edmund Mach di San Michele all'Adige and the Università di Padova turned for help to taxonomists in the Netherlands and United States. The new species was described in the open access journal ZooKeys. The family to which the moth belongs, the shield bearing leafminers (Heliozelidae) appeared to be poorly studied in North America, discovered Erik J. van Nieukerken of NCB Naturalis (Leiden, Netherlands) and David L. Wagner of the University of Connecticut (Storrs, USA). Together with the Italian scientists they studied the life history, morphology and DNA barcodes of the new species and related leafminers. "When we analysed the DNA barcodes, we found many more species than we knew to exist on grape and related plants in North America" said Erik van Nieukerken. With some difficulty the four known species could be matched to species recognised by DNA. That left our species and some others without a name. The new species, baptised Antispila oinophylla (literally: the moth with the opposite spots of the wine (grape) leaves), was previously confused with a North American species that feeds on Virginia creeper. The new species occurs in eastern Nort...

A new, beautifully colored lizard discovered in the Peruvian Andes

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

17 Feb 2012

Named 'mountain dweller', it is the highest-altitude living member of its genus Germán Chávez and Diego Vásquez from the Centro de Ornitología y Biodiversidad (CORBIDI) in Peru have discovered a new colorful lizard which they named Potamites montanicola, or "mountain dweller". The new species was found in Cordillera de Vilcabamba and Apurimac river valley, the Cusco Region of Peru at altitude ranging from 1,600 to 2,100 meters. Their study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. "The new discovery raises some questions", say the authors. This is the only member of the genus known to live at such altitude. It is yet unknown what biological mechanisms help the lizard to survive in this harsh environment, much colder than what it's relatives in the genus prefer. Scientists also believe the lizard may be nocturnal, which raises the question of how it maintains its body temperature during night time. In some cases, individuals were observed swimming in streams, which is rather unusual behavior for the members this genus. "Further studies are needed to reveal its biology, population structure and conservation status, and outline its overall distribution", Chávez concludes. Original source: Chávez G, Vásquez D (2012) A new species of Andean semiaquatic...

New miniature grasshopper-like insect is first member of its family from Belize

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

15 Feb 2012

Scientists at the University of Illinois, USA have discovered a new species of tiny, grasshopper-like insect in the tropical rainforests of the Toledo District in southern Belize. Dr Sam Heads and Dr Steve Taylor co-authored a paper, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, documenting the discovery and naming the new species Ripipteryx mopana. The name commemorates the Mopan people – a Mayan group, native to the region. "Belize is famous for its biodiversity, although very little is known about the insect fauna of the southern part of the country. This is particularly true of the Orthoptera – the grasshoppers, crickets and katydids" said entomologist and lead author on the paper, Dr Sam Heads. "The new insect is the first representative of it's family ever to be found in Belize. Given the amount of high quality habitats in the region, it isn't really surprising that new species still await discovery, especially in the less -explored areas" added Dr Heads. Just less than 5 mm long, the insect is a tiny, black, white and orange coloured, grasshopper-like species that uses its large jumping hind legs to escape predators. "Very little is known about the biology of this genus and its closest relatives" said Heads, who specializes in the study of orthopteran insects. "The group as a whole is rather poorly s...

Chromosome analyses of prickly pear cacti reveal southern glacial refugia

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

14 Feb 2012

Analysis of chromosome number variation among species of a North American group of prickly pear cacti (nopales) showed that the most widespread species encountered are of hybrid origin. Those widespread species likely originated from hybridization among closely related parental species from western and southeastern North America. This study was published in the open access journal Comparative Cytogenetics. The prickly pear cacti (of the genus Opuntia) are endemic to the Americas. The genus is well known for the taxonomic difficulties it poses, as a result of hybridization and morphological variation, as well as lack of intense study. Studies of chromosomal differences among species have been beneficial with regards to recognition and determination of hybrid origins of many taxa. Those studies of the differences in chromosome number have shown that a majority of species of the genus have undergone genome duplication (also known as polyploidy). This study suggests that a group of well-known prickly pear species occurring primarily in the United States are mostly derived from hybridization and genome duplication, which occurred as a result of the genetic separation of closely related parent species through habitat fragmentation during different times of the

Encyclopedia of Life Announces Open Access Support Project with Pensoft Publishers

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

10 Feb 2012

Collaboration will increase flow of new species descriptions from scientists in developing countries, promote open access publishing Washington, D.C. – February 10, 2012 – The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and Pensoft Publishers are pleased to announce a new collaboration that will increase the flow of new species descriptions from scientists in developing countries into the Encyclopedia of Life and promote the open access publishing model in taxonomy. Many of Pensoft’s journals, including the International Journal of Myriapodology (centipedes and millipedes), MycoKeys (mycology), PhytoKeys (botany), and ZooKeys (zoology) will participate in the new EOL Open Access Support Project (EOASP). The initiative will provide funding to support independent taxonomists and taxonomists living in developing countries to publish their results in Pensoft’s four quality journals with open access principles. Any new species description published in one of the journals leads to the automatic creation of a new page in EOL. If a paper re-describes a poorly described species, that information will also appear on an EOL page. During the manuscript submission process, the authors will have the opportunity to request fin...

A new species of bamboo-feeding plant lice found in Costa Rica

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

06 Feb 2012

Several periods of field work during 2008 have led to the discovery of a new species of bamboo-feeding plant lice in Costa Rica’s high-altitude region “Cerro de la Muerte”. The discovery was made thanks to molecular data analysis of mitochondrial DNA. The collected records have also increased the overall knowledge of plant lice (one of the most dangerous agricultural pests worldwide) from the region with more that 20%. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. It is a well established fact that the arthropod fauna, to which plant lice also belong, is abundantly present in the tropical regions. Not so with plant lice, which prefer the temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere. This has been a bit of a paradox for scientists although it is also known that plant lice diversity increases in high altitude areas, such as mountains and high plateaus. Such is the sampling area visited in Costa Rica: “Cerro de la Muerte”, or The Mountain of the Dead, the highest point in the Costa Rican section of the Inter-American Highway. Many plant lice species feed only on one type (or even species) of plant; the diet of the newly described plant lice species consists (based on current data), for example, solely of a type of bamboo (Chusquea tomentosa). A molecular analysis was used to determine to which taxonomic genus it belongs (Rhopalosiphum). Its desc...

A checklist of 4,100 vascular plants converted into Darwin Core Archive format

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0200

02 Feb 2012

A conventionally written (MS Word) Checklist of vascular plants of the Departmentof Ñeembucú, Paraguay (De Egea et al. 2012), consisting of more than 4,100 taxon names, was converted from text into Darwin Core Archive format and published simultaneously in both human-readable, traditional publication and structured, machine-readable data. The process is described in an associated forum paper (Remsen et al. 2012).

The process was performed from the final revised version, after peer-review and editorial acceptance. The data were published and indexed through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) and significant portions of the text of the paper were used to describe the metadata on IPT. After publication, the data will become available through the GBIF infrastructure and can be re-used on their own or collated with other data.

The two papers were published in issue 9 of PhytoKeys. The study was supported in part by the ViBRANT project.

Taxonomic keys from ZooKeys, PhytoKeys and MycoKeys now indexed in KeyCentral

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0200

13 Jan 2012

All identification keys, published in ZooKeys (since issue 50), PhytoKeys, and MycoKeys are now automatically indexed in KeyCentral, a platform of IdentifyLife - a collaborative partnership of the Atlas of Living Austlalia, Encyclopedia of Life and Moore Foundation.

KeyCentral collects information on various kinds of keys and allows users to search through taxa, regions, keywords, etc. Each key description links back to the original source, regardless whether it is an online key or a journal article.

The technology used by Pensoft's journals, based on TaxPub, allows several keys published in the same article to be indexed as separate entities, increasing the probability for discovery, visibility and citation for the authors.

New EOL Species Collections by Pensoft

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0200

10 Jan 2012

Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and our journals have launched a Fabulous New Species collections on EOL. Please see the following blog post on the EOL News webpage, or read the text below: As a next step in its fruitful collaboration with EOL, Pensoft has created two species collections on EOL – Fabulous ZooKeys New Species and Fabulous PhytoKeys New Species. The main aim of this initiative is to bring together and promulgate the scientifically notable new taxa described every year in Pensoft’s journals and simultaneously registered in EOL. A short annotation written in a popular language explains why the new species is interesting and draws the attention of the general public and the world mass media. Starting with only a dozen taxon profiles, both collections are expected to grow fast considering that currently ZooKeys ranks second in the top 10 journals publishing new taxa, and is responsible for approximately 2.5% of all new taxa in the world described in the last three years. Currently the collections comprise a nice selection of extraordinary newly described animal and plant species, such as: The world’s smallest tetrapod, the New Guinea frog Paedophr...

A new wild ginger discovered from the evergreen forest of Western Ghats of South India

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0200

06 Jan 2012

Intensive botanical explorations for taxonomic studies on the members of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) in India by V.P. Thomas and M. Sabu of the University of Calicut, have resulted in the discovery of an interesting species of Amomum (Cardamom) from Silent Valley National Park on the Western Ghats of Kerala. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The ginger family consists of 53 genera and over 1,200 species, many of which are widely used as spices, for medical purposes, or simply for decoration. Amomum Roxb. is the second largest genus within the Zingiberaceae, comprising about 150-180 species, including several types of cardamom. Widely distributed in Southeast Asia, the genus is represented by 23 species in India, mostly restricted to North-East India, South India and the Andaman-Nicobar Islands. In the new species, the authors show some similarities with A. masticatorium, although the two are clearly distinct. The new plant's name refers to its locality, i.e. Nilgiri hills, a part of Western Ghats and one of the hotspots of the Indian subcontinent. The most notable feature of the plant is the presence of long ligules that reach up to 9 cm long and small flowers with a long corolla tube. Almost all parts of the plant are hairy....

Jeanne Baret, botanist and first female circumnavigator, finally commemorated in name of new species

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0200

03 Jan 2012

In 1766, Frenchwoman Jeanne Baret disguised herself as a man to work as assistant to renowned botanist Philibert Commerson on the first French circumnavigation of the globe. The expedition consisted of two ships under the command of Louis Antoine de Bougainville and was expected to take three years. A royal ordinance forbade women from being on French naval vessels; prejudice and custom prevented their participation in science. Nevertheless, Baret maintained her disguise all the time she was on board ship, and collected plants with Commerson in locations including Rio de Janeiro, the Strait of Magellan, Tahiti, Mauritius, and Madagascar. Baret was Commerson's lover, but also an accomplished botanist in her own right. When Commerson's ill health prevented him from fieldwork, Baret was responsible for all collections, including the most famous botanical specimen from the expedition: the vine that would be named in honor of its commander, Bougainvillea Comm. ex Juss. The couple collected over six thousand specimens, now incorporated into the French National Herbarium at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In the course of the expedition and the years after its successful completion, over seventy species would be named in honor of Commerson using the specific epithet commersonii. But Commerson died before he could publish many designations proposed in his notes, which reveal ...

Early land plants: Early adopters!: The first electronically described liverwort species comes ...

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0200

02 Jan 2012

The open-access journal PhytoKeys – known for applying cutting edge technologies in publishing and dissemination to accelerate biodiversity research – is pioneering an electronic-only publishing workflow in a series of papers published over the course of the first week of January 2012 (see related press release). As of the 1st of January 2012, extensive new changes took effect to the way plant scientists name new plants, algae, and fungi. Traditionally, the publication of new plant names, which is governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), has never allowed publication of new names in anything other than print on paper. "Without such codes governing naming, there would be chaos, potentially impacting all branches of life sciences as the name of a species - be it a pathogen or a crop - represents a fundamental part of communicating knowledge about the natural world." said Dr. Sandra Knapp from the Natural History Museum London, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of PhytoKeys and author of the first electronic-only description of a new species, Solanum umtuma (a relative of tomatoes and many other important plant species), published on 1st of January 2012. Lead authors, ex-pat New Zealander

Brave new world: Pioneering electronic publication of new plant species

rss@pensoft.net — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0200

01 Jan 2012

The changes to the publication requirements of new names for algae, fungi and plants accepted at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne in July 2011 initiated several important challenges to scientists, publishers and information specialists. To address practical questions arising from the Congress decisions, the open access journal PhytoKeys will publish a series of seven exemplar papers, one each day for the first week of 2012, starting from the 1st of January. The completed journal issue will be printed as an additional, though not mandatory, form of archiving on the 7th of January 2012. "Electronic-only publishing in botany means that publishers do not need to produce printed versions of their journals to verify that a new name has been effectively published", said Dr Sandra Knapp from the Natural History Museum London, deputy editor of PhytoKeys and one of the authors of the first electronic-only description of a new African species of Solanum (the genus name for tomatoes and many other important plant species), published on the 1st of January 2012. "This important change, however, needs to be supported by strong, responsible practices by both publishers and authors, one of the most important being the proper archiving of the published paper" added Dr Knapp, "It is important to

Millipede border control better than ours

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0200

22 Dec 2011

A mysterious line where two millipede species meet has been mapped in northwest Tasmania, Australia. Both species are common in their respective ranges, but the two millipedes cross very little into each other's territory. The 'mixing zone' where they meet is about 230 km long and less than 100 m wide where carefully studied. The mapping was done over a two-year period by Dr Bob Mesibov, who is a millipede specialist and a research associate at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania. His results have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys. 'I have no idea why the line is so sharp', said Dr Mesibov. 'The boundary runs up and down hills, crosses rivers and different bedrocks and soils, and ignores vegetation type and climate differences. Its position and its sharpness seem to be the result of an unexplained biological arrangement between the two millipede species.' Biogeographers use the term 'parapatry' for the case where two species ranges meet but do not overlap, or overlap very little. Dr Mesibov said that parapatry has been reported before in other species of millipedes and in other terrestrial invertebrate animals, in Tasmania and elsewhere in the world. However, parapatric boundaries often parallel a geographical featur...

World's smallest frogs discovered in New Guinea

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0200

12 Dec 2011

Field work by researcher Fred Kraus from Bishop Museum, Honolulu has found the world's smallest frogs in southeastern New Guinea. This also makes them the world's smallest tetrapods (non-fish vertebrates). The frogs belong to the genus Paedophryne, all of whose species are extremely small, with adults of the two new species - named Paedophryne dekot and Paedophryne verrucosa - only 8-9 mm in length. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Previous research had led to the discovery of Paedophryne by Kraus in 2002 from nearby areas in New Guinea, but the genus was not formally described until last year (Kraus 2010, also in Zookeys). The two species described earlier were larger, attaining sizes of 10-11 mm, but the genus still represents the most miniaturized group of tetrapods in the world. “Miniaturization occurs in many frog genera around the world,” said the author, “but New Guinea seems particularly well represented, with species in seven genera exhibiting the phenomenon. Although most frog genera have only a few diminutive representatives mixed among larger relatives, Paedophryne is unique in that all species are minute.” The four known species all inhabit small ranges in the mountains of southeastern New Gui...

Data paper describes genome data of birds

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0200

12 Dec 2011

The National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, has obtained and released DNA barcodes for 2,808 frozen tissue samples of birds. Of the 1,403 species represented by these samples, 1,147 species have not been barcoded previously. The data are deposited in GenBank and the Barcode of Life Data Systems and are described in a form of ‘project description’ of the data release in the open access journal ZooKeys. “This data release increases the number of bird species with standard barcodes by 91%. It is even more important, however, that the data release and the formal description of the dataset have been announced in a scholarly publication, a ‘data paper’. It allows data creators to be credited for their work, and also communicates to other scientists that such a dataset has been released and is available freely for re-use in future studies”, said the lead author Dr David Schindel from the Consortium for Barcode of Life. "It also sets out the data creators' near-term plans for the scholarly use of the data and asks others to respect their intent for a six-month period." The paper invites others to use the data for any number of purposes immediately, and to provide feedback on any inconsistencies they find. Schindel said: &...

Butterflies: “twice-punished” by habitat fragmentation and climate change

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0200

09 Dec 2011

New findings by Virginie Stevens (CNRS), Jean Clobert (CNRS), Michel Baguette (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle) and colleagues show that interactions between dispersal and life-histories are complex, but general patterns emerge. The study was published as open access paper in the journal Ecology Letters. As dispersal plays a key role in gene flow among populations, its evolutionary dynamics under environmental changes is particularly important. The inter-dependency of dispersal with other life history traits may constrain dispersal evolution, and lead to the indirect selection of other traits as a by-product of this inter-dependency. Identifying the dispersal’s relationships to other life-history traits will help to better understand the evolutionary dynamics of dispersal, and the consequences for species persistence and ecosystem functioning under global changes. Dispersal may be linked to other life-history traits as their respective evolutionary dynamics may be inter-dependent, or, because they are mechanistically related to each other. The authors identified traits that are predicted to co-vary with dispersal, and investigated the corr...

Early lineage of Larkspur and Monkshood plants rediscovered in Southern Europe

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

29 Nov 2011

Larkspurs, monkshoods, and aconites are plants, widely cultivated for their beauty and medicinal properties. They all belong to the Delphinieae, a natural group of 650-700 species ranging from Eurasia into North America, with a few species on tropical African mountains. A broadly sampled molecular phylogeny for this group has revealed that three Mediterranean species constitute an ancient separate evolutionary line that is the sister group to all remaining Delphinieae. The British physician John Hill already recognized these species' distinctness in 1756, and Jabbour and Renner here resurrect the genus name he had proposed for them. Of the three species in Hill's genus Staphisagria, one is an important medicinal plant found all around the Mediterranean basin, the other two are endemic to Corsica, Majorca, Sardinia, and the Archipelago of Hyères in the South of France. In an article in the open access journal Phytokeys, Jabbour and Renner from the Institute of Systematic Botany at the University of Munich illustrate and discuss the newly recognized genus, explaining how its three species share traits that fit neither in Delphinium nor in Aconitum, fitting with their long independent evolutionary history. Original source: Jabbour F, Renner SS (2011) Resurrection of the genus Staphisagria J. Hill, sister to all the other Delphiniea...

Growth through innovations and open access: The journal ZooKeys on point for digital taxonomy

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

28 Nov 2011

The open access zoological journal ZooKeys published by Pensoft reported a substantial growth in 2011, in comparison to 2010, says an analysis dedicated to journal’s jubilee 150th issue, By the end of November 2011, the journal published more than 10,000 pages and 420 articles (to compare with 4,962 pages and 180 articles in 2010). Since its launch in July 2008, ZooKeys published more than 19,000 pages and 780 articles of valuable information on new discoveries in the fascinating world of animals (from mammals and birds to insects and corals). The growth rate will reach 120% by the end of the year. In a field like taxonomy which constantly generates data, dissemination is one of the most crucial aspects. An open access journal has the benefit of easy distribution of information, leading to increasing relevance of the data, as it is being recognized by a larger audience. ZooKeys is the first journal in the fields of biodiversity and taxonomy to implement a detailed schema for mark-up of its content, which allows automated extraction and dissemination of information from within the text of an article. The mark-up technology, through so called “semantic enhancements”, allows the user to add enormous additional information from external Web-based sources, which is updated in real time on query, during the reading process. “ZooKeys is an amazing and true succes...

Electronic infrastructures accelerate biodiversity discoveries

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

28 Nov 2011

Electronic infrastructures open new horizons for collaboration and acceleration of the research on world’s biodiversity. International collaborative platforms, such as scratchpads.eu, yield opportunities, unknown before, to scientists to put together historical and newly collected data coming from different sources and working groups, says a special issue of the open access journal ZooKeys presenting the results of the EU-funded project ViBRANT. ViBRANT stands for “Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for Taxonomy” and is a European Union e-infrastructure project running December 2010 to 2013 that will support the development of virtual research communities involved in biodiversity science. ViBRANT combines the efforts of scientists from 17 European institutions to provide a more integrated and effective framework for those managing biodiversity data on the Web. “ViBRANT is not only about e-infrastructures” commented the project coordinator Dr Vincent Smith from the Natural History Museum, London. “ViBRANT’s core mission is to mobilize the treasures of biological data accumulated over centuries of scientific discoveries and to open them for collaboration to all who are keen to describe, record and safe the life on our Pla...

Creative Commons “Non-Commercial” licenses impede the re-use of biodiversity information

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

28 Nov 2011

Open access to information about biodiversity is of crucial importance to society, directly affecting areas such as conservation and climate change research and education. “Non-Commercial” restrictions on the reuse of this information are a major barrier to addressing these problems, says a review paper published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Halting the loss of biodiversity demands that information on organisms, ecosystems, their properties, and their interactions, is easily found and readily available. This requires sharing. Creative Commons (CC) provides a set of licenses to facilitate this. However, Non-Commercial (NC) restrictions are commonly added to Creative Commons licences, intended to prevent commercial exploitation. The article shows that the ambiguity between “non-for-profit” and “non-commercial” prohibits many legitimate re-uses of NC licensed materials, and imposes significant risks that affect for-profit and not-for-profit organizations alike. “The concept of ‘commercial advantage‘, the heart of the NC licenses, is very broad and ill defined” says lead author Dr Gregor Hagedorn from the Julius Kühn-Institute in Berlin, Germany. “It potentially excludes all public relation activities that incr...

Satellite images help species conservation

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

17 Nov 2011

Organisms living on small islands are particularly threatened by extinction. However, data are often lacking to objectively assess these threats. A team of German and British researchers used satellite imagery to assess the conservation status of endangered reptiles and amphibians of the Comoro archipelago in the Western Indian Ocean. The researchers used their results to point out which species are most threatened and to define priorities for future protected areas. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. A typical problem in species conservation efforts, particularly in tropical regions, is the lack of information on the extent of suitable habitat available for threatened species. "The analysis of satellite images allows us to precisely estimate the remaining extent of rainforest and other natural habitats," says Oliver Hawlitschek from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology. This approach has rarely been used in species conservation, and this is the first time that it is applied to all species of a group in an entire country. In addition to their satellite imagery analyses, the researchers conducted intensive field surveys in order to detect the habitat preferences of the reptiles. "We found that only 9% of the island area is still covered by natural forest, but many native species have adapted to habitats under human in...

How far can they go? Travelling is key for survival and conservation

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

15 Nov 2011

Nowadays, more and more animal habitats are being fragmented, or lost. Many species need assistance and conservation of their environments to survive, and it is important to know the best way this can be achieved. A research team from France, Poland and Germany has determined two butterfly movement strategies and their relative importance. The study is based on the Bavarian populations of Dusky Large Blue butterflies (Maculinea nausithous). The species is endangered and listed in the European Union’s Habitats Directive. The butterflies were marked with waterproof numbers on their wings, in order to be repeatedly observed. The study was published in the “Journal of Animal Ecology”. A large part of the movements are made over relatively small distances of a few hundred meters. There were, however, a few individuals (around 2.5%) that travel several kilometres. These movements are used for conservation analyses, because they are important for landscape level effects. The methodology of the shown approach will help with improving future analysis of similar data, where until now no distinction has been made between long and short distance movements. More efficient and better recommendations for landscape configuration and design, as well as better conservation metho...

Coneheads (Protura) of Italy: what we know in their “native” country a century after discovery

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

09 Nov 2011

Coneheads (or Protura) collected from all over the territory of Italy were studied by three researchers of Genoa University (Loris Galli, Matteo Capurro and Carlo Torti). 40 species have been identified (belonging to 8 genera and 4 families), 6 of which are new records for the Italian fauna. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Coneheads (or Protura) is a group of primitive “insects” whose first species (Acerentomon doderoi) was discovered in 1907 by the famous Italian zoologist Filippo Silvestri, among the small animals collected by the coleopterologist Agostino Dodero from soil samples, taken from the grounds of a small villa in the center of Genoa, Italy. In the two following years Antonio Berlese, another very important zoologist (friend/foe of Silvestri) analyzed the morphology and anatomy of these strange and still poorly known soil-borne organisms and described a few other new species. Normally less than 2 mm long, uncolored or pale yellow colored, eyeless, using their well developed forelegs as sense organs (they lack even the antennae) while they slowly walk between soil’s grains, the Coneheads are strongly adapted to their life in soil, litter and mosses where they eat meanly hyphae, contributing to the...

Citrus indica Tanaka - a progenitor species of cultivated Citrus

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

09 Nov 2011

Recent findings of researchers from the North-Eastern Hill University, India show that C. indica occupies a special taxonomic position as reflected from the Karyomorphological data generated by them. The study was published in the open-access journal Comparative Cytogenetics. A group of enthusiastic cytogeneticists (Marlykynti Hynniewta, Surendra Kumar Malik and Satyawada Rama Rao) from North Eastern Hill University show that C. indica occupies a special taxonomic position, as reflected in the karyomorphological data. The genus Citrus is an economically important horticultural crop known for its fruit and juice. In India, there are about 30 species of Citrus of which at least nine species are available throughout India, while 17 species are confined to the North-Eastern states of India, which have been classified as a hot spot for Citrus biodiversity and are threatened in their natural habitat as per the criteria fixed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Seven Indian Citrus species are considered endangered or nearly so, including C. Indica, C. macroptera, C. latipes, C. assamensis, C. ichangensis, C. megaloxycarpa and C. rugulosa. ...

The molecular composition of the telomeres in true bugs’ chromosomes remains a mystery

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

09 Nov 2011

An international team from the Zoological institute RAS (St Petersburg) and the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, BAS (Sofia) showed that true bugs differed from the majority of other insects in molecular composition of telomeres. The study was published in Comparative Cytogenetics. In the 1930s B. McClintock from the University of Missouri, Columbia and H.J. Muller from the University of Edinburgh discovered (independently of one another) that chromosomes carry special components, or “telomeres”, which stabilize their structure and protect them from destruction. At present, it is known, that telomeres regulate cellular senescence (the cellular equivalent of aging) and their shortening plays the role of a molecular clock for the organism. In most animal and plants, the telomeres consist of short DNA tandem motifs (repeated millions of times) and associated proteins. Comparative analysis of these motifs in various groups of organisms has showed that they are evolutionarily stable being invariant within a group. The most common and (most probably) ancestral DNA motif of insect telomeres is known to be (TTAGG)n. Some Authors suggested the absence of this motif in true bugs (a large group of insects, among them bedbugs, firebugs, and significant agricultural pests) however this conclusion was based on available data, which are very scarce. On the basis...

A list of the planthoppers of Iran

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

04 Nov 2011

A list of 235 planthoppers from Iran is recorded along with distribution data. This list is based on previous studies on Iranian Auchenorrhyncha during last 100 years. In addition to the latest species names for any record, new combinations and the transferring one species at family level is proposed. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys. Planthoppers are studied relatively little, but are both economically important (they cause reduced crop yield through their feeding, oviposition and transferring pathogen microorganisms to a wide range of plants) and very interesting from a biodiversity aspect. In a new published paper, the first complete list of Fulgoromorpha species recorded from Iran has been compiled, which is based on literature records and the addition of some new taxonomic data. The list consists of 235 species while nearly half of them are endemic from Iran. Iranissus ephedinus Dlabola, 1980 is transferred from Issidae to Nogodinidae. To resolve nomenclatural difficulty the following new combinations in Family Issidae are given: Iranodus dumetorus (Dlabola, 1981), Iranodus khatunus (Dlabola, 1981) and Iranodus repandus (Dlabola, 1981). Due to published generic synonomy the following are new combinations: Duilius seticulosus (Lethierry, 1874), D. tamaricis (Puton & Lethierry, 1887), D. tamaricicola (Dubovsky, 1966) D. vatrum (Dlabola, 1985). I...

A new species of gall makers in the aphid genus of plant lice was found in China

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

01 Nov 2011

Aphid researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences found one new species, Aleurodaphis sinojackiae Qiao & Jiang, 2011 from Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, China. It forms leaf galls on Jack trees (Sinojackia xylocarpa) and is one of two known gall makers in the plant lice Aleurodaphis (Hemiptera, Aphididae, Hormaphidinae). The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Aleurodaphis was established in 1917 by van der Goot and has eight known species in the world, restricted to China, Japan, India and Indonesia. Its remarkable characteristics are the followings, body of apterae is similar to nymphs of mealywing, frontal horn is absent and wax glands are arranged along crenulated margin of body. The range of its host plants is quite wide, but only two of them can form leaf galls on the host plants, A. sinojackiae and A. stewartiae. The new species was named after its host plant, Jack trees (Sinojackia xylocarpa). It induced the leaves of host plants to curl and form leaf galls. The most typical characteristic of the new species is that wax glands are arranged on each segment of body not connecting with each other in apterae, while arranged continuously along the edge of body as a crenulation in the other known species of the genus. Aleurodaphis sinisalicis Zhang, 1982...

A new species of a tiny freshwater snail collected from a mountainous spring in Greece

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0200

01 Nov 2011

A new minute freshwater snail species belonging to the genus Daphniola was found by a researcher from University of Athens (Canella Radea) in a spring covered by snow on Mt. Parnassos, central Greece. This study was published in the open access journal Zookeys. The new species, Daphniola eptalophos, has a transparent conical-flat coiled shell, grey-black pigmented soft body and a black penis with a small colorless outgrowth on the left side near its base. D. eptalophos differs from its congeners in shell dimensions, soft body pigmentation and coloration of penis. Daphniola is an endemic genus for Greece, inhabiting most of mainland Greece. Two of the three currently known species are included in the category Endangered and Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011.1. It is notable that D. eptalophos was found in only one spring until now and its population abundance seems to be low. The new species could be threatened by habitat destruction because the localities of freshwater gastropods in Greece, most of them springs, are prone to changes due to urbanization, water pollution, waste accumulation, tourism and agricultural practices. Effective conservation measures must be urgently taken to protect these lo...

Misleading morphology: three European parasitoid wasp “species” are seasonal forms of just one

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

26 Oct 2011

Through an examination of collections, both natural and experimental rearings, and DNA sequence data, three nominal species of ichneumon wasps, having very different morphologies and hitherto regarded as distinct, are shown to be seasonal forms of a single species, Scambus calobatus. Three widely differing forms of European Scambus parasitoid wasps that had previously been regarded as distinct species are shown to be seasonal morphs of a single species. The collaboration involved National Museums Scotland (Mark Shaw), a private individual (Malcolm Jennings) as well as Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum (Donald Quicke). It was published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, an open access journal. The findings depended on examination of museum collections with good data standards, targeted fieldwork to rear specimens from known hosts at different times of year, and experimental rearings of progeny from spring females through summer hosts. DNA sequence data provided confirmation that the rearing results were real, and not the result of overlooked contaminants. The adults of these parasitoids paralyse their concealed hosts, which are small caterpillars or beetle larvae, before laying an egg beside the host. The host remains paralysed and is consumed by...

Genetic study of cave millipedes reveals isolated populations and ancient divergence between species

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

17 Oct 2011

Cave millipedes of the genus Tetracion are found on the southern Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and Alabama, USA. New genetic analyses show that their populations are generally isolated and genetically distinct. Genetic divergence between two species of Tetracion suggests they diverged several million years ago. The study was published in the open access journal International Journal of Myriadopology. This week the International Journal of Myriapodology published the first population genetic study of cave millipedes. This research highlights an important challenge in the conservation of cave biodiversity – that for many species caves are ‘islands’ of habitat that support isolated and genetically distinct populations. The southern Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and Alabama, USA is known for its high cave density. In addition, it has the highest cave biodiversity of any region in North America. Millipedes of the genus Tetracion range across this biodiversity hotspot. These millipedes, which can grow up to 8 cm in length, are common scavengers in cave communities. Like many cave animals, Tetracion millipedes have reduced pigmentation and non-functional eyes. The authors used genetic techniques to compare Tetracion populations and species. They found that Tetracion populations were generally isolated from one another. In addition, d...

Unknown species and larval stages of extremely long-legged beetles discovered by DNA test

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

14 Oct 2011

The unknown larval stages and a new species of the curious Spider Water Beetles were described after their assignment by DNA sequences. These taxonomic works are groundwork for the development of water quality bioindicator systems in the tropics. This study of the AQUA Palawana biodiversity program in the Philippines was published in the journal ZooKeys. The research program AQUA Palawana has been exploring the unique freshwater biodiversity of the Philippine Island and biosphere reserve of Palawan for more than a decade. Scientists from the Senckenberg Museum of Zoology Dresden and the Bavarian State Collections of Zoology in Munich have now described larvae and a new species of the curious Spider Water Beetles (Ancyronyx) from this biodiversity hotspot. Their study was realized in cooperation with the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development and the De La Salle University Manila. The scientists conducting this study, Hendrik Freitag and Michael Balke, used mitochondrial DNA, which...

Neue Art und bisher unbekannte Larvenstadien außergewöhnlich langbeiniger Käfer durch ...

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

14 Oct 2011

Durch molekulargenetische Methoden konnten bisher unbekannte Larvenstadien und eine seltene neue Art aus der Gattung der kuriosen Spinnenwasserkäfer entdeckt und wissenschaftlich beschrieben werden. Diese biologisch-systematische Studie ist Grundlage für die Entwicklung eines biologischen Indikatorsystems zur Bewertung der Wasserqualität in den Tropen. Die Arbeit im Rahmen des AQUA Palawana Forschungsprogrammes auf den Philippinen wurde jetzt von Wissenschaftlern aus Dresden und München in der Fachzeitschrift Zookeys veröffentlicht. Seit über einem Jahrzehnt wird durch das Forschungsprogramm „AQUA Palawana” die einzigartige biologische Vielfalt der Süßwasserfauna im Biosphärenreservat der philippinischen Provinz Palawan erforscht. Forscher vom Senckenberg Museum für Tierkunde Dresden und der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München haben jetzt eine seltene unbekannte Art und erstmals Larvenstadien der ungewöhnlichen Spinnenwasserkäfer aus diesem sogenannten „Biodiversitäts-Hotspot“ wissenschaftlich beschrieben. Die Studie wurde in Kooperation mit dem

Data publishing in Pensoft journals integrated with the Dryad Data Repository

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

13 Oct 2011

The data publishing workflow of eight journals published by Pensoft has now been integrated with the Dryad Digital Repository, facilitating data archiving for data files associated with articles in these journals. The workflow is highly automated thanks to a new module of the online editorial management platform, Pensoft Journal System (PJS). The integrated journals are ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, BioRisk, NeoBiota, Nature Conservation, Comparative Cytogenetics and International Journal of Myriapodology. Upon acceptance of a manuscript in any of these Pensoft journals, the article submission metadata are sent automatically to Dryad, creating a provisional record for the article data. In another automated message, the authors are invited to archive the data files underpinning that particular article, using the provisional record in Dryad to expedite the data upload process. Upon publication, the article metadata...

NeoBiota Issue 10 generates a lot of interest

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

10 Oct 2011

We are pleased to announce publishing of issue 10 of NeoBiota. It contains intriguing research and commentary papers. Two of the papers enjoyed also much additional interest thanks to the posted press releases: Market transactions and economics in general affect biological invasions (downloaded by 2643 science journalists and media since 7 Oct 2011!) Prague's 88 nature reserves threatened by invasive plant species (downloaded by 1468 science journalists and media since 7 Oct 2011!) Also, two important online databases on biological invasions (DAISIE and invasive.org) have been automatically connected to taxon names mentioned in the NeoBiota papers. For example, if one clicks on the species' name Polycnemum arvense mentioned in the paper of Jarošík et al. (doi: 10.3897/neobiota.10.1262), then a dynamically created online taxon profile is created: http://ptp.pensoft.eu/external_details.php?type=1&query=Polycnemum%20arvense ...

Prague’s eighty-eight nature reserves threatened by invasive plant species

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

05 Oct 2011

Cities are generally regarded as hostile for wildlife, and urbanization as a dramatic form of destruction of natural habitats. Still, they are far from dead zones. Their biodiversity may even exceed that of surrounding landscapes. A new study - published in the open access journal Neobiota - found that much of the biodiversity in the nature reserves in the Czech capital Prague is due to invasive species, thus threatening local species. “This is definitely the case of the city of Prague, Czech Republic”, says the lead author Prof. Vojtěch Jarošík of a new study published in the open access journal NeoBiota. “Prague contains spectacular natural features, rarely seen in other metropolitan areas of comparable size, protected in 88 nature reserves. Our analyses build on systematic surveys of vascular plants flora, carried out in these reserves in the late 1980s/ early 1990s. The reserves are important sanctuaries, hosting more than half of the plant species occurring in the Czech Republic.” “On the other hand, it is alien species that contribute to this remarkably high species richness”, adds the Prof. Petr Pyšek. “It has been repeatedly documented that urban environment and life style promote introductions of alien species. The conservation in cities focuses on the diversity of native species, and urban ...

Market transactions and economics in general affect biological invasions

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0200

05 Oct 2011

Biological invasions, i.e. the spread of introduced, non-native species, not only serve as ecological model systems, but also bring out the importance of economic activities on ecological processes. Two recent books have shown the extent and variety of the interaction of economics with invasion science and also the variety of approaches to tackling these problems. Three researchers, lead by Mark Williamson from the University of York, England, argue in the latest issue of the open access journal NeoBiota that the ecological and economic dimensions of the problem of invasive species are connected at different levels. Many of the changes that lead ecosystems to be more vulnerable to the impact of invasive species are direct consequences of economic behaviour. This is because these impacts are externalities of the market transactions; they are not taken seriously by those making the transactions perhaps because they are not held legally responsible for the impacts nor are the markets directly affected by these impacts. Instead these impacts are often borne by those who receive little or no benefit from the market transactions. Furthermore, Williamson, Meyerson & Auge point out that biological invasions are good models for studying more general processes in ecology. In particular, the behaviour of ecosystems that are not in or close to equilibrium can be studied easily in biological invasions. On the one hand, biological invasions help us to understand mechanisms o...

A new species of fossil silky lacewing insects that lived more than 120 million years ago

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

26 Sep 2011

A team of researchers from the Capital Normal University in Beijing (China) and the Institute of Biology and Soil Sciences in Vladivostok (Russia) has discovered a remarkable silky lacewing insect from the Mesozoic of China. The study has been published recently in the open access journal ZooKeys and is available for free download. The extant silky lacewings (the family Psychopsidae) may be recognized by their broad wing shape, dense venation, spectacularly patterned and hairy wings. Today, this family is very small, restricted only to southern Africa, southeastern Asia and Australia, but in the Mesozoic, it was much more widely distributed. The new fossil silky lacewing - Undulopsychopsis alexi - was found from in the Yixian Formation of western Liaoning Province, one of the most productive Mesozoic fossil-bearing horizons in China. The species is characterized by the undulate wing margin, a unique condition amongst known Psychopsidae, and a number of unusual characters of the wing venation. "The most important trait of this fossil is that it shares the features of two different families of neuropteran insects, the extant Psychopsidae (known also from the Mesozoic) and the extinct Mesozoic Osmylopsychopidae", said the author Vladimir Makarkin. This discovery is expected to shed light on the evolutionary history of lacewings related to ...

Earliest psychomyiid caddisfly fossils, from 100-million-year-old Burmese amber

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

26 Sep 2011

The examination of insects in Burmese amber by researchers at the University of Cologne, Germany and National Museums Scotland revealed a new genus of caddisfly, which has been named Palerasnitsynus.

The discovery, based on two specimens, constitute the first record of the living family Psychomyiidae in Burmese amber and the oldest known member of this family in the fossil record. Burmese amber is 100 million years old, from the Cretaceous Period, so this discovery adds to our understanding of the caddisfly fauna in that part of the world at that time.

Original source:
Wichard, W., Ross, E. & Ross, A.J. (2011) Palerasnitsynus gen. n. (Trichoptera: Psychomyiidae) from Burmese amber. 130 : 323-330, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.130.1449

A living species of aquatic beetle found in 20-million-year-old sediments

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

26 Sep 2011

The fossil beetle discovered in the 16-23 million years old sediments of the Irtysh River in southern Siberia belongs to the modern species Helophorus sibiricus, a member of the water scavenger beetles (Hydrophiloidea), which is at present widely distributed in Eurasia and reaches even North America. The species was originally described in 1860 by the Russian entomologist Victor Motschulsky based on specimens collected at Lake Baikal. It is aquatic and inhabits various kinds of standing waters, predominantly the grassy temporary pools. Larvae are unknown so far, but are supposed to be terrestrial and predaceous, preying on various invertebrates, as in most other species of the genus. The Siberian fossil provides new data for the long-lasting debate among scientists about the average duration of an insect species. It was originally estimated to be ca. 2-3 million years based on the available fossil record, but slowly accumulating data begin to show that such an estimate is an oversimplification of the problem. Recently, evolutionary trees dated using molecular clocks suggested that some insect species are rather young, originating during the Ice Ages, but others may have been able to survive the last 10-20 million years until today. The long-living species had to survive the massive changes of the Earth's climate during the last millions of years - how they ...

New family of wasps found in N American amber, closest relatives in southern-hemisphere

rss@pensoft.net — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

24 Sep 2011

After being alerted by Alexandr Rasnitsyn (Palaeontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) to two unusual wasps in amber found in New Jersey, USA, Denis Brothers (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) has determined that they represent a new family of wasps, but with its closest relatives found in South America and South Africa. The study was published in a special issue of the open-access journal ZooKeys dedicated to the 75th birthday of Professor Rasnitsyn. The new family has been named Plumalexiidae, and comprises one new species, Plumalexius rasnitsyni Brothers, the names honouring Alexandr Rasnitsyn, who is undoubtedly the world’s foremost authority on the diversity and fossil history of the Hymenoptera, the group of insects which comprises wasps, bees, ants, sawflies and their relatives, in commemoration of his 75th birthday. The only known specimens are two small males found in Late Cretaceous amber from New Jersey, USA, dating from over 90 million years ago, which was apparently formed in a forested swampy environment. A detailed analysis during which they were compared with specimens of a variety of wasp groups, has shown that they are apparently most closely related to the family Plumariidae,...

Revolutionary changes to the Botanical Code published in 16 journals and 5 languages

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

16 Sep 2011

Important changes that will affect the publication of new names in algae, fungi, and plants accepted by the XVIII International Botanical Congress are detailed in a paper that is being published simultaneously or will be published soon in a total of sixteen leading academic journals. The paper, co-authored by Sandra Knapp (London), John McNeill (Edinburgh) and Nicholas Turland (St. Louis), presents the draft text of new articles to the Code and some ideas for best practice for authors and publishers. In addition, the journals PhytoKeys and Mycokeys published the same paper translated into Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish in order to further disseminate these important changes to the wider community of scientists these changes will affect. The XVIII International Botanical Congress held in Melbourne, Australia in July 2011 approved sweeping changes to the way scientists name new plants, algae, and fungi (previous press release: Electronic publishing 'goes live'). The Melbourne Code (now re-named the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants) will allow online-only publication of names of new taxa – what is widely known as e-publication – from 1 January 2012. The mandatory requirement for a Latin diagnosis or description of new taxa of algae, fungi, and plants was changed to allow ...

Amateur botanists in Brazil discover a genuflexing plant

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

14 Sep 2011

A new plant species that buries its seeds - the first in its family - was discovered in the Atlantic forest of Bahia, Brazil, by an international team of amateur and professional scientists. José Carlos Mendes Santos (a.k.a. Louro) is a handyman in rural northeastern Bahia, Brazil - one of the areas of the world with the highest biodiversity. Two years ago, he found a tiny, inch-high plant with white-and-pink flowers in the backyards of the off-the-grid house of amateur botanist and local plant collector Alex Popovkin. The little plant was brought home to be grown on a window sill for closer observation. In parallel, work on its identification began. Thanks to solar power and a satellite connection, Popovkin had access to the Internet, and as was his habit, he uploaded some photographs of the plant to Flickr and contacted several taxonomic experts around the globe. The family (strychnine family, or Loganiaceae) and genus (Spigelia) of the plant were soon established, with a suggestion from a Brazilian botanist that it might be a new species. A collaboration was started with Lena Struwe, a specialist of the plant’s family at Rutgers University, who had previously described a specie...

Amateur botanists in Brazil discover a genuflexing plant. ...

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

14 Sep 2011

Uma nova espécie de planta que enterra as suas sementes – a primeira descoberta na família – foi encontrada na Mata Atlântica do litoral norte da Bahia, Brasil, por um grupo internacional de botânicos amadores e cientistas. José Carlos Mendes Santos (de apelido “Louro”) é um caseiro na região rural do nordeste da Bahia, Brasil – uma das áreas do mundo com maior biodiversidade. Há dois anos, ele encontrou uma planta minúscula de apenas 3 cm de altura e com flores esbranquiçadas no quintal da casa do botânico amador e coletor local Alex Popovkin. A plantinha foi trazida para casa para ser cultivada na janela para uma observação cuidadosa. Em paralelo, o trabalho sobre a sua identificação começou. Graças à energia solar e uma conexão via satélite, Popovkin teve acesso à Internet, e como era seu hábito, ele enviou algumas fotos da planta para o Flickr e fez contato com diversos especialistas em taxonomia ao redor do mundo. A família (família da estricnina, ou Loganiaceae) e o gênero (Spigelia) da planta foram logo estabelecidos, com uma sugestão de uma botânica brasileira que poderia tratar-se de uma nova espécie. Uma colabora&...

Chinese researchers identify insect host species of a famous Tibetan medicinal fungus

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0200

08 Sep 2011

A team of researchers from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Xiao-Liang Wang and Yi-Jian Yao), summarized all the available information on the insect species associated with the Tibetan medicinal fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis through an extensive literature survey and analyzed their relationships with the fungus. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The fungus has traditionally been used as a tonic to strengthen the human body and in the treatment of kidney and lung problems. It has also been shown to possess a variety of medicinal effects by recent studies, e.g. immunomodulating, hypocholesterolemic, hypoglycemic, anti-tumor, anti-oxidation and anti-aging activities. Natural products of O. sinensis are now sold at a price higher than Gold. The fungus contributes billions of RMB (Chinese yuan) to the rural economy on the Tibet Plateau each year and often accounts for 70%～90% of a local family’s annual income. Thousands and thousands of collectors crowd onto the Tibet Plateau every summer, causing a sharp decrease in the natural production of O. sinensis and serious damages to the environment. “Ophiocordyceps sinensis (also Cordyceps sinensis), known as the Chinese Caterpillar Fungus or 'Dong Chong Xia Cao' (winter worm, summer grass) in Chinese, is one of the most widely recognized Traditional Chinese Medicines endemic to the Tibetan Plateau. It has been listed as an endanger...

Darwin's butterflies!? Spectacular species radiation in the Caribbean studied with 'DNA barcoding'

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0200

29 Aug 2011

In one of the first taxonomic revisions of Neotropical butterflies that utilizes 'DNA barcoding', Andrei Sourakov (University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History) and Evgeny Zakharov (University of Guelph, Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario) uncovered a spectacular degree of evolutionary divergence within the satyrine butterfly genus Calisto. The study was published in the open-access journal Comparative Cytogenetics. The Caribbean has a remarkable diversity of habitats and wildlife. More than 200 species of butterflies belonging to some 100 genera live on the islands, with most genera represented by a single species. Many species are endemic to the region, that is they do not occur anywhere else. This distinctive fauna apparently arose as a result of species immigrating from the mainland at some point during the islands' history, and later evolving mostly into island isolates. The satyrine butterfly genus Calisto is the most notable of them, because it has the largest number of extant species compared to other butterfly genera found in the region. Until the present revision, Calisto had comprised 54 named taxa, which occupy an extremely diverse array of habitats, sugges...

'Hidden' differences of chromosome organization become visible

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0200

29 Aug 2011

Why different species have dissimilar sets of chromosomes? Why the differentiated species often conserve apparently identical chromosome complements? Furthermore, why, while chromosome rearrangements can considerably change the course of species evolution, certain variation among individuals and populations of some species persists indefinitely? Such questions motivate researchers to compare chromosomes in closely related species. To understand the nature of chromosome changes in the voles Microtus savii, researchers from the Rome State University "Sapienza" launched a molecular cytogenetic study. Three of the five Italian forms of pine voles showed remarkable differences in chromosomal distribution of two molecular markers. Analyzing these data and weighing them against previously obtained genetic information, the authors expect to improve the taxonomy of these rodents and to track the pathway of their chromosomal evolution. The Italian pine voles have long been known as a "species complex", namely the Microtus savii complex. The group includes five "forms": "savii", "brachycercus", "nebrodensis", "niethammericus", and "tolfetanus", distributed throughout the Apennine peninsula. The most widely dispersed is "savii"; "brachycercus" lives in Calabria, "niethammericus" inhabits t...

Death from above: parasite wasps filmed for the first time attacking ants from the air

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0200

29 Aug 2011

Flight attacks of small parasitoid wasps (no larger than 2.0 mm in size) on ant workers have been filmed by José María Gómez Durán from Madrid. The four species of wasps show amazing adaptations and enormous differences in the tactics they use. Two of the four filmed species are new to science and are described by Dr Kees van Achterberg from NCB Naturalis Leiden. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Ants are a very dominant group in nature and well-equipped to defend themselves. Only a few small parasitoids manage to break through their defence, thanks to very different and amazing adaptations. The four filmed species belong to four different genera and two different families of wasps (Braconidae and Ichneumonidae). The eggs of the Braconidae develop inside adult ants. The eggs of the Ichneumonidae, however, develop in the larvae of ants. How the newly developed young wasps manage to survive inside the ant nest is still unknown. One of the possible explanations is that dead ants may be deposited outside the entrance of the ant nest, thus giving the young wasps a chance to emerge, avoiding a lethal attack on themselves. Here are links to four movies, supplementing the article, on Pensoft's...

Chromosome inheritance? Not the same for all the chromosomes

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0200

24 Aug 2011

New findings of researchers from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Mauro Mandrioli, Valentina Monti and Gian Carlo Manicardi) show that in aphids the two X chromosomes have a different inheritance. The study was published in Comparative Cytogenetics. Aphids are insects with a sex determination model based on the presence of two X chromosomes (XX) in females and a single X chromosome (XO) in males. Previous studies suggested that X chromosome loss during male determination was random and that both X chromosomes have the same probability to be inherited in males. On the contrary, some authors suggested the presence of strong biases in the transmission of sex chromosomes, so that X chromosomes may have a non-mendelian inheritance in aphids. On the basis of the results obtained in potato aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae, we suggest the presence of a non-random elimination of one X chromosome during the male determination process. In particular, the unequal distribution of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) genes between the two X chromosomes could favour the loss of the X chromosome with fewer rDNA genes. This result is due to the fact that all the aphid eggs during the prophase present two X chromosomes linked by rDNA genes. However, in eggs developing as females, the connection is quickly lost, but in male generating eggs the X chromosomes remain attached by rDNA genes and undergo a sort of non-canonical reduc...

Open minded and open access: NeoBiota, a new publishing platform for invasion biologists

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0200

16 Aug 2011

Plants helping human parasites, roads as weed highways, and chemical warfare between alien and native plants – these are only some of the topics covered in NeoBiota – a new open-access, peer-reviewed, rapid online journal in invasion biology. NeoBiota was launched by Pensoft Publishers continuing the former NeoBiota Proceedings series. The Editor-in-Chief of the new journal is Dr Ingolf Kühn from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, Halle, Germany, assisted by an authoritative Editorial Team. The vision of the Editorial Board on the priority issues and future development of invasion biology is presented in an Editorial co-authored by many leading specialists in biological invasions and published in NeoBiota's inaugural issue. "There are at least three main reasons for launching a new journal on biological invasions. First, there is a need for a publication which considers introduced species irrespective of their impact, negative or positive (e.g., planned introductions of economically important species); second, a journal is required that publishes the results of close interdisciplinary research; and third, provides the first solely open access publication dealing specifically with biological invasions." said Dr Kühn. NeoBiota will pay special attention to increasing public a...

Pearl-flowered Legume a surprise new find in the Cape Snowy Mountains (Sneeuberg)

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

28 Jul 2011

A pearl-flowered legume collected in 2005 by Ralph Clark & Nigel Barker (Rhodes University) in the Sneeuberg, South Africa, was determined by taxonomists Charles Stirton & Muthama Muasya (University of Cape Town) to be a distinct new species. Psoralea margaretiflora is the latest endemic species from the Sneeuberg Centre of Floristic Endemism. The discovery highlights the importance of the poorly explored Great Escarpment in South Africa. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The Sneeuberg Centre of Floristic Endemism, Eastern Cape Province, and South Africa’s newest Centre of Endemism, was recognised by Ralph Clark, Nigel Barker and Laco Mucina as recently as 2009 (Clark, V.R., Barker, N.P. & Mucina, L. 2009. The Sneeuberg: A new centre of floristic endemism on the Great Escarpment, South Africa. South African Journal of Botany 75: 196-238). The recognition of the new Sneeuberg Centre arose out of the doctoral studies of Ralph Clark. The Great Escarpment Biodiversity Research Programme co-...

DNA solves identities of Australian melons and loofah

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

28 Jul 2011

Molecular data have shown that three Australian Cucurbitaceae species initially collected in 1856 but never accepted as separate species are distinct from each other and that one of them is the closest relative of the honeymelon, Cucumis melo. The names for these species are sorted out in a study published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1005338107) last year had shown that northern Australia harbours the sister species of the honeymelon, Cucumis melo, which previously had been hypothesized to occur in Africa. It turned out that the Australian honeymelon relative had in fact been collected and named Cucumis picrocarpus by one of the fathers of Australian botany, Ferdinand von Mueller, in 1856, but then been erroneously synonymized. The same thing happened with another of Mueller’s discoveries, this one being a species of loofah (the genus Luffa), which had was been erroneously synonymized and was then forgotten until 2011. Matters were complicated by some of Mueller’s 1856 collections arriving in the herbarium of the Royal Botanical Garden...

Electronic publishing “goes live”: News from the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

28 Jul 2011

The Nomenclature Section of the 18th International Botanical Congress in Melbourne, in July 2011, proposed and approved sweeping changes to the way scientists name new plants, algae, and fungi. To demonstrate the efficiency of electronic publishing, the first open access plant taxonomy journal PhytoKeys published a correspondence note by a team of botanists from various USA institutions (Smithsonian Institution, The Missouri Botanical Garden, The Chicago Botanical Garden, and The Field Museum of Chicago), led by Dr James Miller from the New York Botanical Garden. The correspondence was written, submitted, edited, proofread, and published by PhytoKeys during the congress in just four days. The changes in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature begin on the cover of the document: the title was broadened to make explicit that the Code applies not only to plants, but also to algae and fungi. The new title is the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). In addition, for the first time in history the Code will allow for the electronic publication of names of new taxa. In an effort to make the publication of new names more accurate and efficient, the requirement for a ...

Press release on PhytoKeys issue 4 (Flora of Marquesas Islands) enjoys enormous interest from ...

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

21 Jul 2011

The press release on the special issue on the flora of Marquesas lslands (PhytoKeys 4) enjoyed more than 1200 visits by science journalists and media on the day we posted it! The potential number of end readers should be at a magnitude more.

Here is a Google link to see how it was reflected by media during the first day.

Our small press office is always keen to work with you on news announcements regarding your research findings published in PhytoKeys. It is important for all: for the authors, for the journal, and most importantly, for increasing public awareness of our science!

PhytoKeys accepted for archiving and indexing in PubMedCentral!

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

21 Jul 2011

On the day when botanists decided to go for electronic publishing at the IBC2011 Melbourne, we have received a confirmation message from the National Library of Medicine of the USA, that PhytoKeys is accepted for archiving in PubMedCentral. In practice this means that all content of PhytoKeys will be archived as PDF and XML files. In addition, all figures will be archived as separate files as well. The full text will be nicely readable on the PMC website and indexed through the huge machine of NLM, NCBI, etc.

MycoKeys: A new peer-reviewed, open-access, high-technology journal in systematics and biology ...

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

19 Jul 2011

MycoKeys – a new journal in systematic and biology of fungi (including lichens) was launched by Pensoft Publishers. The Editor-in-Chief of the new journal is Dr Thorsten Lumbsch from The Field Museum, Chicago assisted by an authoritative Editorial Team. All content is published open access and is free to read, download, print, and distribute. MycoKeys builds upon the success of its sister journals ZooKeys and PhytoKeys. It is more than a journal. It is a linked environment built upon its own content management software. MycoKeys offers numerous innovative ways to publish and disseminate information on the taxonomy and ecology of fungi (including lichens). The journal will provide mandatory registration of all new taxa in MycoBank. All new species will be supplied by the publisher to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), Globalnames, the Plazi Treatment Repository and the Wiki Species-ID on the day of publication of the article. The content of the article itself will be marked-up at ...

Six new species of Eucalantica micro-moths discovered from the New World

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

18 Jul 2011

The Eucalantica genus belongs to the relatively primitive micro-moth group, Yponomeutidae. Six new species have been described by Mr. Jae-Cheon Sohn from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA and Mr. Kenji Nishida from Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica and published in the open access taxonomy journal Zookeys. “Yponomeutid moths are important group in tracing the evolution of plant association in Lepidoptera. In spite of this importance, the family has been neglected by systematists and its biodiversity and phylogeny remain poorly understood” comments Mr. Sohn, Ph. D. candidate. Previous descriptive works have concentrated on the Holarctic and Australian faunas, the species diversity of yponomeutids from the Neotropics remains significantly underestimated as Eucalantica being a good example. Eucalantica has been known by only a single Nearctic species. A review of the genus found six new species: E. costaricae, E. ehecatlella, E. icarusella, E. powelli, and E. pumila, all five from Costa Rica; E. vaquero from southern USA and Mexico. “Our discoveries suggest that a high diversity of Eucalantica occurs in the tropical highlands of Central America and the genus is more diverse and widely distributed than previously thought&rdq...

Separated for 20 million years: Blind beetle from Bulgarian caves clarifies questions

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

13 Jul 2011

One of the smallest ever cave-dwelling ground beetles (Carabidae), has recently been discovered in two caves in the Rhodopi Mountains, Bulgaria, and described under the name Paralovricia beroni. The beetle is completely blind and is only 1.8-2.2 mm long. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. “When we saw this beetle for first time, it became immediately clear that it belongs to a genus and species unknown to science. Moreover, its systematic position within the family of Carabidae remained unclear for several years. After a careful study of its closest relatives Lovricia and Neolovricia, discovered in caves of the Dinaric Alps of Croatia, we came to the conclusion that all three genera belong to a new subtribe which we describe now under the name Lovriciina”, commented Borislav Gueorguiev from the National Natural History Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria. The species of this group are extremely rare and are known only from a few specimens. Lovricia jalzici was described in 1979 which is presently known only from a single female specimen found at the cave Gospodska pećina in Croatia; Lovricia aenigmatica is known from one male and one female found at an unnamed pit near the peak Sveti Jure on the Biokovo Mountains and from another female from Lovrićija Jama II (Sveti Jure, Biokovo); lastly, Neolovricia oz...

Jewel beetles, obtained from local people, turn out to be four species unknown to science

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

08 Jul 2011

A team of researchers from the Czech University of Life Sciences discovered four new species of jewel beetles (Buprestidae) from South-eastern Asia. This family of beetles is named for their particularly beautiful body and fascinating, shiny colours. All new species belong to the genus Philanthaxia. Before the publication of this study, 61 species had been known from this genus. Currently, it comprises of 65 species, with a primarily Southeast-Asian distribution, except for two species extending to the Australasian region”, said Oto Nakládal, a co-author of the study. The new species P. pseudoaenea occurs in Thailand, while P. jakli, P. chalcogenioides and P. lombokana are distributed on some Indonesian islands (Sumatra, Borneo, Lombok). The biology of all these species is unknown, just as the host plants, because all specimens were obtained from the locals. The specialists also described sexual dimorphism of Philanthaxia iris. This species had originally been described on the basis of a single female from Java, and male specimens had not been known so far. Due to the specimen from a local collector, also from Java, it was possible to describe a male. Inventories of biodiversity “hot-spots”, such as Southeast Asia, is extremely important because of the increasing extinction rates due to rapid changes of natural habitats. S...

Rockin’ Tortoises: A 150 Year Old New Species

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:00:00 +0200

29 Jun 2011

A team of researchers investigated a desert tortoise from the Southwest USA and northwestern Mexico. What was thought to be a simple problem in species identification turned out to be a very complex matter. Their investigations required forensic genetics and several other methods. In the end, they found it necessary to describe a new species. More than that, the discovery has very important implications for conservation and the development of the deserts of southern California. The new species, Morafka's Desert Tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) from Tiburon Island, Sonora, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Taylor Edwards, 2010. Since the original description of Agassiz’s Land Tortoise, scientifically called Gopherus agassizii, facts have been nothing less than Dazed and Confused. One hundred and fifty years ago in 1861, James Graham Cooper described a new species of tortoise from the deserts of California. From the get-go, factual confusion has been more common than not. The publication date has consistently been inappropriately attributed to 1863, and even the original common name, Agassiz Land Tortoise, was inexplicably changed to the Desert Tortoise, a moniker that is commonly used today. But there’s more than just a new name. For 150 years, Agassiz’s Land Tortoise has been masking the existence of at...

Data publishing policies and guidelines for biodiversity data published by Pensoft

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:00:00 +0200

01 Jun 2011

Pensoft Publishers announced their data publishing policies and guidelines for biodiversity data in response to the increasing demands from institutions and scientists to open scientific data to anyone who would be interested to use them. “An opinion survey amongst the authors, readers and editors of the Pensoft journal ZooKeys carried out in April convinced us that the majority of respondents (84 %) are willing to publish their data, so that to make them available to anyone to use, share or integrate with other data” said Dr Lyubomir Penev, managing director of Pensoft Publishers. Among the most important incentives to publish data, the scientists mentioned that “open data increases transparency and the overall quality of science, the potential for collaborative research as well as an opportunity to increase academic credit in the form of citations. Therefore, providing a service to ensure a permanent publication record for published data is of key importance for the success of the project”, adds Dr Penev. The core of the data publishing project is the concept of “Data Paper” developed in a cooperation with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Data Papers are peer-reviewed scholarly publications that describe the published da...

Ground beetles have turned the tables: small insect attacks and kills amphibians much bigger ...

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 20 May 2011 10:00:00 +0200

20 May 2011

New findings of researchers from Tel-Aviv University (Gil Wizen and Avital Gasith) show that predator-prey interactions between ground beetles belonging to the genus Epomis and amphibians are much more complex than expected. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. “Amphibians are typical insect predators and their diet may include adult beetles, ground beetles in particular. The recently filmed successful attacks of the beetles on toads and frogs brought new insights on the amphibian-insect interactions, and documented the uncommon phenomenon of invertebrates preying on vertebrate animals,” said the senior author Gil Wizen. Previous research has shown that Epomis larvae feed exclusively on amphibians and that this food source is essential for completion of their life cycle, while the diet of the adult beetles consists of terrestrial invertebrates as well as dead vertebrates. Wizen and Gasith’s current study shows that adult Epomis beetles can

ZooKeys accepted for archival and display in PubMedCentral

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 19 May 2011 10:00:00 +0200

19 May 2011

We are pleased to announce that after almost two years of testing ZooKeys was accepted for archival and display in PubMedCentral, the wold's leading archive for biomedical literature, based at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the USA. Here is a link to ZooKeys' articles on PMC.

Thus, ZooKeys becomes the first journal in biodiversity science to use a domain-specific extension (TaxPub) of the general NLM mark up schema that permits automatic extraction and retrieval of specific information on biological taxa, such as taxon treatments and their features from an article’s text.

We hope that the experience accumulated by ZooKeys will be used by other taxonomic journals to make biodiversity information openly accessible and easy to use - a process that has been inspired by Donat Agosti and the Plazi team.

Mysterious purse-web spiders re-discovered and photographed in South Africa

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 06 May 2011 10:00:00 +0200

06 May 2011

A team of researchers from the University of the Free State in South Africa (René Fourie and Charles Haddad) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium (Rudy Jocqué) discovered very poorly known purse-web spiders of the genus Calommata in Africa. Four of the species described are new to science. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. What is really unique about purse-web spiders is that, in contrast to trapdoor spiders, they do not construct a structure to close the burrow. Instead, they build a purse-shaped web of dense silk that covers a chamber in which the spider waits for wandering prey to step on the web, before impaling it from beneath with its exceptionally long fangs. Little is known on the biology of these small spiders as they are extremely difficult to locate in nature. The burrows of the African species have never been photographed, and the first ever photograph of a live African Calommata male, captured in a pitfall trap, was taken only last year by Ian Engelbrecht. The spider shown on the photo (Calommata transvaalica male) is only 6.3 mm in length. “While Calommata spiders have been collected elsewhere in Africa throughout the last century, alb...

Social network helps in discovery of an adventive oriental species of plant lice for the first ...

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 06 May 2011 10:00:00 +0200

06 May 2011

Spanish researchers from the University of Leon (Nicolás Pérez Hidalgo and M. Pilar Mier Durante) have discovered the plant lice Schizaphis piricola (Matsumura) in Madrid, Spain from a photography displayed on a social network platform: “Biodiversidad Virtual” (Ángel Umaran). The results have been published recently in the open access journal ZooKeys and are available for free download.

“This discovery is yet another example of how social networks play an important role in our knowledge of biodiversity and the detection and/or monitoring of invasive or endangered species”, said the lead author Nicolás Pérez Hidalgo.

Schizaphis piricola is the 103rd adventive plant lice species recorded in Europe and is probably introduced in other part of the continent as well. The aphid lives on pears and alternates with aquatic plants during the summer. The direct action of feeding by the aphids, and the indirect damage caused by the honeydew they excrete on the leaves, can affect the normal growth of pear trees.

Journal-to-wiki export and a joint citation mechanism for taxon descriptions

rss@pensoft.net — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:00:00 +0200

16 Apr 2011

Over the last few weeks, ZooKeys has published papers whose taxon treatments have been uploaded in wiki format to Species ID. Now the conversion to wiki has been automated and was described in a recently published forum paper complemented by a sample paper, as well as by examples from previously published PhytoKeys papers. The proposed citation format gives proper credit both to the authors of the original description and to those who later contributed to the wiki version, within a combined reference displayed on the top of each wiki taxon page (see examples below). In addition, the URL addresses of the wiki pages of the (re-)described taxa are published in the journal paper, directly below the ZooBank LSIDs, thereby providing a permanent cross-linking between the journal description and its versioned wiki page. To demonstrate the range of original sources to which this approach might be applicable, taxon treatments previously published in PLoS ONE, Zootaxa and other journals have been uploaded to the wiki from the Plazi Treatment Repository, including such extracted from the historical literature (e.g., from Grandidier's "

ZooKeys published a landmark monograph on the higher classification and nomenclature of beetles ...

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:00:00 +0200

06 Apr 2011

A dedicated team of specialists in beetle systematics from around the globe have collaborated in a comprehensive, nearly 1000-pages monograph, of what is known about the higher classification and nomenclature of beetles, producing a complete catalogue of the nearly 5000 known extant and fossil high-level classification names for the first time. The data are presented in a classification framework and the publication dates are given for the majority of the more than 2500 references cited, in order to assess both availability and priority of the names. A synoptic classification of world Coleoptera to the level of subtribes is provided as well. The monograph is published in open access and is free to anyone to download, read, distribute and use and is also available in hardcover from the publisher. One of the goals of these works is to provide a foundation of valid, accepted names, which will alleviate the unnecessary proposal of new taxa, facilitate decisions on priority, promote long-term stability of the classification, and pave the way for the ongoing transition of classical taxonomy into taxonomy of the digital age, or cybertaxonomy. Although some nomenclatural problems will still need to be addressed in the future, this monograph, the largest of its kind in the zoological literature, will hopefully go a long way towards achieving the l...

Subterranean Biology goes for open access on Pensoft's Journal Platform

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0200

15 Mar 2011

On March 11th, Pensoft published issue No. 8 of Subterranean Biology. The publication of this journal is the continuation of the previous Mémoires de Biospéologie (volume 63), formely directed by Christian Juberthie, France. The publication of the Mémoires de Biospéologie was the continuation of yet another journal: Notes Biospéologiques (Edited by R. Jeannel at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle then by the CNRS) and the Annales de Spéléologie (Edited by the CNRS) and particularly a special series Ann. Spéléol., Supplt. published by the Laboratoire Souterrain du CNRS. Subterranean Biology is the fifth journal that moves to Pensoft publishes on behalf a scientific society, Société Internationale de Biospéologie (SIBIOS) / International Society for Subterranean Biology (ISSB) and will benefit from the innovative methods in publication and dissemination of scientific information, implemented through ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, and others of Pensoft’s own journals. Subterranean Biology considers for publication original scientific papers dealing with any aspect of subt...

ZooKeys Reports a Rare Find - A 100 Million Years Old Insect Fossil That Still Lives Today

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0200

08 Mar 2011

ZooKeys authors Sam Heads, of the Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois and Léa Leuzinger of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, have discovered a 100 million-year-old fossil from a group of large, carnivorous, cricket-like insects that still exist today in southern Asia, northern Indochina and Africa. “Schizodactylidae, or splay-footed crickets, are an unusual group of large, fearsome-looking predatory insects related to the true crickets, katydids and grasshoppers, in the order Orthoptera” said University of Illinois entomologist and lead author Sam Heads. The find is from a fossil bed in Brazil. Although the specimen is different from modern splay-footed crickets, its general features are almost the same, revealing that the genus has been in evolutionary stasis for 100 million years. The article, published in ZooKeys, vol. 77 (see also the wiki page of the species Schizodactylus groeningae) corrects the classifi...

ZooKeys publishes data through Darwin Core Archive format

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:00:00 +0200

17 Feb 2011

ZooKeys published a large taxonomic revision (Talamas et al. 2011) where all occurrence data and the taxon checklist have been published both in text and also as supplementary files in Darwin Core Archive format. Such an approach permits occurrence data to be downloaded, indexed, published through the GBIF data portal and others, used and re-used. The present monograph may serve as a sample to follow. It also may help in fostering the links between the data creators and scholarly publishers. Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) is an international biodiversity informatics data standard and the preferred format for publishing data through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) network. Each Darwin Core Archive consists of at least three files: (1) one or more data files keeping all records of the particular dataset in a tabular format such as a comma-separated or tab-separated list; (2) the archive descriptor (meta.xml) file describing the individual data file columns used and mapping them to DwC terms; and (3) a metadata ...

Journal of Hymenoptera Research published on Pensoft's platform!

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:00:00 +0200

11 Feb 2011

On February 8th, Pensoft published the first gold Open Access and NLM Taxpub-based issue of the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. It is one of the first journals that Pensoft publishes for a scientific society - The International Society of Hymenopterists - besides its own in-house journals (www.pensoft.net/journals), such as Zookeys. The implications are going beyond changing from a traditional pdf to a semantically enhanced version allowing immediate distribution of its content to a set of external aggreg...

Journal/Wiki publication and dissemination of a new taxon description

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:00:00 +0200

03 Feb 2011

ZooKeys published a paper (Hendrich L, Balke M (2011) A simultaneous journal / wiki publication and dissemination of a new species description: Neobidessodes darwiniensis sp. n. from northern Australia (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Bidessini). ZooKeys 79: 11–20. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.79.803) showing simultaneous description of a new species and creation of a wiki page for the taxon on www.species-id.net. The link to the wiki page (www.species-id.net/wiki/Neobidessodes_darwiniensis) is published in the original description under the ZooBank's LSID, so that readers may always link to the wiki page to see if there is a new information on the taxon there. Vice versa, readers of the wiki page will have always the possibility to link to the original journal description that will stay unchanged as in any other conventional journal article. While the original authors should always be credited through citing the journal article, further contributors to the wiki page (either the authors themselves or other interested students of that taxon) may edit/add content and be credited consequently as well. Conseguent changes ...

BioRisk 4 positively reviewed in Entomologische Berichten

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:00:00 +0200

28 Jan 2011

The fourth issue of BioRisk, Alien Terrestrial Invertebrates in Europe, has been positively reviewed by Entomologische Berichten! You can read the review here.

BioRisk 5: Climate Change and Dragonflies published

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:00:00 +0200

25 Jan 2011

BioRisk has published an important outcome of the ALARM and CLIMIT projects, Monitoring Climatic Change With Dragonflies consisting of 15 research papers. This special issue is one more nice addition to the BioRisk collection that started with the publication of the Climatic Risk Atlas of European Butterflies (downloaded more than 30,000 times from both Pensoft's and UFZ's servers!) and the 1000-pages treatise Alien Terrestrial Invertebrates of Europe.

BioRisk: Invitation to Publish

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:00:00 +0200

25 Jan 2011

We invite biodiversity scientists and ecologists to consider publishing in BioRisk to experience and enjoy the numerous technological innovations in publishing and dissemination of information in all branches of ecology and biodiversity science, available through the highly sophisticated, brand new journal publishing platform of Pensoft. BioRisk is extremely appropriate for publishing results of FP projects either as regular research papers or in a form of special issues, conference proceedings, thematic collections of papers, monographs, data publications and so on. All papers are open access and free to read, download, print, and distribute. There are mo restrictions in manuscript's size neither there are restrictions or charges for publishing in color, in both the online and print versions of the journals. You may learn a bit more on the journal's unique features in the attached file (downloadable also at

Five society journals moved to Pensoft in December 2010!

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:00:00 +0200

22 Dec 2010

Automatized export of images to EOL realized by PhytoKeys and ZooKeys

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:00:00 +0200

17 Dec 2010

PhytoKeys and ZooKeys created a tool to automatically export images of all new species described in both journals to EOL, in addition to text descriptions. Here is how species described in the latest issues of the journals look like on EOL:

http://www.eol.org/pages/18691590 (a new species of Solanum)
http://www.eol.org/pages/18691558 (a remarkable cave scorpion from Vietnam)

NeoBiota, a new open-access journal on biological invasions launched!

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:00:00 +0200

15 Dec 2010

PhytoKeys launched!

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 11:00:00 +0200

01 Nov 2010

Fast, Linked, and Open Access – the New Plant Taxonomy Journal PhytoKeys is Launched! We are pleased to announce launch of the journal PhytoKeys (www.phytokeys.com) and publication of its inaugural issue. PhytoKeys builds upon the tremendous success of its sister journal ZooKeys (www.zookeys.org) and offers numerous innovative ways to publish and disseminate information on the taxonomy and ecology of plants (you may see the forum paper and journal’s poster for more details). The journal will provide

Pensoft launched a new publishing platform: TRIADA

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 11:00:00 +0200

01 Nov 2010

The New Publishing Platform TRIADA Launched by Pensoft On 1 November 2010, Pensoft Publishers launched their brand new, innovative, integrated platform for publishing, disseminating and marketing of printed books, e-books and open access journals. TRIADA provides a linked environment for content, authors, reviewers, editors and customers through four independent classifications (taxonomic, subject, geographical, and geological time scale) as well through tagging and semantic mark-up. TRIADA uses a one-time registration process which allows users to submit, review or edit manuscripts, to subscribe for E-mail and RSS alerts, and to purchase Pensoft’s products. A strong point of TRIADA is the innovative platform for open access journal publishing based on its own online editorial management system and XML-based editorial workflow. A specially designed, Pensoft Markup Tool (PMT) provides semantic mark-up of journal content and export to various formats, e.g., XML files for archiving in PubMedCentral and to facilitate future data mining, a semantically-enhanced HTML version for interactive reading, and various XML exchange formats for upload on external aggregators. The Pensoft Taxon Profile tool creates a real-time, dynamic web page for any taxonomic name mentioned in a journal article. The tool is also open for free external use at www.ptp.pensoft.eu. The platform is linked to social network...

Impact Factor of ZooKeys 1.133

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:00:00 +0200

22 Oct 2010

The September 2011 issue of Thomson-Reuters Journals Citation Report announced the first impact factor of ZooKeys to be1.133.

ZooKeys publishes articles of the future

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:00:00 +0200

30 Jul 2010

On the eve of its second year's birthday (4th of July 2008), ZooKeys published its jubilee issue No 50 (http://pensoftonline.net/zookeys/index.php/journal/issue/view/52). This special editition demonstrates how integrating the traditional part of publication with the research and dissemination processes can deliver dramatic benefits by using semantic tagging and semantic enhancements (http://pensoftonline.net/zookeys/index.php/journal/article/view/538/469). Several novelties are described in the two forum papers and demonstrated in four exemplar papers: The papers are published in four different formats: (1) high-resolution, full-colour print version, to satisfy the current requirements of the ICZN, as well as the readers who prefer hardcopy, and for the purposes of paper archiving; (2) PDF to provide an electronic version identical to the printed one, to be archived in BHL and PubMedCentral; (3) HTML to provide links to external resources and semantic enhancements to published texts for interactive reading, and (4) XML version based on the TaxPub extension to the National Library of Medicine’s DTD (http://sourceforge.net/projects/taxpub/) to provide archiving document format for PubMedCentral ...

BioRisk approved for coverage by CABI

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:00:00 +0200

29 Jul 2010

The open access journal BioRisk has bee approved for indexing in CABI abstracts. Titles and abstracts will be linked to the full-text articles from CABI's database.

ZooKeys covered by PubMedCentral and Scopus

rss@pensoft.net — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:00:00 +0200

10 May 2010

ZooKeys was recently approved for coverage in both Elsevier's Scopus and PubMedCentral. Scopus will cover current issues as well as back list since the start of the journal in July 2008.Articles from issue 50 onwards will be archived in full-content PDF and XML formats in PubMedCentral. Bibliographic metadata and abstracts will also be indexed and available through PubMed. For XML mark up ZooKeys uses the NLM TaxPub schema, developed by the Plazi team (www.plazi.org) to provide finer granularity mark up, for instance to delimit taxon treatments, type material, localities, etc. within a paper. This step was made possible thanks to all who supported the journal with excellent papers, reviews and editorial work. Thanks to NLM and Plazi teams for the pleasant and efficient collaboration!

ZooKeys special issue on Lepidoptera published

rss@pensoft.net — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0200

12 Jan 2010

On 12th of January, ZooKeys published a special issue on Canadian Lepidoptera, edited by Don Lafontaine and Chris Schmidt. The issue is avaiable also as a full-color hardcopy at price EURO 18.00. Please contact ordering department for bulk orders.

ZooKeys becomes a pilot for the National Library of Medicine of the USA

rss@pensoft.net — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0200

03 Jan 2010

On 3rd of January Lyubomir Penev visited the National Library of Medicine to discuss improvement and development of the NLM TaxPub schema for mark up and arhiving of papers in taxonomy. It was agreed our journals ZooKeys and PhytoKeys to become a pilot for testing and implementation of the improved XML marked up schema.

ZooKeys paper on National Geographic

rss@pensoft.net — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:00:00 +0200

11 Dec 2009

On 19th of November, ZooKeys has published the monograph of Paul Sereno and Hans Larsson 'Cretaceous Crocodyliforms from the Sahara' (http://pensoftonline.net/zookeys). The study presents fascinating discoveries of a diverse fossil crocodile fauna that inhabited the present-day Sahara some 100 million years ago. Four of the five crocodile species, nicknamed as BoarCroc, RatCroc, DogCroc, DuckCroc and PancakeCroc, are new to science (three new genera) and major additions to two previously known species, Araripesuchus wegeneri and Anatosuchus minor, are published as well. The case shows clearly the great advantage of open access publishing of scientific results. The paper was published just one hour before the start of National Geographic press-conference in Washington D.C. dedicated to this great scientific discovery and became immediately available to anyone to freely read, download and distribute. The collaboration between National Geographic and ZooKeys led to a maximum dissemination to scientists and mass public in a unprecedented manner. Shortly after publication, the new species descriptions will also be available on Encyclopedia of Life (www.eol.org). During the two days after publication, the paper enjoyed 11,548 visits with 1,467 and 2,153 unique visitors on Thursd...

ZooKeys publishes interactive keys under the open access model

rss@pensoft.net — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:00:00 +0200

04 Nov 2009

ZooKeys published a forum paper (doi:10.3897/zookeys.21.274) where the concepts of publication, citation and dissemination of interactive keys and other online keys under the open access model are discussed. The concept is illustrated by a sample paper by Sharkey et al. published in the same issue (doi:10.3897/zookeys.21.271) and two more papers published previously (doi:10.3897/zookeys.20.108 and doi:10.3897/zookeys.20.112). The sample paper represents a taxonomic revision of a hymenopteran subfamily where keys to genera are published in a conventional dichotomous format and, additionally, in three different interactive formats (Intkey, Lucid and MX). The present model is based on previous experience with several existing examples of publishing online keys, however, it also suggests ways to publish, cite, preserve, disseminate and reuse the original data files under separate DOIs and metadata descriptors to the benefit of the authors, future workers, and society in general. To be regarded as a “formal scientific publication,” an online key should satisfy the same criteria of peer review, registration, persistence, bibliographic description, etc., as conventional publications. Dynamic Web-based interactive keys meet some of these criteria (identification, citation an...

GBIF and Pensoft signed a Memorandum of Cooperation

rss@pensoft.net — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:00:00 +0200

15 Oct 2009

The Memorandum of Cooperation formalises the basis for the two organisations to facilitate discovery and access to 'primary biodiversity data' simultaneously with scholarly publication using GBIF’s infrastructure. ZooKeys calls upon its authors to submit supporting primary biodiversity data together with their manuscript, in conformance with GBIF promoted standards. ZooKeys will make the GBIF 'Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT)' available from its website. GBIF will provide ZooKeys with standards for primary biodiversity data sharing and a template, to be included in Zookeys’ 'instructions for authors'. GBIF will also provide remote help-desk support to ZooKeys for ensuring maintenance of the IPT software. On June 1, 2009, ZooKeys became the first open access journal in systematics to facilitate discovery and access to 'primary biodiversity data' simultaneously with scholarly publication using the GBIF infrastructure, when a paper by Miller, Griswold and Yin (2009) (http://www.pensoftonline.net/zookeys), doi: 10.3897/zookeys.11.160, published a dataset via the GBIF data portal as part of the ZooKeys publication process, which includes the assignment of a distinct DoI for datasets, a KML file with distinct DoI, etc. (see http://www.gbif.org/News/NEWS1243931673). ";Signing of MoC between ZooKeys and GBIF is a milestone step towards open access t...

ZooKeys completes major publications on North American moths and butterflies

rss@pensoft.net — Sun, 10 May 2009 10:00:00 +0200

10 May 2009

“Contributions to the systematics of North American macro-moths” (ZooKeys 9, May 2009, 134 pp.) and “Contributions …II” (ZooKeys 39, March 2010, 268 pp.) include 16 papers contributed by 22 authors on the systematics of macro-moths of North and Central America. A revision of the noctuid genus Lasionycta (ZooKeys 30, Dec 2009, 156 pp.) included keys, descriptions, and illustrations of 43 species, 17 new. “An annotated check list of the Lepidoptera of Alberta, Canada” (ZooKeys 38, March 2010, 549 pp.) lists 2367 species with 171 distributional or taxonomic footnotes. “Annotated check list of the Noctuoidea of North America north of Mexico” (ZooKeys 40, March 2010, 239 pp.) lists 3693 species and includes 716 taxonomic notes and 331 literature references documen...