Tag: science

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ARPHA Platform welcomes new journal launched by Pensoft: Individual-based Ecology

Scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft has launched Individual-based Ecology (IBE), a new peer-reviewed, diamond open-access journal established to promote an individual-based perspective in ecology.

IBE aims to bridge the gap between individual-level responses and broader ecological patterns. In the face of global challenges, the journal is looking to contribute to both a better understanding and new sets of predictions of how ecological systems will respond to anthropogenic change. It aims to support the development of appropriate mitigation and restoration measures by focusing on the entities that actually and directly respond to change, i.e. individual organisms.

The journal embraces basic and applied, theoretical and empirical research in terrestrial and aquatic ecology. It welcomes contributions that incorporate data or novel insights about individual organisms and their interactions that are relevant to explaining system-level dynamics. IBE will publish a wide range of articles, including empirical, experimental, and modeling studies, as well as reviews, perspectives, and methodological papers.

As a diamond open-access journal, IBE is currently free to publish and free to read, ensuring that all published research is freely accessible to the global community.

The journal will utilise Pensoft’s innovative ARPHA platform, known for its robust support of academic publishing and efficient dissemination of research. Thanks to its fast-track publishing solution, the new journal offers a seamless, end-to-end publishing experience, encompassing all stages between manuscript submission and article publication, indexation, dissemination and permanent archiving. The publishing services provided by ARPHA also include a variety of human-provided services and integrations with third-party providers, intended to maximise the reach and usability of scholarly knowledge published in IBE.

IBE will be led by four editors-in-chief: Prof. Dr. Volker Grimm and Prof. Dr. Karin Frank of Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ, Prof. Dr. Mark E. Hauber of The City University of New York, and Prof. Dr. Florian Jeltsch of the University of Potsdam.

A banner of IBE presented at the German Ecological Society’s 53rd annual conference

„We are excited to launch Individual-based Ecology, a new, promising journal that will contribute to a better understanding of ecological systems and how we interact with them,” said Prof Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO of ARPHA and Pensoft.

“The time has come to establish individual-based ecology as an important complement to all other branches of ecology, both because we need it to fully understand and predict the response of ecological systems to change, and because empirical and modelling approaches have reached a level where the collection and use of individual-based data has become possible,” says Prof Volker Grimm, one of the editors-in-chief.

“It is exciting to be able to launch a journal that embraces ecological principles at the level of individuals across any and all lineages of life on our planet”, notes Prof. Mark E. Hauber, also an editor-in-chief. 

“This new journal will promote nothing less than a paradigm shift in ecological thinking from averaging approaches to a science focused on the fundamental agents of change, i.e. individual organisms. Systematically recognising the importance of individual variation in ecological systems will transform our fundamental understanding of how biodiversity and its components emerge from individual responses and interactions, and how the emerging levels of organisation will respond to changing environments,” said Prof Florian Jeltsch from the editorial team.  

IBE joins a number of open-access ecology journals published by Pensoft.For more information on the journal’s focus and scope and guidelines to authors, visit IBE’s website and follow it on Facebook and X.

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Smithsonian’s Dr Torsten Dikow appointed Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys, a leading journal in systematic zoology and biodiversity

Esteemed entomologist specialising in true flies (order Diptera) and cybertaxonomy, Dr Torsten Dikow was appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the leading open-access peer-reviewed journal in systematic zoology and biodiversity ZooKeys.

Dikow is to step into the shoes of globally celebrated fellow entomologist and colleague at the Smithsonian and founding Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys Dr Terry Erwin, who sadly passed away in May, 2020, leaving behind hefty scientific legacy and immeasurable admiration and fond memories. 

Today, Dikow is a Research Entomologist and Curator of Diptera and Aquatic Insects at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington, DC, USA), where his research interests encompass the diversity and evolutionary history of the superfamily Asiloidea – or asiloid flies – comprising curious insect groups, such as the assassin flies / robber flies and the mydas flies. Amongst an extensive list of research publications, Dikow’s studies on the diversity, biology, distribution and systematics of asiloid flies include the description of 60 species of assassin flies alone, and the redescription of even more through comprehensive taxonomic revisions.

Dikow obtained his M.S. in Zoology from the Universität Rostock (Germany) and Ph.D. in Entomology from Cornell University (New York, USA) with three years of dissertation research conducted at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). 

During his years as a postdoc at the Field Museum (Illinois, USA), Dikow was earnestly involved in the broader activities of the Encyclopedia of Life through its Biodiversity Synthesis Center (BioSynC) and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). There, he would personally establish contacts with smaller natural history museums and scientific societies, and encourage them to grant digitisation permissions to the BHL for in-copyright scientific publications. Dikow is a champion of cybertaxonomic tools and making biodiversity data accessible from both natural history collections and publications. He has been named a Biodiversity Open Data Ambassador by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

Dikow is no stranger to ZooKeys and other journals published by the open-access scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft. For the past 10 years, he has been amongst the most active editors and a regular author and reviewer at ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal and African Invertebrates.

“Publishing taxonomic revisions and species descriptions in an open-access, innovative journal to make data digitally accessible is one way we taxonomists can and need to add to the biodiversity knowledge base. ZooKeys has been a journal in support of this goal since day one. I am excited to lend my expertise and enthusiasm to further this goal and continue the development to publish foundational biodiversity research, species discoveries, and much more in the zoological field,”

said Dikow.

Dikow took on his new role at ZooKeys at a time when the journal had just turned 15 years on the scholarly publishing scene. In late 2020, the scientific outlet also marked the publication of its 1000th journal volume.

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Visit the journal’s website and follow ZooKeys on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. You can also follow Torsten Dikow on X.

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About ZooKeys:

ZooKeys is a peer-reviewed, open-access, rapidly disseminated journal launched to accelerate research and free information exchange in taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography and evolution of animals. ZooKeys aims to apply the latest trends and methodologies in publishing and preservation of digital materials to meet the highest possible standards of the cybertaxonomy era.

ZooKeys publishes papers in systematic zoology containing taxonomic/faunistic data on any taxon of any geological age from any part of the world with no limit to manuscript size. To respond to the current trends in linking biodiversity information and synthesising the knowledge through technology advancements, ZooKeys also publishes papers across other taxon-based disciplines, such as ecology, molecular biology, genomics, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, behavioural science, bioinformatics, etc. 

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INVASIVESNET signs with Pensoft to move its official journal: Aquatic Invasions to ARPHA Platform

INVASIVESNET signs with Pensoft to move its official journal: Aquatic Invasions to ARPHA Platform

Aquatic Invasions is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal on the biological invasions in inland and coastal water ecosystems from around the world launched by the International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Alien Species (INVASIVESNET) & the Regional Euro-Asian Biological Invasions Centre (REABIC). 

The journal was established in 2006 as an initiative of the International Society of Limnology (SIL) Working Group on Aquatic Invasive Species (WGAIS) with start-up funding from the European Commission Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development Integrated Project ALARM to address the need for a dedicated platform to address the challenges of aquatic invasive species. 

Aquatic Invasions has been gradually building on its appeal within the field of aquatic invasive species research, as its impact has been on the rise. Its latest Scopus CiteScore stands at 4.3 and its Journal Impact Factor is 2.651. 

In early 2023, Aquatic Invasions moved to the ARPHA publishing platform to take advantage of its advanced tools and features, allowing the users to navigate throughout the website and enjoy the articles in either semantically enriched HTML or classic PDF format. ARPHA’s innovative and intuitive system streamlines the publication process, reducing the time and effort required to bring high-quality research to the scientific community.

In addition to providing a seamless publication experience, Aquatic Invasions will now benefit from enhanced visibility for its published articles. With advanced search capabilities and integration with major indexing services, including Web of Science, Scopus, and many others, articles published in Aquatic Invasions will be more easily discoverable and accessible to researchers around the world. 

Furthermore, the implementation of the new article- and sub-article level metrics will enable real-time tracking of various elements, providing valuable insights into their usage.

Aquatic Invasions accepts papers related to the introduction, establishment, spread, and impacts of non-native aquatic species in freshwater, estuarine, and marine environments. 

The journal also considers papers that provide new insights into the biology, ecology, and management of invasive species, as well as those that assess the ecological, economic, and social impacts of invasions.

«I am delighted to see Aquatic Invasions moving on to the ARPHA Platform. This will help the growth of our journal, facilitating the submission and production process.

Since its foundation, AI has been focused on biological invasions in aquatic environments, among the most vulnerable and threatened ecosystems by species introduction, to provide continuous updates for researchers but also stakeholders and managers, and promote the spread of its papers to all the sectors of society affected by this problem.

We want to improve our role in this sense, attracting more contributors and reaching more and more people, especially from that part of the world where the phenomenon and study of biological invasions in aquatic environments are increasing, such as Africa, Asia and South America. I am confident this new change will be positive for the journal!»

comments the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Professor of University of Florence Dr Elena Tricarico.

«Aquatic Invasions was the first international fully open-access journal devoted to biological invasions. Currently, Aquatic Invasions, along its sister journals, BioInvasions Records and Management of Biological Invasions, is a core linking element of INVASIVESNET – the global professional Association of organisations and experts working in the area of biological invasions. Our strategic goal – to make our publication services free of charge for all authors in the long-term, and within INVASIVESNET, we are working on the development of the Open Access Publishing Fund and seeking for potential sponsors and other funding solutions.

Also, we are extremely optimistic that the movement of Aquatic Invasions to the ARPHA platform will improve our services for authors and facilitate free dissemination of data and knowledge on invasive species globally»,

comments the founder and Managing Editor of the journal, Director of REABIC, Dr Vadim Panov.

«We are thrilled to announce our partnership with another journal focused on the important topic of biological invasions here at Pensoft. With our extensive experience in publishing and disseminating research on zoology and biodiversity, I am confident that this journal has found a perfect home within the ARPHA journals family»,

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

The first papers of 2023 are already available online on the new website of Aquatic Invasions. 

Among the seven articles published, there are four papers on marine and three papers on inland water invasions across 4 continents. The studies are covering non-native ascidians in southern California; invasive forams along the coasts of Normandy; invasive sun coral spreading along the Brazilian coasts; invasive pufferfish in the Eastern Mediterranean; invasive New Zeland mudsnail in the Greater Yellowstone Area (U.S.A.); Australian red-claw crayfish in Thailand and non-native species that invaded Poyang Lake Basin (China) after 2000.

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Additional information

About INVASIVESNET:

The International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Alien Species (INVASIVESNET) is a global network of scientists and researchers who collaborate to improve knowledge sharing and management related to invasive alien species. INVASIVESNET is committed to promoting the use of open data and knowledge to advance research, management, and policy related to invasive alien species. The organization aims to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas among its members and other stakeholders to promote effective invasive alien species management strategies and enhance global biosecurity.

About REABIC:

The Regional Euro-Asian Biological Invasions Centre (REABIC) is an international organisation that focuses on research, management, and prevention of biological invasions, particularly in the Euro-Asian region. REABIC was established in 2003 and is based in Helsinki, Finland. The organisation brings together scientists, experts, and stakeholders from various fields to develop and implement strategies for preventing and managing the negative impacts of invasive species on biodiversity, ecosystems, and human well-being. 

About ARPHA:

ARPHA is the first end-to-end, narrative- and data-integrated publishing solution that supports the full life cycle of a manuscript, from authoring to reviewing, publishing and dissemination. ARPHA provides accomplished and streamlined production workflows that can be customized according to the journal’s needs. The platform enables a variety of publishing models through a number of options for branding, production and revenue models to choose from.

About Pensoft:

Pensoft is an independent, open-access publisher and technology provider, best known for its biodiversity journals, including ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, Phytokeys, Mycokeys, One Ecosystem, Metabarcoding and Metagenomics and many others. 

Over the past 30 years, Pensoft has built a reputation for its innovations in the field, after launching ZooKeys: the very first digital-first scientific journal in zoology and the first to introduce semantic enrichments and hyperlinks within a biodiversity article. 

To date, the company has continuously been working on various tools and workflows designed to facilitate biodiversity data findability, accessibility, discoverability and interoperability. The latest large projects, led by Pensoft include the OpenBiodiv knowledge graph and the Horizon 2020 project BiCIKL.

Contacts: 

Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft
Email: l.penev@pensoft.net

Dr Elena Tricarico, Editor-in-Chief of Aquatic Invasions
Email: elena.tricarico@unifi.it 

Dr Vadim Panov, Managing Editor of Aquatic Invasions and Director at REABIC
Email: vepanov@gmail.com

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Pensoft joins Advisory Panel to further develop the Journal Comparison Service by cOAlition S

Back in December, we announced that Pensoft joined 27 other publishers in sharing prices and services via the Journal Comparison Service developed by cOAlition S, in order to boost transparency in scholarly publishing.

Now, we are up to another challenge: we have joined the Advisory Panel appointed by cOAlition S to help further the improvement and development of this important service. The Advisory Panel consists of twelve members (six publishers and six end-users) representing different stakeholders in the scholarly communication ecosystem.

Journal Comparison Service (JSC) is an initiative by cOAlition S aimed to improve transparency and communication regarding publishing costs between publishers and institutions. 

It serves to provide the libraries with all the information they need to make informed decisions about whether the fees charged by a particular journal are reasonable and commensurate with the services delivered. 

In their turn, the publishers can use it to demonstrate their dedication to fostering an open business culture and to bring awareness of the value of their services. 

To facilitate this process, the publishers are advised to submit information about their prices and publishing policies on an annual basis using the JCS Frameworks format. 

An Advisory Panel will review the Frameworks and offer suggestions on how to improve them, aiming to make the data collected as valuable as possible to all involved parties. Additionally, the Panel will actively promote the use of JCS among stakeholders.

The panel will meet twice a year, and the first meeting has already been scheduled for May 2023.

We are delighted that we have been able to establish such a high-quality Advisory Panel, representing all the key stakeholders.

The primary function of the Panel will make recommendations on how the data collection frameworks might be further developed to ensure that the price and service data is as useful as possible for those who procure publishing services, whilst remaining deliverable by the publishers who are asked to provide these data,

commented Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at cOAlition S.

Additional information:

About JCS:

Journal Comparison Service is a secure, free-of-charge service that enables libraries, library consortia, and funders to better understand if the fees they pay are commensurate with the publication services delivered. Publishers provide information in a standard format, including information about the publication frequency, the peer review process, times from submission to acceptance, the range of list prices for APCs and subscriptions and more.

About cOAlition S:

On 4 September 2018, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. It is built around Plan S, which consists of one target and 10 principles

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Plant Sociology renewed: Does an open access society journal about vegetation still make sense in 2020?

In a new editorial, Plant Sociology’s Editor-in-Chief Daniela Gigante and Co-editors Gianni Bacchetta, Simonetta Bagella and Daniele Viciani reflect on the current position and outlook of the official journal of the Italian Society of Vegetation Science (Società Italiana di Scienza della Vegetazione or SISV), now that it has completed its first issue since transitioning to the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft and ARPHA Platform earlier this year.

Homepage of the new website of Plant Sociology
(visit: https://plantsociology.arphahub.com/)

The Editorial board briefly analyses the issues around the inaccessibility to scholarly research and suitable scholarly outlets still persisting in our days that impede both readers and authors across branches of science. Naturally, they go on to focus on the situation in vegetation science, where, unfortunately, there are rather few outlets open to original research related to any aspect within vegetation science.

By telling their own experience, but also citing the stories of other similarly positioned society journals, including other journals that have moved to Pensoft’s self-developed ARPHA Platform over the past several years (e.g. Journal of Hymenoptera Research, European Science Editing, Italian Botanist, Vegetation Classification and Survey, Nota Lepidopterologica), the editors present an example how to address the challenges of securing the long-term sustainability and quality for a journal used to being run by a small editorial staff in what they refer to as a “home made” method.

Other society journals that have moved to Pensoft’s self-developed ARPHA Platform over the past several years

In this process, the SISV supported its official scholarly outlet to be published as a “gold open access” journal and ensured that the APCs are kept to a reasonable low in line with its non-profit international business model. Further discounts are available for the members of the Society.

Then, the journal management also reorganised its Editorial Board and welcomed a dedicated Social media team responsible for the increased outreach of published research in the public domain through the channels of Twitter and Facebook. 

Besides making the publications publicly available as soon as they see the light of day, the journal strongly supports other good open science practices, such as open data dissemination. In Plant Sociology, authors are urged to store their vegetation data in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD). Additionally, the journal is integrated with the Dryad Digital Repository to make it easier for authors to publish, share and, hence, have their data re-used and cited.

The team behind Plant Sociology is perfectly aware of the fact that it is only through easy to find and access knowledge about life on Earth that the right information can reach the right decision-makers, before making the right steps towards mitigating and preventing future environmental catastrophes.

Access the article from: https://doi.org/10.3897/pls2020571/05

“A journal focusing on all aspects of natural, semi-natural and anthropic plant systems, from basic investigation to their modelisation, assessment, mapping, management, conservation and monitoring, is certainly a precious tool to detect environmental unbalances, understand processes and outline predictive scenarios that support decision makers. In this sense, we believe that more and more OA journals focused on biodiversity should find space in the academic editorial world, because only through deep knowledge of processes and functions of a complex planet, humankind can find a way to survive healthy,”

elaborate the editors.

To take the burden of technical journal management off the shoulders of Plant Sociology’s own editorial team, the journal has entrusted Pensoft to provide a user-friendly and advanced submission system, in addition to the production, online publishing and archiving of the accepted manuscripts. Thus, the editorial team is able to focus entirely on the scientific quality of the journal’s content.

“The renewal of Plant Sociology is a challenge that we have undertaken with conviction, aware of the difficulties and pitfalls that characterize the life of a scientific journal today. Entrusting the technical management of the journal to a professional company aims to improve its dissemination and attractiveness, but also to focus our efforts only on scientific content,”

explain the editors.

***

About Plant Sociology:

Plant Sociology publishes articles dealing with all aspects of vegetation, from plant community to landscape level, including dynamic processes and community ecology. It favours papers focusing on plant sociology and vegetation survey for developing ecological models, vegetation interpretation, classification and mapping, environmental quality assessment, plant biodiversity management and conservation, EU Annex I habitats interpretation and monitoring, on the ground of rigorous and quantitative measures of physical and biological components. The journal is open to territorial studies at different geographic scale and accepts contributes dealing with applied research, provided they offer new methodological perspectives and a robust, updated vegetation analysis.

Find all pre-2020 issues and articles of Plant Sociology openly available on the former website.

Follow Plant Sociology on Twitter and Facebook.

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As transparent as it gets! Four pricing plans & operating models from ARPHA available to OA academic journals

One size to fit them all? At ARPHA, we are well aware that it does not work like that in academia, let alone when it comes to accommodating individual scholarly journals from across the tremendously varied publishing landscape. 

This is why we have prepared four options to account for the specific aims and needs of ARPHA’s potential clients, while bearing in mind their resources and sustainability. 

In the spirit of transparency and openness, along with a comprehensive list of services that clarifies how each plan compares with the rest, we have provided the associated pricing ranges, where the total expenditure is easy to calculate, as it is based solely on the volume of published content. To support emerging publishers and prolific institutions, and express gratitude for their trust, we offer discounts for multiple journals joining ARPHA’s community.

Visit our website to see a detailed list of the services provided in our LITE, BASIC, ADVANCED and PREMIUM plans.

While Open Science initiatives, including OA2020 and Plan S, have clearly become the major talking points, academic institutions, societies and small-to-medium publishers from around the world are increasingly looking to chip in the growing community and make their own stand for science becoming truly efficient, responsible and inclusive by ensuring openness, transparency and FAIRness. But how do they do that when capped budgets, scarce human resources and lack of know-how in specific areas come into play? 

While one may be struggling with bringing together the right in-house expertise, another might be unable to keep track of the ‘top wanted’ integrations and services required for any state-of-the-art publication venue, and yet another might be encountering difficulties in communicating their otherwise ground-breaking published research to the public. In our experience, all of them are most likely experiencing difficulties with either the development of an advanced and user-friendly technological backbone or covering the associated costs.


ARPHA provides a highly automated, end-to-end publishing platform to ALL clients by default, which ensures that the research in their journals is just as easy to prepare and publish as it is to discover, access and reuse later on.

Here are the good news! ALL journals published on ARPHA Platform take advantage of our signature high-tech and easy-to-operate full-featured platform by default. What we mean, is that any journal benefits from an end-to-end, entirely online publishing solution, which takes care of the manuscripts all the way from submission and peer review to editing, publication, dissemination, indexing and archiving (see “The 5 Most Distinct Features of ARPHA”), while the annual maintenance could easily cost as little as a few thousands euros.

ARPHA stands for much more than a publishing platform.
It also comprises an extensive collection of services brought together in order to attend next-to-all demands associated with scholarly publishing.

On top of ARPHA’s user- and collaboration-friendly platform that allows for authors, reviewers and editors to easily and conveniently manage and track the progress of manuscripts, thereby ensuring that no technological pitfalls stand in the way to rapid and efficient distribution of scientific knowledge, our platform is continuously expanding its suite of services and features. This is also where one can find the major differences between the four plans offered by ARPHA.


With so many services and functionalities at hand, it was not that difficult for us to come up with four thought-through alternatives, and still ensure that ALL clients of ARPHA have their journals’ content published in a Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable manner. ga

As you can notice, even the lowest-priced LITE Plan features a plenty of useful and advanced perks, including a one-stop API end-point for distribution to 30+ international databases, metadata export to 12+ machine-readable formats, article sharing and usage statistics tools.

Assignment of DOIs to individual images is one of the perks exclusive in ARPHA’s PREMIUM plan (see pictured, available in Alpine Entomology). 


At the other end of the spectrum, ARPHA’s PREMIUM Plan adds top-notch features, such as assignment of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to individual images, which in turn allows for the delivery of real-time usage metrics for each one of those.

Extensive marketing and promotional support, including an unlimited dissemination of press releases via the major global science news release platform Eurekalert! (AAAS), is also available to PREMIUM clients. Thus, a journal’s authors will not have to worry about their groundbreaking discoveries failing to reach the global public (e.g. news story “Scientists discover new Chinese firefly species” on SKY News, covering one of the latest publications in ZooKeys journal, and the associated press release on Eurekalert!).

News story via SKY News.

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Curious about how ARPHA could accommodate your journal(s)? 

Scroll down our pricing plans and operating models, and fill out the Get a Quote form. Shortly, we will be back in touch to discuss the best options for ARPHA to fit the specificity of your publishing project.

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Field research in Turkmenistan’s highest mountain reveals high biological diversity

New open-access book presents a comprehensive report on the remarkable ecosystems of the Koytendag nature reserve

Location of Koytendag
Image by Atamyrat Veyisov

Situated in the extreme south-east of Turkmenistan: on the border with Uzbekistan and close to the border with Afghanistan, Koytendag presents one of the most distinct landscapes in Central Asia. Reaching elevations of up to 3,137 m, this is also the highest mountain in Turkmenistan.

Koytendag State Nature Reserve and its three Wildlife Sanctuaries: Hojapil, Garlyk and Hojaburjybelent, were established between 1986 and 1990 to protect and preserve the mountain ecosystem of the Koytendag region and maintain the ecological balance between the environment and increasing economic activities.

Since 2013, a series of scientific expeditions and assessments were coordinated and funded by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to pave the way for the protection and preservation of the unique landscape and rare wildlife the site is recognised for.

As a result, the efforts of the conducted field studies of multidisciplinary international research teams are brought together in a comprehensive report, which is now openly available as an Advanced Book from the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft, edited by Geoff Welch (RSPB) and Prof. Pavel Stoev (National National Museum of Natural History of Bulgaria and Pensoft). Soon, the book will also be available in Russian.

The book is split into eight sections focused on different areas within the study of biodiversity: Flora, Surface dwelling invertebrates, Cave fauna, Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals. An additional chapter is dedicated to the hydrogeology of the site because of its key role in supporting both the cave fauna and the local communities.

Entrance to the newly discovered record-breaking underground lake at the Koytendag State Nature Reserve
Photo by Mikhail Pereladov

In the summary of the report, the authors make a list of the most significant findings made during the research. These include the discovery of a cave hosting the largest underground lake in the whole North Eurasia (4,400 m2) and a total of 48 species of higher plants that can only be found in Koytendag. In terms of Koytendag’s surface-dwelling fauna, the report lists a number of species new to science: a scorpion (most likely yet unnamed species currently recognised as a species complex) and a spider. Meanwhile, a total of seven previously unknown species were found underground, including the very first exclusively subterranean animal found in the country: the insect-like ‘marvellous’ dipluran named Turkmenocampa mirabilis, and a strongly adapted to the underground waters of a desert sinkhole Gammarus troglomorphus. Additionally, the annual monitoring, conducted since 1995 by the reserve staff, report an encouraging increase in the populations of the rare markhors and mouflons. An intact predator-prey community was also identified as a result of observations of numerous Eurasian lynxes and grey wolves, as well as prey species.

Entrance of the cave Kaptarhana, (Lebap Province, Eastern Turkmenistan), where scientists discovered the first ever exclusively subterranean dweller for the country in 2017 (find more here).
Photo by Aleksandr Degtyarev

Stephanie Ward, RSPB Central Asia Partner Development Officer, says:

“RSPB has been working in Turkmenistan under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government since 2004. In that time we have had the privilege of working with a team of talented and dedicated national experts across the diverse and inspiring nature of this fascinating country. Our work in Koytendag has captured the attention and interest of many international scientists who hope that their contemporary biodiversity research will help to deepen the understanding and therefore ensure protection of the unique wonders of this mountain ecosystem. As a potential UNESCO World Heritage Site, we will continue to collaborate with the Turkmen people on the research and promotion of Koytendag State Nature Reserve.

Book editor and member of the research team Prof. Pavel Stoev adds:

“Koytendag Mountain is among the least explored and, simultaneously, one of the most biologically diverse regions in Central Asia. The rapid assessments of its flora and fauna revealed a high number of highly specialised species, all of which have undergone a long evolution to adapt to the harsh environments of the mountain. The establishment of Koytendag State Nature Reserve and the associated wildlife sanctuaries is a step in the right direction for the protection of this unique biota.”

The report, published in an openly accessible Advanced Book format, is available from
https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e37858.

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Original source:

Welch G, Stoev P (2019) A report of RSPB-supported scientific research at Koytendag State Nature Reserve, East Turkmenistan. Advanced Books. https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e37858

Additional information:

This work was carried out under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection of Turkmenistan and the RSPB, within the Project on “Improvement of the status of birds and other biodiversity in Turkmenistan”.

About Koytendag State Nature Reserve:

Koytendag State Nature Reserve was established in 1986 to protect and preserve the mountain ecosystem of the Koytendag region and maintain the ecological balance between the environment and the increasing anthropogenic activities. Of particular importance was the protection of rare species, such as the markhor; important habitats, including pistachio and juniper forests; and the impressive dinosaur trackways at Hojapil.

Advanced Books publishing by Pensoft:

Launched by Pensoft and powered by the scholarly publishing platform ARPHA, the Advanced Books approach aims to issue new books or re-issue books previously only available in print or PDF. In the Advanced Books format, the publications are semantically enhanced and available in HTML and XML as well, in order to accelerate open access, data publication, mining, sharing and reuse. The Advanced books builds on the novel approaches developed by the Pensoft’s journals.