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Papers including articles that are produced because of the activities of LifeWatch ERIC, in the context of its second implementation period (2022 - 2026) and through the implementation of its new Strategic Working Plan, are published in this special collection. The articles include data papers, papers describing the development and functioning of analytical services and papers describing any other research outcome, produced either by LifeWatch ERIC or by any collaboration with any other ERIC, Research Infrastructure, global aggregator or other legal entity.

Hypothesis Descriptions are a type of manuscript dedicated to the formal description of a hypothesis, as introduced in an accompanying editorial and an examplary Hypothesis Description for the Enemy Release Hypothesis that is used in invasion biology. This questionnaire provides a template for such a Hypothesis Description manuscript. The template's format was designed for simplicity to facilitate adoption, and it can be easily extended to capture additional information, e.g. instructions for falsification or generalization, taxonomic or geographic scope, etymology, or relevant information in other research fields or other languages. The template reflects the recommended structure for a Hypothesis Description manuscript in that each of its sections provides the title for a section in a Hypothesis Description manuscript and indicates whether that section is mandatory or optional. Four sections - Keywords (mandatory), Conflicts of interest (optional), Acknowledgments (optional) and References (mandatory) - are in this template filled in for the template itself but should otherwise be adjusted for the hypothesis at hand. Comments to guide authors who work on a Hypothesis Description manuscript are provided as well.

The colorimetric paper-based device using lipase inhibition assay was developed for rapid and visual detection of orlistat in weight loss supplements. The paper device with five circular detection zones was simply fabricated from filter paper No 1 using a low-cost paper craft puncher with a design of a flower-like shape. The enzymatic reaction on the detection zone employed a small volume of a substrate, a-naphthyl acetate, a sample, and a lipase enzyme. After incubation, the Fast Blue B solution was used as a chromogenic reagent. The decrease in purple color can be observed by the naked eye, in the presence of orlistat. Under optimized conditions, the paper device showed satisfactory sensitivity and selectivity. The device was applied for rapid screening of orlistat in weight loss supplements and the results agreed with those obtained from TLC analysis.

New market realities in the translation industry and elsewhere require an innovative approach to the content of higher education and a refocus on soft and hard skills. A prospective translator shall possess communicative skills, be capable of critical thinking, self-management, teamwork, engage in project activities, as well be creative, intellectually flexible, and digitally literate.New trends in the profession are conducive to revising educational strategies for graduation papers (GP) written by undergraduates. GPs are still theory-oriented, thus failing to meet the pragmatic needs of the translation industry, and lack correlation with hands-on professional activities. Bachelor GPs seem especially challenging, since neither Russian education authorities, nor academic instructors have a clear-cut vision of the bachelor's degree training and its specific nature. Most often, the bachelor’s degree is deemed as a simplified version of the specialist’s degree.The professional standard and the Federal State Educational Standard on Linguistics provide that graduates shall have general cultural, general professional, and professional competences (PCs). If mastered, these competences will qualify graduates for independent professional activities outside the academic institution. This paper presents feasibility study results for practice-oriented GPs. These results are analyzed to see if such GPs match relevant translation problems and if a new practice-oriented method can be used as a tool to assess graduates’ professional aptitude for independent translation activities. The authors discourse upon effectiveness of this tool in education based on LUNN case study. The selection scope covers GPs written in 2015–2020, their number exceeding 200.

A new species, Ropalidia daklak Bui, Mai & Nguyen, sp. nov., belonging to the plebeja-group of the genus Ropalidia Guérin-Méneville, 1831 is described and figured based on females and males from Vietnam. The nest structure of the new species is described, and an updated key is provided to all known species of the group.

We present the experience of journal editors in improving the quality of published papers. As the editors of the Croatian Medical Journal, a journal from the so-called scientific periphery, we realized, very early after the start of the journal in 1991, that our authors needed significant assistance with their articles. We worked individually with journal authors and then moved this activity to the next stage – intensive workshops for authors. The work with the journals enabled us to extend these activities to graduate and postgraduate students – future authors.

Potter wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Eumeninae) adopt different substrates for nesting, including other wasp nests. Nevertheless, such behavior rarely occurs with abandoned nests of the paper wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Polistinae). In this study, we report the occurrence involving the nesting of a potter wasp on a paper wasp’s nest. Such a record occurred in November 2021 in a segment of a deciduous forest, at Mata Seca State Park, Southeast Brazil. An abandoned Polistinae nest was found, with 14 cells sealed with mud, from which four male Pachodynerus nasidens individuals emerged. This record of P. nasidens reusing a Polistinae’s nest increases our knowledge of Eumeninae nesting strategies and on possible associations between different groups of vespid wasps.

Scientific research has become increasingly collaborative. We systematically reviewed invasion science literature published between 1980 and 2020 and catalogued in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science to examine patterns of authorship and the relationship between co-authorship and annual citation rates. This study analysed 27,234 publications across 1,218 journals and demonstrated that, as the number of publications in invasion science has exponentially increased, the number of authors publishing per year and the average number of authors per paper have also increased. The rising number of authors per paper coincides with a marked decline of single-authored publications; approximately 92% of publications in this dataset were multi-authored, with single-authored papers comprising less than 4% of all papers published in 2020. The increase in multi-authored papers is likely driven by multiple factors, including the widespread perception that collaboration increases scientific quality. The number of authors is positively correlated with perceived research impact; papers with two or more authors produce research that is more frequently cited compared to single-authored papers, and papers with five or more authors have annual citation rates almost double that of single-authored papers. The complexity, context-dependence and urgency of biological invasions contributed to the rise of the highly collaborative field of modern invasion science.

Papers including articles that are produced because of the activities of LifeWatch ERIC, in the context of its second implementation period (2022 - 2026) and through the implementation of its new Strategic Working Plan, are published in this special collection. The articles include data papers, papers describing the development and functioning of analytical services and papers describing any other research outcome, produced either by LifeWatch ERIC or by any collaboration with any other ERIC, Research Infrastructure, global aggregator or other legal entity., Competing Interests: No conflict of interest to declare Disclaimer: This article is (co-)authored by any of the Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editors or their deputies in this journal., (Christos Arvanitidis, Alberto Basset, Peter van Tienderen, Lucas de Moncuit, Cristina Isabel Huertas Olivares, Cristina Di Muri, Ana Mellado, Wouter Los.)

Background: Many physicians in Turkey are both clinicians and researchers, and publishing their research contributes to better patient care as well as to career advancement.Objective: To identify the barriers faced by Turkish physicians to writing research papers and getting them published.Methods: Respondents were asked, through eight multiple-choice questions, about the difficulties they faced in writing research papers and in getting them published in journals. We also searched published literature for accounts of similar difficulties and answers to the question ‘What is your purpose in writing scientific publications?’Results: A total of 18% (155 of 871) of physicians completed the questionnaire. About the difficulties faced in writing, 82 out of the 155 participants, or 57%, reported problems in finding financial support; 58 (40%), in obtaining required permissions and clearances; 65 (45%), in acquiring relevant skills, especially those related to data analysis or statistics; and 42 (29%), in language-related skills. About the difficulties in getting their papers published in journals, 85 (60%) said that they tried to overcome the difficulties by searching for appropriate solutions on the internet; 66 (47%) sought help from experienced colleagues; and 47 (33%) needed professional help in English translation and editing. Need for financial support was reported by a significantly (p = 0.04) larger proportion of associate professors or full professors (69%) than that of residents (47%) and fellows (45%).Conclusion: The main problems that Turkish physicians face in preparing scientific manuscripts were lack of financial support, inadequate knowledge of data analysis and statistics, and the paperwork involved in obtaining required approvals and permissions—problems that were common to the departments of internal medicine and of surgery. The primary motivation for writing and publishing was career advancement, especially through promotion to a higher academic rank.

Ropalidia amabala sp. nov. is described and compared to the known African species of this genus. In addition, the nest and nesting habits are described. This species demonstrates the nesting pattern previously recorded only in Madagascar, which includes nesting directly on a tree trunk and using lichen as the nest-building source material to blend in with the surrounding lichen patches. In contrast to the Malagasy species, which clean the nesting area of lichen, this new South African species constructs the nest in a clear area of the trunk between patches of lichen. This provides excellent visual concealment of the nest and suggests that visually driven predators are the primary selective factor. The morphology for both sexes of this species disagrees with known Malagasy species, suggesting that they are separate evolutionary lineages and hence that this nesting behaviour evolved independently.

Invertebrates are important elements of aquatic ecosystems and play a crucial role in the transformation of matter and energy in continental water bodies. Communities of aquatic invertebrates are characterised by high sensitivity to pollution by nutrients and toxic substances and acidification of water bodies; they serve as good bioindicators of the quality of the aquatic environment and impacts on hydroecosystems. All hydrobionts participate in the processes of self-purification of water bodies.The presented dataset provides information on the aquatic invertebrate community of a large northern river. During 2018-2020, we collected data on changes in the quantitative indicators of the development of benthic and planktonic communities, as well as the species diversity of their fauna. The dataset combines information about the occurrence and abundance of benthic and planktonic invertebrates and summarises data of aquatic invertebrate species found in the Vychegda River in the zone of influence from the pulp and paper mill.The presented dataset is part of a monitoring programme of the river ecosystems in the production area of Mondi Syktyvkar JSC (the European North-East of Russia, Komi Republic). The dataset describes the structure of benthic invertebrate and plankton communities in the Northern Dvina River Basin. The data on the finding and abundance of large taxa of aquatic invertebrates and species of some groups: Oligochaeta, Cladocera, Copepoda, Rotifera, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera are presented. In total, the resource includes 8720 findings of invertebrates, of which 6041 are for zoobenthos organisms and 2679 for zooplankton organisms.

Background: To examine the errata and retractions in total published output of Hungarian research and academia relative to that in 34 other European countries.Objective: To analyse the number of errata and retractions related to papers published by authors with Hungarian affiliations compared to those by authors with affiliations in the 34 other countries.Methods: Errata and retractions retrieved from three databases, namely Retraction Watch, Web of Science (WoS), and Scopus, were counted and sorted by country.Results: Scopus featured 7 retractions linked to Hungarian affiliations and WoS featured 10. Retraction Watch featured 26 such retractions, placing Hungary in 23rd position among the 35 countries arranged in descending order of the number of retractions. Of the 26 retractions from Hungary, 5 were in Elsevier journals and another 5 in Springer Nature; also, 8 of the 26 were associated with the University of Debrecen. When ranked for the number of errata notices for every 1000 published papers, Hungary was ranked 29th in WoS (2.54 notices per 1000 papers) and 26th in Scopus (2.3 notices per 1000 papers).Conclusions: The low numbers of Hungarian affiliations suggest that either research ethics are more stringently observed in Hungary or that publications from Hungarian research institutes, including papers in Hungarian – many Hungarian journals are indexed neither in WoS nor in Scopus – have not been scrutinized adequately through post-publication peer review.

The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) Research Infrastructure (RI) is presently in its preparatory phase. DiSSCo is developing a new distributed RI to operate as a one-stop-shop for the envisaged European Natural Science Collection (NSC) and all its derived information. Through mass digitisation, DiSSCo will transform the fragmented landscape of NSCs, including an estimated 1.5 billion specimens, into an integrated knowledge base that will provide interconnected evidence of the natural world. Data derived from European NSCs underpin countless discoveries and innovations, including tens of thousands of scholarly publications and official reports annually (supporting legislative and regulatory processes on sustainability, environmental change, land use, societal infrastructure, health, food, security, etc.); base-line biodiversity data; inventions and products essential to bio-economy; databases, maps and descriptions of scientific observations; educational material for students; and instructive and informative resources for the public. To expand the user community, DiSSCo will strengthen capacity building across Europe for maximum engagement of stakeholders in the biodiversity-related field and beyond, including industry and the private sector, but also policy-driving entities. Hence, it is opportune to reach out to relevant stakeholders in the European environmental policy domain represented by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The EEA aims to support sustainable development by helping to achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment, through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy-making agents and the public. The EEA provides information through the European Environment Information and Observation System (Eionet). The aim of this white paper is to open the discussion between DiSSCo and the EEA and identify the common service interests that are relevant for the European environmental policy domain. The first section describes the significance of (digital) Natural Science Collections (NHCs). Section two describes the DiSSCo programme with all DiSSCo aligned projects. Section three provides background information on the EEA and the biodiversity infrastructures that are developed and maintained by the EEA. The fourth section illustrates a number of use cases where the DiSSCo consortium sees opportunities for interaction between the DiSSCo RI and the Eionet portal of the EEA. Opening the discussion with the EEA in this phase of maturity of DiSSCo will ensure that the infrastructural design of DiSSCo and the development of e-Services accommodate the present and future needs of the EEA and assure data interoperability between the two infrastructures.The aim of this white paper is to present benefits from identifying the common service interests of DiSSCo and the EEA. A brief introduction to natural science collections as well as the two actors is given to facilitate the understanding of the needs and possibilities in the alignment of DiSSCo with the EEA.

Objective: To analyse the productivity of post-Soviet countries, adjusted by population, in terms of research papers published and the proportions of those papers indexed by Scopus and the Web of Science.Methods: Relevant data on the journals indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science were analysed. Where required, data were also extracted from Russian Science Citation Index databases and websites of journals.Results: On average, the post-Soviet countries had 31 researchers per 10,000 people. The average numbers of publications per researcher in journals indexed by Scopus was 1.04 and the corresponding figure for the Web of Science was 0.87. In terms of the number of journals indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science, the leading countries were Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.Conclusion: Although the post-Soviet countries differed considerably in terms of bibliometric indices, the overall values were low. Main features of the journals were as follows: articles published in national languages – in Russian in many cases – and in English, articles mostly by authors within the region, and only a minority of foreigners as members of editorial boards. Thus most of the journals cannot be considered international. All the journals examined have websites in a national language and/or in English and invariably carry information on ethical practices, although such information is not given in a uniform format and varies from country to country.

Objective: To provide an overview of retractions of research papers contributed by authors from the Arab region.Method: Papers in which the first author was affiliated to an Arabian country were selected from the Retraction Watch database covering the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2018. The retrieved records were divided into nine categories based on the reasons for retraction.Results: The search yielded 322 retractions, and the most frequent reason for retraction was plagiarism (34.5%). The median time from publication to retraction was 14 (25%-75% percentile 5-30) months. The number of papers retracted each year as well as the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted increased steadily over the 21 years. The proportion of retracted papers to the total number of published papers (0.17%) was higher than the global proportion and was the highest for Algeria (1%) and the lowest for Lebanon (0.03%). Of the countries within the Arab region, 12 out of 14 countries showed either plagiarism or duplication as the most common reason for retraction; however, the countries differed in terms of the number of retractions and the time from publishing to retraction.Conclusion: Plagiarism was the most common cause of retraction in the Arab countries. The increase in the number of papers retracted each year was probably because searches now extend farther in the past, whereas the increase in the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted can be attributed to the overall increase in the number of papers published.

Taxonomy of the paper wasps of the subgenus Gyrostoma of the polistine genus Polistes from Vietnam is treated, with a key to all the five species occurring in Vietnam, including one described herein as new to science under the name Polistes longus sp. nov. Nests of P. gigas and P. longus sp. nov. are also described.

Background Invertebrates are important elements of aquatic ecosystems and play a crucial role in the transformation of matter and energy in continental water bodies. Communities of aquatic invertebrates are characterised by high sensitivity to pollution by nutrients and toxic substances and acidification of water bodies; they serve as good bioindicators of the quality of the aquatic environment and impacts on hydroecosystems. All hydrobionts participate in the processes of self-purification of water bodies. The presented dataset provides information on the aquatic invertebrate community of a large northern river. During 2018-2020, we collected data on changes in the quantitative indicators of the development of benthic and planktonic communities, as well as the species diversity of their fauna. The dataset combines information about the occurrence and abundance of benthic and planktonic invertebrates and summarises data of aquatic invertebrate species found in the Vychegda River in the zone of influence from the pulp and paper mill. New information The presented dataset is part of a monitoring programme of the river ecosystems in the production area of Mondi Syktyvkar JSC (the European North-East of Russia, Komi Republic). The dataset describes the structure of benthic invertebrate and plankton communities in the Northern Dvina River Basin. The data on the finding and abundance of large taxa of aquatic invertebrates and species of some groups: Oligochaeta, Cladocera, Copepoda, Rotifera, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera are presented. In total, the resource includes 8720 findings of invertebrates, of which 6041 are for zoobenthos organisms and 2679 for zooplankton organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review on the paper Wuzong Zhou, Reversed Crystal Growth. Crystals. 2019; 9(1): 7 (16 pp). https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst9010007

Potter wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Eumeninae) adopt different substrates for nesting, including other wasp nests. Nevertheless, such behavior rarely occurs with abandoned nests of the paper wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Polistinae). In this study, we report the occurrence involving the nesting of a potter wasp on a paper wasp's nest. Such a record occurred in November 2021 in a segment of a deciduous forest, at Mata Seca State Park, Southeast Brazil. An abandoned Polistinae nest was found, with 14 cells sealed with mud, from which four male Pachodynerus nasidens individuals emerged. This record of P. nasidens reusing a Polistinae's nest increases our knowledge of Eumeninae nesting strategies and on possible associations between different groups of vespid wasps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific research has become increasingly collaborative. We systematically reviewed invasion science literature published between 1980 and 2020 and catalogued in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science to examine patterns of authorship and the relationship between co-authorship and annual citation rates. This study analysed 27,234 publications across 1,218 journals and demonstrated that, as the number of publications in invasion science has exponentially increased, the number of authors publishing per year and the average number of authors per paper have also increased. The rising number of authors per paper coincides with a marked decline of single-authored publications; approximately 92% of publications in this dataset were multi-authored, with single-authored papers comprising less than 4% of all papers published in 2020. The increase in multi-authored papers is likely driven by multiple factors, including the widespread perception that collaboration increases scientific quality. The number of authors is positively correlated with perceived research impact; papers with two or more authors produce research that is more frequently cited compared to single-authored papers, and papers with five or more authors have annual citation rates almost double that of single-authored papers. The complexity, context-dependence and urgency of biological invasions contributed to the rise of the highly collaborative field of modern invasion science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Science Editing (ESE), a platinum open access journal, is gaining recognition as one of the prime outlets for publishing-related topics, as evidenced by its 2019 rise into the second quarter of Scimago’s Journal Rankings and by its Scopus CiteScore of 1.3. However, the discoverability of knowledge and information in ESE is currently limited by the fact that manuscripts published before 2003 are not indexed, that none of the papers published before May 2016 have a DOI, and that not all information that appears on the html version of a paper appears on its PDF version, and vice versa. Finally, because ESE is already indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, all papers should be archived on that platform. Such improvements would undoubtedly take time and some resources, but if they could be achieved, the discoverability of the journal would clearly be fortified.

The document presents an extensive set of data on the occurrence of Neuroptera and Raphidioptera in some regions of European Russia. The results of our own research, as well as scientific collections, have been processed. The data were collected in 17 regions. In our own research, we used different ways to obtain information, which allowed us to collect extensive material for the dataset. This dataset provides valuable information about the biodiversity of Neuroptera and Raphidioptera, the abundance of each taxon collected and the time of taxon collections.Our dataset contains up-to-date information on the occurrence of Neuroptera and Raphidioptera in the Volga River and Don River Basins located in the Russian Plain of European Russia (17 regions of European Russia). The dataset consists of 4,826 occurrence records. All of them are georeferenced (17,373 individuals were studied). A total of 83 species of Neuroptera (8 families, 36 genera) and four species of Raphidioptera (2 families, 4 genera) were recorded within the investigated area.

The authorships of the taxa described in the paper of Lienig & Zeller, 1846, are discussed. The authorship of all species newly described in this paper should be assigned to both. A list of the taxa newly described in that paper and their current taxonomic status is provided.

We combine multivariate ratio analysis (MRA) of body measurements and analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear data to examine the status of several species of European paper wasps (Polistes Latreille, 1802) closely related to P. gallicus. Our analyses unambiguously reveal the presence of a cryptic species in Europe, as two distinct species can be recognized in what has hitherto been considered Polistes bischoffi Weyrauch, 1937. One species is almost as light coloured as P. gallicus, and is mainly recorded from Southern Europe and Western Asia. The other species is darker and has a more northern distribution in Central Europe. Both species occur syntopically in Switzerland. Given that the lost lectotype of P. bischoffi originated from Sardinia, we selected a female of the southern species as a neotype. The northern species is described as P. helveticus sp. n. here. We also provide a redescription of P. bischoffi rev. stat. and an identification key including three more closely related species, P. biglumis, P. gallicus and P. hellenicus.

Seven species of the subgenus Polistella Ashmead of the genus Polistes Latreille including a new species, P.brunetus Nguyen & Kojima, sp. n. described here, are recognized to occur in northeastern Vietnam, the easternmost part of the eastern slope of the Himalayas. A key to these species is provided. Their distributional records are remarked. Nests of P. delhiensis Das & Gupta, P. mandarinus de Saussure and P.brunetus are also described.

Ropalidia amabala sp. nov. is described and compared to the known African species of this genus. In addition, the nest and nesting habits are described. This species demonstrates the nesting pattern previously recorded only in Madagascar, which includes nesting directly on a tree trunk and using lichen as the nest-building source material to blend in with the surrounding lichen patches. In contrast to the Malagasy species, which clean the nesting area of lichen, this new South African species constructs the nest in a clear area of the trunk between patches of lichen. This provides excellent visual concealment of the nest and suggests that visually driven predators are the primary selective factor. The morphology for both sexes of this species disagrees with known Malagasy species, suggesting that they are separate evolutionary lineages and hence that this nesting behaviour evolved independently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of semantic tagging and its potential for semantic enhancements to taxonomic papers is outlined and illustrated by four exemplar papers published in the present issue of ZooKeys. The four papers were created in different ways: (i) written in Microsoft Word and submitted as non-tagged manuscript (doi: 10.3897/zookeys.50.504); (ii) generated from Scratchpads and submitted as XML-tagged manuscripts (doi: 10.3897/zookeys.50.505 and doi: 10.3897/zookeys.50.506); (iii) generated from an author’s database(doi: 10.3897/zookeys.50.485) and submitted as XML-tagged manuscript. XML tagging and semantic enhancements were implemented during the editorial process of ZooKeys using the Pensoft Mark Up Tool (PMT), specially designed for this purpose. The XML schema used was TaxPub, an extension to the Document Type Definitions (DTD) of the US National Library of Medicine Journal Archiving and Interchange Tag Suite (NLM). The following innovative methods of tagging, layout, publishing and disseminating the content were tested and implemented within the ZooKeys editorial workflow: (1) highly automated, fine-grained XML tagging based on TaxPub; (2) final XML output of the paper validated against the NLM DTD for archiving in PubMedCentral; (3) bibliographic metadata embedded in the PDF through XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform); (4) PDF uploaded after publication to the Biodiversitry Heritage Library (BHL); (5) taxon treatments supplied through XML to Plazi; (6) semantically enhanced HTML version of the paper encompassing numerous internal and external links and linkouts, such as: (i) vizualisation of main tag elements within the text (e.g., taxon names, taxon treatments, localities, etc.); (ii) internal cross-linking between paper sections, citations, references, tables, and figures; (iii) mapping of localities listed in the whole paper or within separate taxon treatments; (v) taxon names autotagged, dynamically mapped and linked through the Pensoft Taxon Profile (PTP) to large international database services and indexers such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Barcode of Life, Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), ZooBank, Wikipedia, Wkispecies, Wikimedia, and others; (vi) GenBank accession numbers autotagged and linked to NCBI; (vii) external links of taxon names to references in PubMed, Google Scholar, Biodiversity Heritage Library and other sources. With the launching of the working example, ZooKeys becomes the first taxonomic journal to provide a complete XML-based editorial, publication and dissemination workflow implemented as a routine and cost-efficient practice. It is anticipated that XML-based workflow will also soon be implemented in botany through PhytoKeys, a forthcoming partner journal of ZooKeys. The semantic markup and enhancements are expected to greatly extend and accelerate the way taxonomic information is published, disseminated and used.

We combine multivariate ratio analysis (MRA) of body measurements and analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear data to examine the status of several species of European paper wasps (Polistes Latreille, 1802) closely related to P. gallicus. Our analyses unambiguously reveal the presence of a cryptic species in Europe, as two distinct species can be recognized in what has hitherto been considered Polistes bischoffi Weyrauch, 1937. One species is almost as light coloured as P. gallicus, and is mainly recorded from Southern Europe and Western Asia. The other species is darker and has a more northern distribution in Central Europe. Both species occur syntopically in Switzerland. Given that the lost lectotype of P. bischoffi originated from Sardinia, we selected a female of the southern species as a neotype. The northern species is described as P. helveticus sp. n. here. We also provide a redescription of P. bischoffi rev. stat. and an identification key including three more closely related species, P. biglumis, P. gallicus and P. hellenicus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a high growing demand for regulating ecosystem services such as air quality regulation, regulation of air temperature and humidity, and flood regulation, in urban ecosystems which is important for urban planning. A comprehensive review of the current studies of the urban ecosystem, regulating ecosystem services, and their connection with urban planning actions is needed. The current paper presents such a review conducted in six stages to evaluate the state-of-the-art of regulating ecosystem services and their relationship with urban planning. It includes 58 papers selected after a precise keywords search and developed by publication screening, defining indicators, developing an assessment template, and meta-analysis of the results. The analyses are focused on spatial data used in the studies, the methods applied for ecosystem services assessment, and the relationships between regulating ecosystem services, urban planning, and green infrastructure. The most studied regulating ecosystem services within reviewed publications are regulation of chemical composition of atmosphere and oceans, regulation of temperature and humidity, including ventilation and transpiration, and hydrological cycle and water flow regulation (including flood control, and coastal protection). Although urban planningrelated papers are only 1/3 of the pool of papers, appropriate results have been obtained for assessing the urban planning-regulating ecosystem services relation. The review also identified some significant knowledge gaps that can be used as a starting point for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity conservation is an important goal of most ecosystem management efforts. Therefore, proper monitoring of biodiversity requires constant attention. Coleoptera should be monitored as an essential part of the overall biodiversity. Special monitoring is needed for families that are active as predators (e.g. Coccinellidae) or are saproxylic species (e.g. Elateridae and Cerambycidae). The aim of the research is to describe the fauna of seven families of Coleoptera (Elateridae, Drilidae, Lycidae, Lampyridae, Cantharidae, Coccinellidae and Cerambycidae) of the Republic of Mordovia (the centre of the European part of Russia). The results are based on faunistic research, the main part of which was carried out in April-October 2007-2023 and on material from museum collections. The collecting was made using several different methods (by hand, light trapping, on different lures, into pitfall traps etc.). GPS coordinates are given for each faunistic record.The dataset contains information on seven species new to the region: Malthodes flavoguttatus Kiesenwetter, 1852, Malthodes minimus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Cantharidae); Scymnus rubromaculatus (Goeze, 1777) (Coccinellidae); Anoplodera rufipes ventralis Heyden, 1886, Tragosoma depsarium (Linnaeus, 1767), Xylotrechus arvicola (Olivier, 1795) and Xylotrechus ibex (Gebler, 1825) (Cerambycidae).

Publishing taxonomic and systematics studies in the digital era faces major challenges and requires new approaches, many of which are currently stimulating spirited discussions amongst taxonomists and systematists. New amendments to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature are expected to regulate electronic publishing of new taxa and create a standard form for their registration (ZooBank). Responding to a perceived need, this editorial announces establishment of ZooKeys – a new online and print journal in zoological taxonomy and systematics, which aims to quickly respond and adapt to the newest developments in taxonomic publishing. Open Access is accepted as mandatory for ZooKeys. Th e rationale for and concept of ZooKeys is discussed in detail.