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In the shadow of cormorants: Succession of avian colony affects selected groups of ground dwelling predatory arthropods /
No full text(1) Nesting of the great cormorants strongly influences terrestrial ecosystems by physical destruction of vegetation and chemical changes in the soil and around the nesting colonies. (2) We investigated spider, harvestmen, and centipede assemblages in different influenced plots (starting colony, active dense colony, and partly abandoned colony) in the biggest Lithuanian cormorant colony in pine woods on the shore of the Baltic Sea in the Curonian Spit National Park in Lithuania. Selected groups of ground dwelling predatory arthropods were collected by pitfall traps in 2012– 2014. (3) We recorded a total of 4299 spider specimens (102 species), 451 harvestmen specimens (9 species), and 1537 centipede specimens (7 species). The coverage of moss and herb vegetation, mean Ellenberg value for light, bare ground without vegetation, and number of nests significantly influenced the abundance, species richness, and ecological groups of arthropod predators. (4) Active ground hunters represented by spider Trochosa terricola and centipede Lithobius forficatus were pos-itively influenced by bare ground without vegetation and a higher density of nests, and negatively influenced by an increasing coverage of moss and herbs. The opposite effect was found for web builder spiders and less movable species, represented by dominant spider species Diplostyla concolor and harvestmen Nemastoma lugubre and Oligolophus tridens. (5) The results show how cormorant influence the forest vegetation structure and affect the abundance and species diversity of ground dwelling predatory arthropods
Current trends and issues in applications of remote sensing in coastal and marine conservation /
No full textThe background of this feature article is a necessity to systematize a vast array of issues pertinent to the latest applications of remote sensing in coastal and marine conservation. Hence the purpose of this study: stocktaking of cutting-edge research articles in this field and eliciting the essential trends and issues shaping the knowledge and future research and technical development perspectives in coastal and marine nature conservation, which is pivotal for meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals till 2030. A hierarchical cluster analysis was undertaken with the KH Coder 3.0 tool to elicit topical co-occurrence networks for thematic words in academic papers from 2015 to 2021 on the topic quarried from Scholar Google. The article’s main findings are the elicited four main trending themes in applications of remote sensing in coastal and marine conservation: (1) Remote Sensing-Based Classification and Modelling; (2) Conservation of Tropical Coastal and Marine Habitats; (3) Mapping of Habitats and Species Distribution; (4) Ecosystem and Biodiversity Conservation and Resource Management. The main conclusion of the article is that habitat vulnerability is a key factor to take into consideration for the future hybrid applications of remote sensing and “citizen science” inputs
Palaeoecological data indicates land-use changes across Europe linked to spatial heterogeneity in mortality during the Black Death pandemic /
No full textThe Black Death (1347–1352 ce) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe’s population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic’s causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on qualitative remarks in medieval written sources available for some areas of Western Europe. Here, we remedy this situation by applying a pioneering new approach, ‘big data palaeoecology’, which, starting from palynological data, evaluates the scale of the Black Death’s mortality on a regional scale across Europe. We collected pollen data on landscape change from 261 radiocarbon-dated coring sites (lakes and wetlands) located across 19 modern-day European countries. We used two independent methods of analysis to evaluate whether the changes we see in the landscape at the time of the Black Death agree with the hypothesis that a large portion of the population, upwards of half, died within a few years in the 21 historical regions we studied. While we can confirm that the Black Death had a devastating impact in some regions, we found that it had negligible or no impact in others. These inter-regional differences in the Black Death’s mortality across Europe demonstrate the significance of cultural, ecological, economic, societal and climatic factors that mediated the dissemination and impact of the disease. The complex interplay of these factors, along with the historical ecology of plague, should be a focus of future research on historical pandemics
Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene record of sedimentation and carbonate content in the Zervynos paleolake-dune complex, Lithuania /
No full textThe Late Pleistocene to the Holocene is a time interval that covers the climate transition from a cold to a warm interglacial regime. In the Baltic region, many studies have focused on estimating environmental responses to climatic forcing using palynological and stratigraphic proxies of glacial and periglacial settings. Herein we describe the mixed lacustrine-aeolian succession of the Zervynos-2 section (south-eastern Lithuania), located in the north-eastern part of the European Sand Belt. The succession and the sedimentation styles were characterized by granulometric parameters, structural features, dolomite/calcite ratio, and paleobotanical macro-remains. Our analyses revealed that the Zervynos-2 paleolake formed on the sandur (outwash) plain during the final stage of the Pleistocene. The onset of lake sedimentation was caused by sudden submergence of a sandbody-constrained paleovalley. Carbonate ratios and macro-remains from the lower gyttja material showed the presence of substantial millennial-scale oscillations, which suggests a delayed response to the isotopically derived paleotemperatures. The transition to the fast sand sedimentation started approximately in the Middle Holocene and is interpreted here as being caused by warming and drying of the climate in the Baltic region. The upper Holocene portion of the section represents the transition to exclusively aeolian sedimentation with lower accumulation rates that are likely related to a long-term cooling trend. The obtained results support the conjecture that there is a direct but delayed positive correlation between dolomite and calcite ratios in lake sediments and the climatic signal in the Greenland GISP2 record
Zapiski bryologiczne by Kazimierz Szafnagel and his herbarium in the historical context of bryological studies in Lithuania and adjacent regions /
No full textZapiski bryologiczne , a book written by Kazimierz Szafnagel, is a report on the author’s bryological studies conducted between 1882 and 1885 in the territories of present-day Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. The book was published in 1908 by the Society of Friends of Science in Vilnius after a long period of publishing stagnation caused by the closure of Vilnius University in 1832. Amateur botanist Szafnagel was among the first members to establish the society and was responsible for its botanical collections. In Zapiski bryologiczne , Szafnagel provided 245 moss species from the study areas. In 2018, Szafnagel’s bryophyte collection, comprising 667 moss specimens, was found at the Vilnius University Herbarium. These voucher specimens cover all the collection sites described in Szafnagel’s work. The majority of herbarium specimens (88%) were collected in the territory of Belarus. Szafnagel recognized 225 species in his original collection, but as a result of the current revision, their number decreased to 211 species. This set opened up new possibilities for evaluating the results of Szafnagel’s study, such as confirming the exact specimen referred to in his publication, clarifying the species according to modern nomenclatural concepts, and assessing the impact of landscape changes on the distribution and conservation status of rare species. Szafnagel’s published work and his herbarium can be considered as common heritage of the history of the natural sciences in Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine
Internationally important stopover area for the globally-threatened Common Pochard Aythya ferina in the Volga River delta /
No full textThe Common Pochard Aythya ferina (hereafter Pochard), is a widespread freshwater diving duck of the Palearctic. A large and rapid decrease in abundance resulted in it being classified as Vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List in 2015 and it is now considered to be a threatened species globally. The objective of this study was to provide reliable data on numbers and habitat use for Pochard in the delta area of the River Volga (southern European Russia) during their autumn migration. The total number of Pochard staging in the River Volga’s avandelta was estimated at c. 346,000–390,000 individuals in mid-November 2020 and c. 153,200–170,000 in mid-November 2021. Several sites with large numbers of staging Pochard were identified within the delta, and the Volga River delta currently holds the most important stopover concentrations of Pochard in the Palearctic. A large-scale monitoring and research programme is required for Pochard in the delta of the River Volga, because such information is essential for the effective conservation of this globally-threatened species
Solvothermal synthesis of calcium hydroxyapatite via hydrolysis of α-tricalcium phosphate in different aqueous-organic media /
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Description of a new Middle Eastern Lemonia species, comments on the Lemonia philopalus complex and Lemonia syriensis (Lepidoptera: Brahmaeidae: Lemoniinae) /
No full textThe Algerian-Tunisian Lemonia philopalus (Donzel, 1842) is reviewed and redescribed. The status of the Moroccan population named Lemonia philopalus rungsi Rougeot 1971 (type locality: Morocco, Merchouch) is revised, it is taken from the synonymy to the Iberian population and left as a subspecies of L. philopalus until the genetic relationship between the Moroccan and the Algerian-Tunisien populations is studied. The Iberian population is raised to a specific level as Lemonia vazquezi Oberthür, 1916 bona sp. (type locality: Spain, Madrid, Rivas-Vaciamadrid), it has a 2.13% genetic distance from the Moroccan L. philopalus rungsi. A lectotype for L. vazquezi is designated from the Natural History Museum (London, UK). The new Middle Eastern Lemonia levantina sp. n. is described (type locality: Jordan, Rift Valley, 40 km N of Aqaba, sands NW Rahma). The new species is externally similar to L. philopalus, L. philopalus rungsi, and L. vazquezi but has a 4.86% genetic distance from the Moroccan population and 5.55% from the Iberian one. The Levantine species is compared with Lemonia syriensis Daniel, 1953 because the two are sympatric and show external similarities. The ecology, phenology, and distribution of the species are discussed
Taxonomic, ecological and morphological diversity of Ponto-Caspian gammaroidean amphipods: a review /
No full textThe dynamic geological history of the Ponto-Caspian region drove the evolution of a highly adaptable endemic fauna that gave rise to notorious aquatic invaders. Amphipod crustaceans of the superfamily Gammaroidea attained considerable diversity, becoming the world’s second most speciose ancient lake amphipod radiation. Nonetheless, apart from a few species that became invasive, this group remains poorly studied. Herein, we review and quantify the taxonomic, morphological and ecological diversity, as well as the phylogenetic context of Ponto-Caspian gammaroids within the adaptive radiation framework. Molecular phylogenies indicate that this radiation has a likely monophyletic mid-Miocene Paratethyan origin and is nested within the morphologically conserved Atlanto-Mediterranean Echinogammarus clade. We find extensive disparity in body shape, size, ornamentation and appendage length, along a broad ecological gradient from mountain springs to depths exceeding 500 m, on virtually all substrate types (including symbiosis). We propose four putative ecomorphs that appear convergent with distantly related oceanic and Baikal Lake taxa. Thus, the identified patterns support the adaptive radiation hypothesis, although extensive further research is needed. A checklist and provisional key to all known endemic species are provided to facilitate taxonomic research. Ponto-Caspian gammaroids could be a potentially powerful model for studying adaptive radiations and invasive species evolution